Mandriva 2007 Install Conflicts With PCLinux Mount Points

[snminc]

Greetings to all in Linuxland, Having had a stable system for a wee while now duel booting between Win XP and PCLinux Big Daddy I decided to dabble with Mandriva 2007. I've got two harddrives installed Hda Runs Win XP & PCLinux, Hdb has my mp3 library so I Partitioned off the tail end of Hdb to install Mandriva.Mandriva works fine I can set mount points etc with no problem, however when I boot in PCLinux the set Mount Points screen won't open and in Win XP I get an install new hardware generic volume pop up that won't go awayPartitions are as followsDrive Purpose Capacity Free Moint PointHda1 Win XP 31.2GB 17.4GB Win_cHda5 Documents 4.2GB 123mb Win_d Hda6 PCLinux 11GB 9.35GB /VarHda7 Swap 1.9GB 1.86GB Hda8 ? 6.1GB 5.61GB /UsrHda9 ? 19GB 14.25GB /VarHdb5 MP3 Files 99.8GB 63.3GB Win_c2Hdb2 Mandriva 2007 9GB 3GB /Hdb6 Swap 502mb 502mb Hdb7 Home 2.2GB 2.15GB /homeSo what have I done wrong?Appologies for the long post and many thanks for persevering to get this far.PS Can PCLOS & Mandriva share a /home partition? I'm sure Hda8 used to be /home for PCLOS but now it's /usr.........Confused I certainly amS & M

Edited April 13, 2007 by snminc

[striker]

Where's hdb1 gone ..?Seems to me that you accidently used hda first, then came to the conclusion 'oops, that must be wrong' and then decided to correct this and selected hdb.I'm afraid PCLinuxOS can't even see the newly made partitions on hdb. (fstab)I smell trouble.

[Bruno]

I'm sure Hda8 used to be /home for PCLOS but now it's /usr.........Confused I certainly am

Hi snminc . . . It all is a bit confusing, but I am worried that when installing Mandriva it did see all those Linux formatted partitions ( also from PCLos ) and assigned them to /, /var, /usr and /home without you checking twice if it were indeed the partitions you had in mind for Mandriva

Mandriva works fine I can set mount points etc with no problem

See, here is a clue to what I wrote above . . . . when in Mandriva ( also the installer ) the PCLos partitions should NOT have a mount-point.

Can PCLOS & Mandriva share a /home partition?

Nope absolutely not . . . . this will only cause problems.I think to solve this you will need to have a good look in the /etc/fstab of Mandriva to see what exactly the partitions are it uses.Next you see with the command "fdisk -l" what partitions are on your HDsThen you know which partitions are available for PCLos . . . and you can install it again ( fresh install of test4 ? ) Bruno

[snminc]

Striker & Bruno, many thanks for your repliesetc/fstab is as follows /dev/hdb2 / ext3 defaults 1 1/dev/hdb7 /home ext3 defaults 1 2/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=utf8,sync 0 0/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c ntfs umask=0,nls=utf8,ro 0 0/dev/hdb5 /mnt/win_c2 vfat umask=0,iocharset=utf8 0 0/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0,iocharset=utf8 0 0none /proc proc defaults 0 0/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0/dev/hdb6 swap swap defaults 0 0fdisk-l givesDisk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylindersUnits = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/hda1 * 1 4079 32764536 7 HPFS/NTFS/dev/hda2 4080 9729 45383625 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)/dev/hda5 4080 4629 4417843+ b W95 FAT32/dev/hda6 4630 6158 12281661 83 Linux/dev/hda7 6159 6412 2040223+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris/dev/hda8 6413 7222 6498292 83 Linux/dev/hda9 7222 9729 20145447 83 LinuxDisk /dev/hdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylindersUnits = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/hdb1 * 2 14593 117210240 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)/dev/hdb2 13045 14231 9534577+ 83 Linux/dev/hdb5 2 13044 104767866 b W95 FAT32/dev/hdb6 14232 14295 514048+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris/dev/hdb7 14296 14593 2393653+ 83 LinuxI think I'd like to return the whole of hdb to a fat32 partition for my mp3 library and split the remaining 40GB between PCLinux & Mandriva. I'm not sure how best to proceed.Any advice?Thanks in advance S & M

