UNetbootin

[Frank Golden]

Wow this is even easier Paul.Just prepare your external drive with as many partitions as you want then go crazy installing distros to it.Each distro needs to have it's partition manually chosen in the installer dialog.The last distro installed should be the one to host grub.Booting to the drive using (in my case pressing F 12 during POST) will present a menu with all your distros both external and internal and Windows if present.If you want to avoid having to press a function key during POST then after installing all your distros boot into your main drive Ultimate 2.8install (make sure your external drive is plugged in and powered up) and type the following into the terminal

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

press enterThen type

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

and press enterThis will scan your computer (both internal and external drives) for OS's and create a new boot menu that will allow you to boot those external distros without needing to press a function key during POST.

[ChipDoc]

What program are you using to back it up? Either I am guessing the photo archive was huge or your backup software does a very good compression.

Oh I just copied and pasted using Nautilus. It got so small because I manually went in and deleted the archival stuff that's already stored on the Terabite drive.

I am able to do quite a bit from work, even more on days like today when the boss is not in the office. SSShhhhhhhhhh Sounds like we are looking at doing the same thing with the same amount of space. With 80 Gigs in this HP Lappy, I can easily duel boot 2 distros (Got to think of which ones I want) Probably going with Mandriva 2010.1 KDE and PCLOS 2010.11 KDE then look closely at Frank's guidance on how to set the GRUB config on the internal so that it will give me the option of booting from the external upon boot up with a really large selection of Distro's to play with then.

My job is essentially to sit here and put out fires. In a room with about a hundred users, fires crop up quite often. But they're almost all quick fixes (or something I cannot fix, in which case we send the ticket out to the appropriate place) and then I'm on my own again. So I sit here with my laptop all night and play with Linux installations. We're actually using Ubuntu 10.4 here at work, so my enjoyment can even be legitimately tagged as "work related"!

[Frank Golden]

Whew, where to begin.I posted earlier that installing Linux distros to an external drive was easier than I thought.Now as Paul Harvey used to say "the rest of the story".A little background.My main 500 GB drive has 6 OS's on it.Win 7 on sda1Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid) on sda5PCLinuxOS 2010 KDE on sda7Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit (Intrepid) on sda8PCLinuxOS 2010 gnome on sda9Ultimate Edition 2.8 on sda10My external drive hasUbuntu 8.04 LTS 64 bit (Hardy) on sdb1Ultimate Edition 2.6 on sdb6Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS (Dapper) on sdb7Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) on sdb8Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) on sdb11Mint 10 on sdb12OK what I did boot was into Ultimate Edition 2.8 on my main drive plugin and powerup my external drive.I next ran the following commands in terminal

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfgsudo grub-install /dev/sda

The first command was supposed to scan my internal and external drives for OS's and make a grub.cfgcontaining entries for all those OS's.The second command installed GRUB on the mbr of my man drive (sda).When I next started my machine (with my external drive connected and powered up)I was presented with a new and very busy boot menu.It contained entries for all my OS's except for my Hardy install, why no Hardy entry I don't know.I say busy but cluttered would be a better choice.In addition to the OS entries there are recovery entries for each OS as well as multiple entries for memtest (one for each OS).Some of the entries are cryptic with a few just listing the kernel.As I stated earlier no entry for Hardy on sdb1.Both PCLinuxOS 2010 flavors refused to boot with a with a rather cryptic "kernel panic" error.Everything else booted fine including Win 7.Of course I couldn't boot Hardy because of the lack of an entry.This is almost but not quite acceptable.First: there are way too many unneeded entries (a bunch of memtest and recovery entries).Second: some entries are as I noted rather cryptic.Third: the two PCLinuxOS that won't boot and the missing Hardy entry.Since I'm just beginning to try to learn the in's and out's of GRUB 2 I'm somewhat confused.I also booted into Mint 10 on my external drive and used the above commands to create a new grub.cfg file on Mint 10and install grub to the external drives MBR using a modifiedgrub install command

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

In the above I substituted sdb for sda.This presents a boot menu when I use the function key during POST to select the external drive as the boot media.It is essentially the same as the boot menu I see when I just start my machine without using the function key (F12).It is also missing an entry for Hardy and PCLinuxOS kernel panics like before.Frustrating to say the least.Of course your "mileage may vary".You may not experience the same issues that I did.I don't have to rely on GRUB 2 to boot everything however.Using the Super Grub CD I restored my original menu.I have Ubuntu Intrepid installed on my main drive specifically to host GRUB legacy with it's easily (for me) configured /boot/grub/menu.lstfile.No extra and confusing entries etc.See picture below for screenshot of my GRUB legacy boot menu.Until I can get a handle on these GRUB 2 issues I'm happy with my old setup.

