Queries about triple-booting FC6, FC3 and Windows

[lesliek]

My computer has 2 internal hard disks (40GB each) and one external USB hard disk (80GB).

It came with only one internal hard disk, with Windows XP Professional already installed on it.

Shortly after Fedora Core 3 came out, I decided I wanted to try it as my OS. I installed the second internal hard disk and then installed Fedora Core 3 on it.

Being a bit nervous about things, I retained the Windows boot loader as my boot loader, but made Fedora Core 3 the default OS in that boot loader. That worked (and continues to work) fine.

Later, I installed the external USB hard disk. I formatted it in vfat, so that either OS could use it, although by that time I used Windows less than once a week.

When newer versions of Fedora Core came out, I wanted to upgrade to them, but was nervous about doing so.

I've finally decided that I must upgrade to Fedora Core 6, but want to do so by adding it to the second internal hard disk and retaining Fedora Core 3, at least for the moment.

By dint of copying data files to the external hard disk, I've reduced the space used by Fedora Core 3 on the internal hard disk so that df shows that 28GB are still available on my / partition.

I'm proposing to resize my partitions on that disk, so that I can give Fedora Core 6 the most space possible, while still allowing Fedora Core 3 to work.

If I allot 25GB to Fedora Core 6, will that be sufficient for it to run properly?

If not, I'm wondering whether I could reduce the space taken on the internal hard disk by Fedora Core 3 by transferring more of its files to the external hard disk. I'm aware of the notion of creating symbolic links to particular files, but is there a way to create symbolic links to directories? If there is, I assume that I could reduce the space used by Fedora Core 3 on the internal hard disk to practically nil, by moving all of its directories to the external hard disk and just creating links to them.

If that can be done, are there reasons why I shouldn't do it?

Finally, is it possible for me to continue using the Windows boot loader, setting Fedora Core 6 as the default, but leaving open the possibility of booting up either in Windows or Fedora Core 3 if I need to?

Thanks for reading,

Leslie

[stoat]

If I allot 25GB to Fedora Core 6, will that be sufficient for it to run properly?Yes.
Finally, is it possible for me to continue using the Windows boot loader, setting Fedora Core 6 as the default, but leaving open the possibility of booting up either in Windows or Fedora Core 3 if I need to?Yes. When Installing FC6, remember to...
1. Tell the FC6 installer to use your free space to install FC6 (not your existing Linux partitions)
2. Watch for and check "Configure advanced bootloader options"
3. Choose to install GRUB in the first sector of the boot partition (of your new FC6 system) instead of the MBR
Then after installing, your new FC6 will not yet boot, of course. So...
1. Copy that new GRUB Stage 1 to a binary file in the Windows root directory using the dd command (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpost.php?p=223461&postcount=6) or BOOTPART.EXE (http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-dell-d810.html#boot)
-- a. Obviously, choose a different name for the binary file than the one already there for FC3
-- b. If you want to use dd to create this file, you can boot into your old FC3 to do that work (otherwise, boot an install disk and do linux rescue)
2. If dd was used to copy GRUB Stage 1, add a reference to it in the Windows boot.ini (BOOTPART.EXE does that for you)
3. Set the default OS in the Windows boot.ini

[lesliek]

When Installing FC6, remember to...
1. Tell the FC6 installer to use your free space to install FC6 (not your existing Linux partitions)


Thank you very much for your reply, stoat.

Your reference to "free space" makes me wonder about one of my assumptions that I didn't mention in my original post.

The hard disk I want to install FC6 on presently looks like this:
hdb1 - ext3 - /boot - 102MB
hdb2 - ext3 - / - 36GB (12GB used)
hdb3 - vfat - unnamed - 1004MB [why did I create this? I have no idea!]
hdb4 - extended
hdb5 - swap - 510MB

I'd planned, before attempting any possible installation, to use QTParted (from a Knoppix live cd) to do the following:

1. shrink the existing hdb2 to, say, 13GB;
2. delete the existing hdb3 and hdb5;
3. create a new hdb3, say, 100MB as a /boot partition for FC6;
4. create a new hdb5, say, 23GB, as a / partition for FC6; and
5. create a new hdb6, say, 1GB, as a swap partition for both FC3 and FC6.

Am I unwise to be thinking about doing those things in advance? Is there some way to do it as efficiently as part of the installation of FC6?

Also, something else that's occurred to me as I type this: can I have two partitions on the same drive both labelled /boot or both labelled /?

Thanks very much again for your earlier reply.

Leslie

[stoat]

Am I unwise to be thinking about doing those things in advance? Is there some way to do it as efficiently as part of the installation of FC6?Leslie,

No. Not unwise to me. As to what you can accomplish with the Disk Druid during installation, my knowledge is limited to straight forward uses. True, you can create and delete partitions during installation. And you can reuse partitions preserving data. But I will yield to the more experienced to say if you can resize a partition in use by another system and preserve data on it at installation time. I've never even thought about that before. I mentioned "free space" because that is just what I did when I did this exact thing. I can tell that you are more experienced than I am at resizing Linux partitions, and I trust you with that.

I generally agree with your plan except for deleting the existing swap. My instincts tell me that it will cause less disruption to your FC3 system to leave it right there. Enlarge it if you must (1-2X RAM seems to be the convention), but I would tend to avoid doing anything that will renumber it from hdb5. As the first logical partition in the extended partition, it will always be hdb5. The new logical partitions you create will line up right after it when all of the three primary partitions have been created first. The new system will find it during installation, and both systems will share it.

Also, something else that's occurred to me as I type this: can I have two partitions on the same drive both labelled /boot or both labelled /?I've done this exact thing and that's okay. After all, /boot is really a mount point in FC3 for the partition /dev/hdb1 in your current system, right? In your new FC6 system, /boot will be the mount point for some different partition. The only problem that I can imagine would be if you try to mount /dev/hdb1 in your new FC6 system to the mount point /boot there (you will never do that). Even Windows XP will tolerate partitions with the same "name" (try it!).

Finally, you will encounter LVM (Logical Volume Management) in FC6. Discussing it here can provoke a debate. But I recommend that you not use it. Choose the option for a custom partition layout and create the usual /, /boot, /home (I recommend this, you don't show a /home now).

P.S.: After installing FC6, you will very shortly dump that FC3 system. But this will still be a fun experiment. Backup your data.

I invite others to make any comments that will help Leslie's chance of success.

[lesliek]

Thanks very much for this latest reply, stoat. Both of your replies have been very helpful to me.

About your PS, the two points you make are related in my mind. I hope to dump FC3 quickly, but only when I've seen with my own eyes that I can do in FC6 what I'm presently doing in FC3 and that my data is all safely transferred across (especially financial data). Since I'm so nervous about losing things, I'll definitely back up everything before starting. At the same time as I'm gathering information about the update, I'm also gathering information on backing up. I have used once before an application called Mondorescue and I'm just brushing up on it again before using it.

Thanks again,

Leslie