[GRUB / LILO]how to use 2 distributions in parallel
Daniel Moyne
dmoyne at tiscali.fr
Wed Feb 2 08:47:38 UTC 2005
Here is some information on my present setup making possible to use either
Mandrake (my current distribution) and Fedora Core 3 (FC3 my second
distribution presently being on test) ; this I would imagine might be of use
for people that want to install a Mandrake distribution for test in parallel
to their FC3 distribution.
Both distributions are installed on separate partitions :
a) for Mandrake I have LILO on MBR (hda1) ; here is my LILO configuration :
Beginning of file-------------------
# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file
default="2.6.8.1-udev"
boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
vga="791"
prompt
nowarn
timeout="100"
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="linux"
root="/dev/hda1"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-4mdk
label="2.6.3-devfs"
root=/dev/hda1
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.25-2mdk
label="2.4.25-devfs"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.25-2mdk.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk
label="2.6.8.1-udev"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-12mdk.img
append="acpi=ht"
read-only
other=/dev/hdb1
label=grub
End of file-------------------------
- with this configuration when booting from MBR through LILO I can access FC3
world with GRUB using the last entry with label=grub.
b) for FC3 its own bootloader installed on hdb1 therefore not on MBR therefore
still allowing use of Mandrake distribution ; here is my GRUB configuration
file :
Beginning of file-------------------
default=0
timeout=10
i18n (hd1,0)/boot/grub/messages
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.741)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.741_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/ vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10-1.741_FC3.img
title LILO
rootnoverify (hd0)
chainloader +1
End of file-------------------------
- with this configuration when booting from MBR through LILO I can access
GRUB ; when in GRUB Ican go back to LILO (and then to GRUB.... for fun all
days long !).
- with proper modification of "fstab" file in each world I can access
partitions and therefore files of the other world ; for example Paul told me
how to configure GRUB through a message collected with KMail-Mandrake as I am
handling my mail for practical reasons with Mandrake : in root mode I
directly configured my "grub.conf" of GRUB-FC3 before rebooting and check for
effect ; this would also help in fixing files when you are no more able to
boot from a distribution by doing it from the other distribution (it happened
to me with Mandrake that my root password was no more accepted ; I fixed it
with my Mandrake CD but now I would use FC3 !).
- rebooting from Mandrake is more powerfull with some logging managers as you
can directly select you LILO entry, for example "grub" entry, to reboot
through selection.
- KDE in Mandrake includes a LILO module in KDE Desktop Configuration Center
that allows direct modification of LILO setup in root mode ; this does not
exist for GRUB with FC3 ; it icludes more : an "info" module where you can
visualize all your system features including SCSI, USB, IRQ's etc... ; this
does nor exist with KDE as proposed by FC3.
- when I boot with kernel 2.6.8 entry in LILO I have apic mode as I have to
include "noapic" in "append" section to be without ; with kernel 2.6.9 and
2.6.10 apparently I have "noapic" option on as far as I could check ; how to
force use of apic ?
I want to thank Paul, Thomas and Jeff in particular from that list that
somehow helped me to put all this together.
That is all folks !
--
Daniel Moyne (Nulix)----------------------------------------------------------
Distribution : Mandrake 10.2 test \\|// Fedora Core 3 on test
kernel 2.6.8 / --- \ kernel 2.6.9 and 2.6.10
KDE 3.3 (' o-o ') KDE 3.3
------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo-------------------------------
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