Edited December 11, 2010 by Frank Golden

[securitybreach]

Good job Frank!!!I do have a question though, what the allure of having multiple distros on one machine? I mean how can you ever get anything accomplished, if you have to reboot between distros? I understand having a different distro on each machine or in VirtualBox (like I do) but what is the point of having six versions of Ubuntu on one machine? I dunno, maybe I am missing something but I have always wondered this. Not just in your case but many times over the years.

[Frank Golden]

Good job Frank!!!I do have a question though, what the allure of having multiple distros on one machine? I mean how can you ever get anything accomplished, if you have to reboot between distros? I understand having a different distro on each machine or in VirtualBox (like I do) but what is the point of having six versions of Ubuntu on one machine? I dunno, maybe I am missing something but I have always wondered this. Not just in your case but many times over the years.

Do I need a point?LOL Who says I want to get anything accomplished? :hysterical:Actually it only takes less than a minute to boot any particular OS.answers:I don't know, just for fun.I only have just the one machine. Not a whole solar system like someone I know. Because I can. LOLTo learn. Edited December 12, 2010 by Frank Golden

[sunrat]

Know what you mean, SB. I'm over the mega-multiboot thing too. I have 4 Linuxii and WinXP on my system. aptosid gets used every day, XP a couple of times a week to play, and Debian Lenny rarely as it was my main OS for several years and has 32-bit and WINE. The other 2 I don't think I've booted all year and I don't remember the last VirtualBox install or live CD boot. I guess this explorer is less intrepid these days.

[securitybreach]

Because I can. LOLTo learn.

Good answer (Thanks for reminding me of my profile, I had to add my Android Tablet)

[ChipDoc]

I do have a question though, what the allure of having multiple distros on one machine?

Oh I can answer that one. Or at least I can describe the allure for me.There are a LOT of Linux flavors out there. Now we all know that any distro should do anything that any other can, but it practice some simply do things better than others. Though I've been doing it in VirtualBox up to this point, running another system lets you see the good and the bad of it. Or more to the point, the familiar and the unfamiliar. When I first came back to Linux in September, I went with PCLOS almost exclusively because a friend of mine had installed it on his daughter's computer and the installation went well. It went well for me too, but I was just looking for something else. So when I picked Ultimate Edition, I did it from a perspective of better awareness of what I wanted and I'm very happy with my choice.But I'm also aware that there's always new stuff coming over the horizon. By installing and running multiple distros, I get a better feel for what options exist out there. That's why I run lots of different ones anyhow.

[securitybreach]

Oh I can answer that one. Or at least I can describe the allure for me.There are a LOT of Linux flavors out there. Now we all know that any distro should do anything that any other can, but it practice some simply do things better than others. Though I've been doing it in VirtualBox up to this point, running another system lets you see the good and the bad of it. Or more to the point, the familiar and the unfamiliar. When I first came back to Linux in September, I went with PCLOS almost exclusively because a friend of mine had installed it on his daughter's computer and the installation went well. It went well for me too, but I was just looking for something else. So when I picked Ultimate Edition, I did it from a perspective of better awareness of what I wanted and I'm very happy with my choice.But I'm also aware that there's always new stuff coming over the horizon. By installing and running multiple distros, I get a better feel for what options exist out there. That's why I run lots of different ones anyhow.

Oh believe me, I distro hopped for quite a few years before finding a distro that suited me. I have probably installed pretty much every well known distro there is and some that are not as well known over the years. Trying out distros is not necessarily what I was referring to.

