dual boot fedora / debian or other

[hal9000a]

Hi Fedora people, i'm a little green in linux installation
what i want to do is a dual boot system with Fedora for my normal activity
and a second partition for another Linux system (debian for a first test)
that second partition will be delete often because i will try other distribution

i only have one disk 80G and 512m of memory

how should i proceed with partitioning
someone proposed me
#1 fedora 12 gig
#2 debian 10 gig
#3 swap 1gig
#4 /home 57 gig

if you have other idea shout them

[glennzo]

Fedora 20GB
Debian 20GB
Swap 1GB or 2x amount of system ram
Home 57GB
You don't need to delete the second partition to install another OS. Just install and tell it to format at the same time.

[hal9000a]

what i don't understand is how to do the partition setup for the lvm and disk
does that works like that ?

lvm
volgroup00
logvol01 swap 1024
logvol00 / ext3 40000
logvol02 /home ext3 57000

/dev/sda/
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 200
/dev/sda2 volgroup00 20000 for Fedora
/dev/sda3 extended
/dev/sda4 volgroup00 57000 for /home
/dev/sda5 volgroup00 20000 for the other Linux

[glennzo]

LVM is something that I'm currently trying to understand. I don't use it at all and feel as though I should learn about it.

[stoat]

Hello everybody,

I also don't use LVM. But difference with me is that I'm not trying to understand it. If you are new to Linux as your first post suggested and insist on diving right into multiple systems, then I think your plate will be full enough without the added layer of complexity from LVM at this time. It would be better to just go and stab yourself in the eyes with a sharp stick now and get the torture over with.

See, if you were just going to install Fedora, use it, and that's it, then LVM would be completely invisible to you and work just fine "in the background" of your Fedora system until something went wrong and needed attention (and that may never happen). But if you will be tinkering with partitions, installing additional systems, etc., then you will be forced to learn LVM if you use it with Fedora. You will have to learn a new way of thinking about partitions and teach yourself an entirely new set of commands and utilities to manage your LVM components. I happen to believe that newcomers should start out with the traditional standard partitions and "advance" later on to LVM if it offers an advantage (and it doesn't in every situation). I think that if you never have a basic "grounding" in traditional Linux partitions, LVM is an even weirder concept to get your head around. Its advantages may not even be apparent or really appreciated if you start with it and have nothing to compare it to.

I recommend that you continue on with your original proposal but using traditional ext3 Linux partitions and with one exception... If you intend to share that /home partition, someone should talk you out of that now. Lots of things create hidden folders there and store config files and such. I can't imagine the calamity that would erupt with Fedora and Debian both using that. If you want a storage folder common to both systems, you could create an ordinary partition for personal files and have both Fedora and Debian mount it for access to the files. But let each system have its own /home. In fact, I recommend for your first go around at this to install Fedora in a single root partition, Debian in another single root partition, and share the swap. Three partitions (root, root, swap). They will each work just fine like that because mine do. I don't even bother creating boot partitions anymore much less home partitions. I use Fedora 8 and Debian etch in only two partitions and they share a swap. And they each mount other partitions where personal stuff is stored, Windows partitions, etc. Later on as your experience grows, you can try something else such as separate system partitions (/, /boot, /home, whatever) or even LVM.

The preceding was all just personal opinion. Take it or leave it. No hard feelings. Expect strong disagreement and opposite veiwpoints. These kinds of threads are common and invariably evolve into debates.

[bob]

So, personal opinions are okay? Good! Then, I'll agree on dropping the separate /home for this install and also with using ext3 since the LVM swap won't be seen by another distro, so you'll be using a second swap to get both distros working.

Personally, I'd install Fedora first, maybe 20 gig. and just do the standard install except for the ext3 vs. LVM. Then, install Debian or Ubuntu afterward. The reason for that is Fedora and Red Hat distros tend to ignore other linux distros when creating their grub menu. If you install Fedora second, you'll have to add key info from the Debian/Ubuntu/Whatever distro's menu.lst to your Fedora /boot/grub/grub.conf. On the other hand, Debian-based distros will easily recognize and set up the Fedora info on their menu.lst.

After you play a bit and decide which distro you want for your 'main' distro, then install new ones with THEIR grub on their root partition and use a 'configfile' method (search for it when ready) to the existing menu rather than keep overwriting the mbr each time.

Keep in mind that Fedora's a bit more advanced than Ubuntu and roughly on par with Debian. Each one has a few things that need to be configured manually and frankly you'll probably bork at least one or more installs during the process. It's a learning tool, you know. :D Just keep those install discs handy and don't be afraid to start fresh when it all goes bad; we've all done it.

[hal9000a]

is it me or the partition management screen in fedora install is not made to play with partition :D
i will try to do it that way but i think i will have to use my good old windows boot cd to create partition :confused:

/dev/sda/
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 200mo
/dev/sda2 swap 1024mo
/dev/sda3 extended
/dev/sda4 / ext3 39000mo for Fedora
/dev/sda5 / ext3 38000mo for another Linux

thanks for the help

[stoat]

I think you can do everything that you need to do with the Fedora disk druid. I always do. In fact, I would start with unpartitioned space and let each system's installer create its own partitions.

In anaconda's disk druid, select some unpartitioned space, click on "New'. Then a pop-up appears to create a mount point, choose a file system type, set the size, etc. Continue until they're done and then proceed to the formatting step.

The Debian equivalent of a disk druid is not as sophisticated looking as anaconda's. It's menu driven and not pretty and graphic. But it will accomplish the same thing for Debian.

Just my opinions.

P.S.: To answer your question about Fedora's anaconda disk druid... The disk druids before Fedora 9 could only create and delete partitions. A new feature to resize partitions appeared with the Fedora 9 anaconda.

[hal9000a]

finaly i solved all my problem, i created manually my partition with fdisk

but to any one new in partitioning dont use fdisk from one of your windows boot CD
even if the linux fdisk is more manual and boring take it, he will do the job correctly

because after the install the system won't boot

[stoat]

i created manually my partition with fdiskGood. Whatever works. But someday I hope you try again to use anaconda to create Fedora's partitions just to know how.



dont use fdisk from one of your windows boot CD
even if the linux fdisk is more manual and boring take it, he will do the job correctlyThe MS fdisk application is completely different from the Linux fdisk. MS fdisk will not create Linux partitions.