[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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