[Frank Golden]

Who needs GRUB 2?I just discovered how to revert to legacy grub easily and safely.http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1298932After reverting to GRUB legacy on my Lucid install I copied the entries from my Intrepid menu.lst to the new menu.lst created when I reverted to the legacy GRUB.Lucid now hosts my GRUB menu and I don't have to depend on my aging Intrepid install to host GRUB anymore.Intrepid is near the end of it's life cycle so having a LTS version of Ubuntu host GRUB makes sense to me.This is important to me because I'm very comfortable with legacy GRUB and I detest GRUB 2.I may be missing something here but I can't see the advantages of a seemingly more complicated system like GRUB 2to do a fairly simple task like booting my computer.

Edited December 12, 2010 by Frank Golden

[ichase]

Just prepare your external drive with as many partitions as you want then go crazy installing distros to it.

Frank or whomever would like to answer this question. Hypothetically speaking, I have a 250 GB external drive. I want to install 6 distros. How many partitions would I have to set? Does each individual distro require its own swap partition? (thus requireing 12 partitions) or would I just set 6 partitions? :)Thanks,Ian

[lewmur]

Frank or whomever would like to answer this question. Hypothetically speaking, I have a 250 GB external drive. I want to install 6 distros. How many partitions would I have to set? Does each individual distro require its own swap partition? (thus requireing 12 partitions) or would I just set 6 partitions? :)Thanks,Ian

It depends on how you want to set it up. Personally, I'd want one /boot, one /swap, one /home, one /dataand one each for each distro's /root. Total - ten partitions. But you could get by with 7. One swap and one for each distro.

[ichase]

But you could get by with 7. One swap and one for each distro.

Thanks for the reply lewmur. In order to use 1 swap partition that would cover all 6 distros, would I have to configure each distro individualy to utilize the same Swap partition?Should I use a partioning program such as "Parted Magic" to set the partions on the external prior to doing any installation, or use the distros as I install them to set their own partitions?

[abarbarian]

Thanks for the reply lewmur. In order to use 1 swap partition that would cover all 6 distros, would I have to configure each distro individualy to utilize the same Swap partition?Should I use a partioning program such as "Parted Magic" to set the partions on the external prior to doing any installation, or use the distros as I install them to set their own partitions?

Parted Magic or a similar tool will probably be quicker at partitioning your drive than the when installing a distro.Your new os's should automatically find the swap partition.I would read up on each individual os as to whether or not to share " /home " partitions. You may find that some os's will not share sweetly. I'm sure I read that somewhere.

[lewmur]

I would read up on each individual os as to whether or not to share " /home " partitions. You may find that some os's will not share sweetly. I'm sure I read that somewhere.

This is when we really miss Bruno. He'd answer that question without us having to spend hours researching which distros play well together.

[lewmur]

Thanks for the reply lewmur. In order to use 1 swap partition that would cover all 6 distros, would I have to configure each distro individualy to utilize the same Swap partition?Should I use a partioning program such as "Parted Magic" to set the partions on the external prior to doing any installation, or use the distros as I install them to set their own partitions?

Most distros will find and use whatever swap partition(s) that are available. And, yes, I would use a partition manager to set up all of the partitions at one time. One of the biggest problems people have with the boot manager is that they keep adding and/or subtracting partitions. Each time you do this, you can change the numbering of the partitions and thus wind up with a boot menu pointing to all the wrong numbers.

[abarbarian]

Most distros will find and use whatever swap partition(s) that are available. And, yes, I would use a partition manager to set up all of the partitions at one time. One of the biggest problems people have with the boot manager is that they keep adding and/or subtracting partitions. Each time you do this, you can change the numbering of the partitions and thus wind up with a boot menu pointing to all the wrong numbers.

