How to Triple Boot, XP, Mandrake, Redhat/Fedora

[Powerless]

I'm wanting to triple boot XP with redhat 9 [or even Fedora core 1] and Mandrake 10.

XP is installed to Disk0 to which this HDD is partitoned.

Disk1 is also partitoned but with 50GB of Free space, this is where I am wanting to install the two Linux Distros.

The question is in what order do I try to achieve this? Will one Linux distro recognise the other and add it to the LILO/GRUB bootloader?

What do I do and how do I do it, to achieve a triple boot?

Not sure on info to provide so just ask :D

[DaveHope]

install...either Fedora or Mandrake (lets say...Fedora) let it create all the usual boot stuf and perform a normal install however make a partition for Mandrake. Once Fedora is working install Mandrake. I havn't used mandrake in a long time, if it detects fedora and xp (it SHOULD detect XP atleast) that's great. If not, just manually add the other entries to /etc/lilo.conf and run lilo. It may also be worth backing up the lilo.conf after installing Fedora so that you have some idea of what you're adding.

[kongit]

actually install xp, mandrake, then fedora. Fedora uses grub and grub is easier to make concurrent linux boots.

[DaveHope]

grub is easier to make concurrent linux boots.

I've never seen much difference...Care to enlighten me as to why it's easier? :p

[Danrarbc]

Hehe, installing RedHat/Fedora and Mandrake on the same system is kinda like installing XP Home and XP Pro on the same system.

[kongit]

I've never seen much difference...Care to enlighten me as to why it's easier? :p

the kernel images can be in each distros seperate partition with grub. I have never been able to dual boot linux with lilo without either making a seperate partition for kernel images or by putting the images on one single partition. You probably can with lilo, but the method for doing it with grub is better. Additionally grub is a better boot loader in my opinion. If you mess up the conf file with lilo you have to use a livecd or bootdisk to load fix it. However with grub you have a basic command line that can load any image and also can load windows.

[Powerless]

I'm now in Fedora and Fedora only detected XP.

How would I edit the GRUB.conf to add mandrake? [if possible]

[markwolfe Veteran]

I'm now in Fedora and Fedora only detected XP.

How would I edit the GRUB.conf to add mandrake? [if possible]

Could you post your /etc/grub.conf and your partition setup?

Also (in Linux, of course) open a shell, su to root, and do a /sbin/fdisk -l (that's a lowercase "L") so we can see how Linux sees your partitions.

[Powerless]

I can't view the grub.conf how would I view it from root? It does not want me to see it...

/sbin/fdisk -l as follows...

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1  *        1    10199  81923436    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda2        10200    14592  35286772+  f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/hda5        10200    14592  35286741    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 120.0 GB, 120000000000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14589 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hdb1  *        1      1275  10241406    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hdb2          1276    14589 106944705    f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/hdb5          1276      6374  40957686    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hdb6          6375      7011  5116671    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hdb7        10454    11217  6136798+  83  Linux

/dev/hdb8        11218    11280    506016  82  Linux swap

/dev/hdb9        11281    14589  26579511  83  Linux

/dev/hdb10        7012      7024    104391  83  Linux

/dev/hdb11        7025    10323  26499186  83  Linux

/dev/hdb12        10324    10453  1044193+  82  Linux swap

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[kongit]

wow. thats a lot of partitions.

Do the following and you can post it easily:

ctrl+alt+f2 to get into the console. then login as root. then do the following:

cat /etc/fstab > /home/username/fstablist

chmod 666 /home/username/fstablist

now ctrl+alt+f7 to get back into x, and open up your file browser to you home (username is your username) and then you can see what is in fstablist, which is a copy of fstab.

[Powerless]

Ok, fstablist but umm this is new to me :blink:

What can I do with it?

LABEL=/                /                      ext3    defaults        1 1

LABEL=/boot            /boot                  ext3    defaults        1 2

none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0

none                    /proc                  proc    defaults        0 0

none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs  defaults        0 0

/dev/hdb12              swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

/dev/hdb8              swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom              udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

/dev/cdrom1            /mnt/cdrom1            udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy            auto    noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

[kongit]

Ok, fstablist but umm this is new to me :blink:

What can I do with it?

nothing, I just wanted to see it. Now do the samething with /etc/grub.conf.

