Preparing for a triple boot.


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Okay, so someone just posted a similar thread, but it was for people using Macs and BootCamp, so I figure it's okay I start a new thread.

I always try to prepare myself, it gives me less problems later, so what do you guys think could help me do this:

I have Windows XP installed. I use a 320 GB hard drive, divided into 2 partitions

50 GB (System) and 250+GB (Documents).

I was thinking of installing Ubuntu, so for those purposes, I resized the first one to 30 GB (I don't play games, so all my apps don't require that much space), leaving 20 GB of free space for Ubuntu.

But just before actually doing it, I changed my mind. Reasons - I've seen so many good distros, I'd definitely like to try some other ones as well. And LiveCDs don't always do justice to them, so I'm thinking now of actually making it tripple boot. Well, it doesn't need to be triple at once, but leaving space for a possible third one.

So I'm thinking about this

30 GB for XP + 15 GB for Ubuntu + 5 GB for an optional third distro.

But now I have a lot of questions.

Is the boot manager (lilo or grub or whatever ubuntu uses) OS independent (I guess it should be lol but still...)?

What happens if the second Linux distro I try uses a different boot manager?

If I don't like the second Linux, can I format its partition from Ubuntu? Does it need additional configuration from the boot manager?

And in the end a similar question as the one above, if I like another distro so much I want to use it as the main one, can I format Ubuntu's partition (from XP using Norton) and will it be hard to configure booting again?

Thanks in advance.

P.S.

I'm a Linux newbie, so please go easy with anything console related :)

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Yes, GRUB is the "GRand Unified Bootloader", so it is designed to boot any OS - not just Linux. And it can handle many OSes and boot options. At least 100, so 3 should be no problem. ;)

Your second distro ought to add itself to your existing grub menu.lst. If it is somewhat destructive and overwrites instead of appending, you can manually re-add the boot options. It would be a good idea to save/print/post a copy of your menu.lst before adding a third OS, just in case you need to re-add an entry.

Yes, you can play with your other partitions from within another Linux session. Just don't remove the wrong one, or try to mess with your currently active and booted partition.

You only need one "swap" partition. All of your Linux boots can use the same swap. One possible caveat to that is that if you use suspend, it might save an image to the swap. I'm not sure, since I don't have a laptop nor do I use suspend/hibernate.

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For the random I would suggest Puppy LInux- they have the option of Co-exist and install into a directory- So it can run on your Ubuntu partition with no issues- As to it installs into a directory and runs just inside that directory only one modification and that is to the menu.1st file to add puppy so that grub can boot it.

It is light weight fully packed distro- For an example I can from the grub choice be up and running full desktop in 23seconds-- (933mhz 256mb PIII)

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I might try it but I've decided to remove Ubuntu - I've quit Vista for reasons smaller than this (wireless that is), I'm going to try with different distros.

Now what is the safest way to do it?

I can't format it from Windows since Norton for some reason won't open ("Can't recognize drive letter"). I use Norton PM 8. Is there a free tool to do it from Windows? And what happens to GRUB after that? Do I need to edit it? Or will the new distribution overwrite the current values (three different ubuntu boot options and as other os I have XP)? Or is that guide the thing I need (restoring Windows mbr?)

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to restore xp-- boot with xp cd-- go to like you are going to install it-- then choose the option of repair console-- then it will ask you which drive your xp is on-- select the drive and type the following --

fixmbr (answer yes)

Fixboot (answer yes)

That should turn back over control to windows boot record-

But however though the new linux you install should install/update grub-- now after you install the new one and the old values are present then you have to edit your menu.1st file === some systems you have to do it as sudo or gksu or su -- or signed in as root- (alternative is booting with a live linux) mounting the partition that has it-- then edit it to remove the old values)

Though if you have vista installed -- you may have to use it to restore the BCD.

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