I was only doing the one distro in a dual boot with windows but it was the actual making of the partition and formatting that seemed to take ten times longer from a distro install than when done with PM, strange really as they were both using the same tools "gparted"

[abarbarian]

http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/08/painless-linux.html"The common wisdom is to have a shared home directory in a multiboot setup, but this has its own set of potential problems because it mixes data files and configuration files. So when you're trying out different distributions, your desktop settings may not translate gracefully across all of them. So what's the answer?The answer is simple: create a separate data partition, and let every distro that you install have its own unique ~/home for your dotfiles. You'll jump through a couple of extra hoops to make your data directory accessible across all of your installed Linuxes, but it's no big deal, and it's easier than trying to make your dotfiles work across multiple distros and desktop versions."The rest of this article may interest you ichase. Also you may consider using LVM as file system on your hdd as this will allow you to grow and shrink partitions as required with minimal hassle.

[Frank Golden]

Frank or whomever would like to answer this question. Hypothetically speaking, I have a 250 GB external drive. I want to install 6 distros. How many partitions would I have to set? Does each individual distro require its own swap partition? (thus requireing 12 partitions) or would I just set 6 partitions? :)Thanks,Ian

I setup my 1 TB external drive with 6 ext3 partitions each around 22 GB plus a 4 GB swap partition.The rest of the space I split between two equally sized data partitions.I don't use a separate or shared /home partition preferring to have each distro host it's own /home directory.One data partition is a Fat 32 partition for sharing data between my Win 7 install on my main drive and all my linux installs (both main and external.The second data partition is NTFS for storing backups and Clonezilla system images.The clonezilla images are the reason I don't use separate or shared /home partitions.An image created of any of my linux distros includes my intrinsic /home directories with their important .files.In the event of disaster a restore restores everything.I find that using these techniques my linux distro footprints are reasonably small (average 7 GB).The Clonezilla images average 3 GB.Most data is saved to the Fat 32 shared partition.I have all my mp3's and important documents and photos stored in folders on my Fat 32 partition all accessible and playable from all OS's on my external drive.I have 6 OS's on my main drive (Win 7 plus the 5 linux distros).Again here I have two data partitions, both equally sized, one each Fat 32 and NTFS that serve similar functions as their counterparts on my external drive.There is a 4 GB swap partition here as well.The Fat 32 drive has pretty much the same data as my external drive.This allows me to access my mp3's etc. from any OS on that drive without having to have my external drive active.The main drives NTFS partition is where most of my Win 7 programs are installed and where most of the "My"libraries are mapped as well as my TEMP folder and pagefile.This keeps my Win 7 partition fairly small (~12 GB out of 24 GB).I recently edited the fstabs of my external distros to force them to use the swap partition on my main drive.I can use GRUB, hosted by the Lucid distro on my main drive to boot everything or a GRUB hosted by a distro on the external drive.To do that I would boot to the external drive using he F12 function key my BIOS uses to bring up a device boot menu.Since I learned how to revert GRUB 2 to GRUB legacy I can use any of the newer distros to host GRUB legacywith it's simplified and easily edited /boot/grub/menu.lst file. As I reported earlier I had issues with using the GRUB 2 menu to boot some of my distros.Using legacy GRUB allows me to edit the boot menu to remove unneeded entries and provide more user friendly titles for eachentry.I'm sure GRUB 2 allows that somehow but I don't want to deal with it. Edited December 14, 2010 by Frank Golden

[ichase]

Thank you VERY much Frank, Abarbarian, and lewmur for the replies and guidance. I am trying not to get fustrated with myself because I am really waiting for that light bulb to come on over my head and it's not. I have a good understanding of what each of you is saying as well as the article you posted Abarbarian but then I read something like this:

Morgan Hall said: My personal solution (yes, I use thunderbird) -- I make my data directory a partion mounted on /usr/local so my homebrew apps are in /usr/local/bin. A data directory there contains the working directories for home data -- /usr/local/morganh/DataDirectories in /usr/local/morganh/Data include Dowloads, Video, VirtualBox, mozilla, mozilla-thunderbird and so forth. I install the new distribution, mount my /usr/local, strip out everything except Desktop from /home/morganh then run:for i in `echo /usr/local/morganh/Data`;do; ln -s $i; done Then: mv VirtualBox .VirtualBox mv mozilla .mozilla mv mozilla-thunderbird .mozilla-thunderbird Now I'm good to go

And I am like......AHHHHHHH WHAT!!!!!!! I see that a lot, with people like Morgan Hall here making it seem so simple a blind, deaf child could do it with ease. That is when I start feeling "DUMB", and I know I am not a dumb person. I normally pick things up pretty quick.I put a plan together kinda based on the way Frank has his set up with each distro sharing the swap partition. Setting up a shared /home partition does make sense, I initially agree with Frank in the fact that when cloning/backing up the partition, the integriy of the backup would seem more solid if the /home was with the distro. Let me know what you think. The Distros could change but this is just a rough draft plan. By all means, let me know if you suggest something different as I HIGHLY respect your opinions and inputs.