[Bruno]

Well from what I see in your /etc/fstab: Mandriva did not eat any partition from PCLos . . . it is all on hdb.So basically PCLos still has to be there . . . . Now I wonder: how do you boot PCLos ??? Do you use the Mandriva bootloader ?And how did you conclude these were the PCLos partitions? :

Hda6 PCLinux 11GB 9.35GB /VarHda7 Swap 1.9GB 1.86GBHda8 ? 6.1GB 5.61GB /UsrHda9 ? 19GB 14.25GB /Var

What in your opinion is the / partition of PCLos ? hda8 and hda9 are not related to Mandriva . . . could they not be from PCLos ( like /home ? ) BrunoPS: I would not wipe hdb . . . . but simply determine what is on hda and reinstall PCLos on hda

[snminc]

Evening Bruno, After I installed mandriva I think it's bootloader overwrote PCLinux's Boot Loader so I edited Mandriva's to "see" my pclinux partitionPrior to my latest attempt to get this PC to self destruct my fstab was as follows# /dev/hda6, size=24563322, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (extended)/dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults 1 1none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0# /dev/hda8, size=24563322, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (extended)/dev/hda8 /home ext3 defaults 1 2# cdrom: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-108/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto user,exec,ro,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0# fd: H1440/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto user,exec,rw,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0# /dev/hda9, size=24563322, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (extended)/dev/hda9 /mnt/hda9 ext3 user,exec,rw,noauto 1 2# /dev/hda1, size=65529072, type=7: NTFS (primary)/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c ntfs user,exec,ro,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0 0 0/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0,user,rw,iocharset=iso8859-1,exec 0 0/dev/hdb5 /mnt/win_e vfat umask=0,user,rw,iocharset=iso8859-1,exec 0 0none /proc proc defaults 0 0none /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0# /dev/hda7, size=4080447, type=130: Linux swap (extended)/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0# /dev/hda10, size=4160772, type=130: Linux swap (extended)/dev/hda10 swap swap defaults 0 0Does this helpI'm thinking of spliting the remaining 40GB on hda into 20gb for PCLOS and 20GB for Mandriva along the lines of 2 G for /4 G for /usr1 G for /var ( a lot of writing is done in the /var/log's )500 MB for /swap5+ G for /home7+ G for /backup ( storage ) My Current Mandriva partition is using 8.9GB so I'm a tad confusedAny light you can shine in this direction would be greatly appreciatedS & M

[Bruno]

Hi snmincThat looks like the /etc/fstab from your PCLos install . . and basically it uses hda6 as / and hda8 as /home with hda7 & 10 as swap.Why not simply reinstall it that way and write the bootloader to the hda6 partition ?Sure if you really want you can reinstall both Mandriva and PCLos with the 20/20 GB you propose . . . but I would not make all those separate partitions. Just keep it simple only a / and a /home partition will do for each distro you multiboot. 10 GB for / and 10 GB for /home.The separate /var and /usr I only recommend if you just install one distro. Bruno

[snminc]

Many thanks Bruno, I'm anxious to move Mandriva off hdb as ever since I create the ext3 partition on hdb Windows has been displaying a "Cannot Install this hardware" popup which won't go away also my mp3 library has changed from E:\ to G:\ I reckon the way forward is to do as you suggested (Surprise Surprise) and go for 10GB / & 10GB /home for PCLOS & Mandriva.As I'll be replacing PCLOS TR4 with PCLOS 2007 when it's ready does it matter which Distro is installed first?Out of curiousity what are /var & /usr ment for?Once again many thanks S & M

[Bruno]

As I'll be replacing PCLOS TR4 with PCLOS 2007 when it's ready does it matter which Distro is installed first?