[Powerless]

I hope this is it....

# grub.conf generated by anaconda

#

# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file

# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that

#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.

#          root (hd1,9)

#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb11

#          initrd /initrd-version.img

#boot=/dev/hda

default=0

timeout=10

splashimage=(hd1,9)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)

root (hd1,9)

kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi rhgb

initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img

title DOS

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

chainloader +1

[kongit]

Alright. The next step is to determine which partition the mandrake boot image is in, an which partition in mandrakes /

do this:

mkdir /mnt/mandrake

mount /dev/hdb10 /mnt/mandrake

ls /mnt/mandrake > /home/username/hdb10list

umount /mnt/mandrake

mount /dev/hdb11 /mnt/mandrake

ls /mnt/mandrake > /home/username/hdb11list

and tell me the results. I am not sure that those two partitions are the right ones, but I think they are.

[markwolfe Veteran]

One thing that I noticed that would help reduce the number of partitions per hard drive is to only make one Linux Swap partition. All of your Linux installs can use the same swap, even if you add in another drive to put other Linuxes on.

Also, when we look at your Mandrake install, I think (if I recall correctly) Mandrake sets up a swap, a / (root), and a /home partition all separate. I don't think they make a separate /boot, but I may be mistaken. Getting that info from the 'ls' commands that kongit asked for will determine which is which, and we will be able to provide a snippet to add into your grub.conf file that will work first time.

[Powerless]

Hi,

I was on my way to typing what you said and when it came to:

ls /mnt/mandrake > /home/username/hdb10list

I got: Bash: is: Command not found

I tried iS, IS, is umm they were all no go...

So I thought I would try again but upon: mkdir /mnt/mandrake It states that it already exsists.

I'm trying all this from the Ctrl - Alt - F2 in Fedora.

I'm stuck :(

[kongit]

once you make the directory (mkdir makes a directory) it will be there until you remove it.

ls is LS but lowercase.

[Powerless]

How do I remove it?

It will not budge.

[kongit]

you don't need to remove it. you need to umount it

[Powerless]

So I just type:

umount /mnt/mandrake

If not...what? :(

[kongit]

So I just type:

umount /mnt/mandrake

If not...what? :(

I am not sure what you are trying to do. mount will mount some location to another, umount unmounts it. In this case you made a directory then you mount one partition to it and then list the base contents of that partition with ls. then you umount that partition and you mount another partition to the same place and list its contents. If you already have an empty directory (doesn't have to be empty, but empty is usually the best) made for it you don't need to delete it because you can use it sometime in the future,

[Powerless]

Well i've ended up with two files in my /home/username

hdb10list

hdb11list

But i'm not sure how to show you the results.

[kongit]

go back into the gui and open them up is the easiest way IMO. If they won't open you will have to go into the terminal and su to root, or go back into the console and as root, chmod 666 both files.

[Powerless]

Hope this is correct...

hdb10list

config-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl

grub

initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img

kernel.h

lost+found

System.map

System.map-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl

vmlinux-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl

vmlinuz

vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl

hdb11list

bin

boot

dev

etc

home

initrd

lib

lost+found

misc

mnt

opt

proc

root

sbin

tmp

usr

var

[markwolfe Veteran]

Looks like kongit is out (maybe it is night time where he is located)...

Let's try this. We are going to issue GRUB commands directly. That means when GRUB comes up and allows you to select your OS, instead of picking one, you will type in c. That will put you into "command" mode.

Now, basic booting from GRUB is pretty simple (it just seems scarier that it is).

First thing I would like to do is to boot your existing Fedora manually (so you can go through the commands on an OS we KNOW is there and working). This will give you immediate feedback that you are doing this right (cause you will boot like normal) :D

Now that we have GRUB's attention, and it is giving us a GRUB> prompt, let's do the following:

root (hd1,9)

kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hdb10 (now, this may or may not work, as it seems like what your grub.conf file says isn't what kongit was expecting (Fedora seems to be installed where he is expecting Mandrake).

Since we are stuck here, let's at least try this to see what is going on. If the kernel command fails (maybe even with a kernel panic), reboot, and try again with a different /hdb number (maybe 11, possibly 9)?