250 GIG External HDD Partition Plan- Swap Partition – 6 GB- Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB Ultimate Edition 2.8- Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB PCLOS 2010.11- Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB OpenSUSE 11.3 - Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB Mint 10 Julia (Gnome)- Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB Fedora 14 - Linux Distro Partition – 30 GB Debian 5.0.6 - FAT 32 Partition – 32 GB- NTFS Partition – 32 GBTotal = 250 GB

All the best,Ian Edited December 14, 2010 by ichase

[saturnian]

I do have a question though, what the allure of having multiple distros on one machine? I mean how can you ever get anything accomplished, if you have to reboot between distros? I understand having a different distro on each machine or in VirtualBox (like I do) but what is the point of having six versions of Ubuntu on one machine? I dunno, maybe I am missing something but I have always wondered this. Not just in your case but many times over the years.

I have a few different reasons why I like multi-booting.There are a handful of distros that I really like, and I enjoy following the development of each one. I like what the different projects are all about, and different approaches they take, I like to see how things go over the long term. I'm not a "distro-hopper;" I generally keep the same distros installed, and try to keep each one going for at least a few years.I like to have a different "look" on different days. I don't always want to log into the same old distro every day.Seems to me that being able to boot into different distros has helped me to learn more about Linux in general. Comparing how things are done in different distros helps me to understand things better, I feel.I like to think of myself as a Linux User, not as a Mepis User or Ubuntu User or whatever. I don't ever want to be "devoted" to any one distro, or to feel tied down. I think my feelings on that came from my Windows days, when I DID feel tied down. So, as someone else here said, I multi-boot because I can. If I don't like the direction that one distro is going in, or if an update causes me some problems in one distro, no matter, I can just log into something else. My main data files are on separate partitions, so accessing my data is never an issue.Sometimes I read about how one distro is better than another, or how this or that distro is "crap," or too buggy, or whatever. What I've attempted to do is install them and see for myself. Keep 'em going for a while, see if anything actually breaks.I enjoy participating at the various forums, and I feel like I'm better able to do so if I actually have some version of each of those distros installed.I like having my little line-up of different distros: Mepis, Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, and PCLOS. During a typical week, I come home and log into a different one each day. On my days off, I usually stay logged into whichever distro I fired up that "Friday." This is my routine, and it might not make sense to someone else; I don't play computer games, so maybe this is my idea of fun! Anyway, it brings me pleasure to be able to do this, and I can't imagine myself ever having only one distro installed on my main pc.

[securitybreach]

Saturnian: Well in my experiences after using Linux for years and using every distro under the sun, I guess I have finally come to the conclusion that all distros are basically the same. Most of the differences are only the themes they chose to install, the default set of packages, the package manager, and other minor differences. Yes, some come with codecs and drivers while others do not but they all can be set up to look and feel as the others. I think of distros as starting points since I usually change everything about the distro after installation anyway. Years ago I changed distros almost daily but found that I was not getting any 'real' work done. But that's just me. I do however keep about 5 or 6 distro at a time in VirtualBox to play around and assist where I can. Having to reboot everytime I want to play with another distro is a pain for me so I find it easier to un Virtual installs rather than full blown installs. Of course I got a ton of ram so that makes it easier I know that VB does not use the actual hardware and uses virtual hardware so you do not get a true install. But most all the hardware I use is built into the kernel so it always works anyway, well except for the Nvidia drivers The reason I like Arch so much is because you basically start off with a clean slate. Anytime I have installed a distro, I have found that I basically remove most of the default packages and install new ones so it is easier for me to start out without any packages. Plus I feel I am in more control of my distro, but like everything in Linux; it is about choice. You are free to install anything you want and customize it to your likings.