Nope the order does not count . . . as long as you put the bootloader of the 2nd distro in the / partition of that distro

Out of curiousity what are /var & /usr ment for?

This is a bit from the old days when you frequently ( 6 month ) had to reinstall your distro because of the not journalled Ext2 filesystem that was more prone to corruption. The advantage was that at a reinstall you did not format the /usr partition so all programs you installed manually up to then did not get lost. These days we only do it if you have only one distro installed and are sure to stay with that distro/version for the next few years. Installing and re-installing a distro grew so easy the last 5 years, it is often quicker then restoring/fixing.The /var is important if you run a server and that is why it in that case often is a separate partition. Bruno

[snminc]

Many thanks for the clarification Bruno

[snminc]

Morning to all, Just a quick update I've managed to re-install PCLinuxOS 0.93a and Mandriva 2007.0 both onto Hda. It now looks abit like thisHda1 Win XP 30GBhda5 Documents Partition fat32 8GBhda6 PCLOS 0.93a 10 GBhda7 Swap Partition 500mbHda8 PCLOS Homa 7.9GBHda9 Mandriva 2007 10GBHda10 Swap partition 500mbHda11 Mandriva home 9.2gbHdb5 MP3 Library 114GBAll that remains now is to figure out why when I boot in windows I'm still getting the Found new hardware popup that won't go away oh and Hdb5 was E: it's now G: so I'm trying to change it backOnwards and upwards cos I fancy having a stab at Mandriva 2007.1. I'll update PCLOS when the "stable" version is released TR3 is running on my better halfs Laptop quite happily so far.Hasta LaVistaS & M

Edited April 17, 2007 by snminc

[Bruno]

It now looks abit like thisHda1 Win XP 30GBhda5 Documents Partition fat32 8GBhda6 PCLOS 0.93a 10 GBhda7 Swap Partition 500mbHda8 PCLOS Homa 7.9GBHda9 Mandriva 2007 10GBHda10 Swap partition 500mbHda11 Mandriva home 9.2gbHdb5 MP3 Library 114GB

Looks good to me !!

All that remains now is to figure out why when I boot in windows I'm still getting the Found new hardware popup that won't go away

LOL . . . the joy of Windows, figuring out what the cryptic popups really are saying . . . LOL . . .

oh and Hdb5 was E: it's now G: so I'm trying to change it back

Is not hda5 E so that makes with the CD drives the hdb to G ? . . . . . ( never mind . . . . don't listen to me, my Windows knowledge is far below zero ) Bruno

[snminc]

Morning Bruno,

Is not hda5 E so that makes with the CD drives the hdb to G ? . . . . . ( never mind . . . . don't listen to me, my Windows knowledge is far below zero ) Bruno

It's nice to see your as lost as me for a change. I tried repairing my Win XP last night and now I've lost MS Office and windows has taken over running my wireless network instead of the designated Netgear softwareSo it looks like I'll be reinstalling Windows tonight (fingers crossed all my new shiny Linux partitions will survive the ordeal)Ho-hum As soon as Apple bring out a Linux based Itunes my life will get alot easierScott

[Bruno]

Hi Scott . . . remember that when you reinstall XP your bootloader will be lost and you will have to restore it with either a rescueCD or the redo-lilo tool of PCLos ( but do check in advance if the last one indeed works ) Bruno

[snminc]

Evening Bruno, Thanks for the warning re redo-lilo. I've reinstalled Big Daddy since the repositories for it have came back on line. All I need to do now it's get windows on line My life will be SOOOOOO much easier when apple release Itunes for linuxScott

[Urmas]

My life will be SOOOOOO much easier when apple release Itunes for linux

AmaroK? Listen? Songbird?

[snminc]

Thanks for the tip Urmas, I've tried amarok and am waiting to try out Listen if/when I ever get Mandriva to talk to my graphics card (that's covered by another thread)My Ipod mini has required a reset via Itunes twice in the last year so until a Linux version comes out I'll keep Itunes waiting in the wings via winxp just in case.Scott