[Urmas]

Ian,Why BOTH FAT 32 & NTFS? Is there Windows somewhere in this equation? Or... ahem... why? I mean, when it comes to storage, one large® partition makes more sense than two small ones.

[ichase]

Ian,Why BOTH FAT 32 & NTFS? Is there Windows somewhere in this equation? Or... ahem... why? I mean, when it comes to storage, one large® partition makes more sense than two small ones.

Good question Urmas. The internal currently has Win XP and will be duel booting with Mandriva 2010.1 KDE much like the tower was set up. I am keeping Windows because when traveling, that is all my wife is familiar with. And trust me, she has no desire to learn Linux. Unless we get her a new lappy which I don't see the point in spending the money on that, I will at least need to have an OS she is comfortable with when traveling.TRUST ME....If I had my way, with the 80 GB drive that is currently in it, I would more than likely have 3 distro's on the internal. I have gotten used to Mandriva so I am going with that. :)Ian

[Urmas]

In that case, go for one FAT (32) partition (or NTFS if you think the FAT file size limit is going to be a problem).Oh and... you might want to laugh a little – from The Archives:http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=17625

[saturnian]

Saturnian: Well in my experiences after using Linux for years and using every distro under the sun, I guess I have finally come to the conclusion that all distros are basically the same. Most of the differences are only the themes they chose to install, the default set of packages, the package manager, and other minor differences. Yes, some come with codecs and drivers while others do not but they all can be set up to look and feel as the others. I think of distros as starting points since I usually change everything about the distro after installation anyway. Years ago I changed distros almost daily but found that I was not getting any 'real' work done. But that's just me.

Thanks. Yeah, I probably don't have as many Linux years under my belt as you do (five years here), but I've used Linux long enough to know that, as you said, "all distros are basically the same" underneath. However, taking a look at how they differ can be educational, and I feel that making those comparisons has been a tremendous help to me.I'm not sure how you define "real" work, but my approach doesn't seem to hold me back from doing any of the things that I normally do.Anyway, Linux allows folks to use their computers in different ways. I like to have a few different disros installed; other people find that distracting or whatever. To each her/his own, I guess.

[securitybreach]

Thanks. Yeah, I probably don't have as many Linux years under my belt as you do (five years here), but I've used Linux long enough to know that, as you said, "all distros are basically the same" underneath. However, taking a look at how they differ can be educational, and I feel that making those comparisons has been a tremendous help to me.I'm not sure how you define "real" work, but my approach doesn't seem to hold me back from doing any of the things that I normally do.Anyway, Linux allows folks to use their computers in different ways. I like to have a few different disros installed; other people find that distracting or whatever. To each her/his own, I guess.

Well I have only been using Linux for about 8 years(march) but I agree that the differences are worth learning about. I just prefer using VirtualBox to work with them. As far as 'real work, I was giving my experiences only. My problem was that I found myself just installing and setting distros all the time and not much more. So I felt like I was was not learning Linux very much but instead learning different distros' ways of doing things. Like you said: to each, his/her own. I mean't nothing towards you by my post.

[saturnian]

Well I have only been using Linux for about 8 years(march) but I agree that the differences are worth learning about. I just prefer using VirtualBox to work with them. As far as 'real work, I was giving my experiences only. My problem was that I found myself just installing and setting distros all the time and not much more. So I felt like I was was not learning Linux very much but instead learning different distros' ways of doing things. Like you said: to each, his/her own. I mean't nothing towards you by my post.

Yeah. What I've been thinking lately is that Linux really allows each of us to experience it in different ways. My set-up kinda fits my personality and it fits what I like to do. My best Linux pal, however, uses Debian and only Debian, and I guess he thinks I'm kinda nuts with how I approach things!

[saturnian]

Is UNetbootin preferable to use instead of MultiSystem for creating a multi-boot flash drive to run different live sessions? I used MultiSystem and it worked out fine, but are there any reasons to use UNetbootin instead?

[ChipDoc]

I believe that UNetbootin runs only a single distro. If you want to run multiples, stick with MultiSystem.