Dual boot strategy

[Jim Cornette]

Carroll Grigsby wrote:
> I've been running FC1 since June. It's been a good experience, and I've 
> decided to install FC3 when it is released next month. Being somewhat chicken 
> hearted, my thought is that it would be best to set up a dual boot FC1-FC3 
> system that could be easily modified as future releases occur. My plan is to 
> partition a 40 gb drive so that both the tried-and-true (FCn) and the 
> latest-and-greatest (FCn+1) are available. Six months later, FCn would be 
> replaced by FCn+2. Rinse and repeat.
> 
> My questions:
> 
> 1. There were several threads in the archives concerning dual booting two 
> versions of Fedora; my inclination is to use the method given in this post by 
> Jim Cornette last May:
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&m=108545448826891&w=2 
> Any second thoughts, Jim?

The only problems that I noted with dual booting on a pre-FC3 system is 
related to mounting volumes created in FC3. The problem is that you will 
be dropped to a shell in the earlier than FC3 installation when booting. 
You can mount the volumes after you are done booting but not mount them 
with a usual fstab entry. I have not tried to disable the filecheck 
(last two numbers in /etc/fstab being set to zero.)

FC3 is pretty decent and does not really need volumes mounted in 
/etc/fstab. You can mount them pretty easily.

I guess the main problem would be related to a /home volume created in 
FC3 and trying to mount it for both volumes. I'd suggest seperate /home 
volumes for each installations.

> 
> 2. About partitioning: What would be the downside of setting up a separate 
> /home partition that can be accessed by either version? My thought is 
> something like 10 gb for /home, 1 gb /swap, 100 mb for each /boot, and 12 gb 
> for each /.

I use individual /home directories for each installation. This allows 
one newer program from preventing an older program of the same type from 
being blown away fro any changes. SELinux might enter into shared home 
directories from each installation.

With my test installations, I usually only make a seperate /boot and 
another / volume. I then pull info from one version to another by 
mounting and navigating to the desired directory.
I use the same swap partition for all versions installed. I had no 
incidents w/ this strategy.

I would not make a bunch of individual /home partitions. Making a large 
partition for shared data desired between installations and specifying a 
  common mount point for each installation, like /home/user/data might 
work out nicely. (say 20 to 30 gig) and avoiding downloading items to 
each individual installations /home partitions. This data partition 
should be created using a pre-FC3 operating system because of the newer 
version of I believe autofs. FC3 currently has autofs-4.1.3-28 and does 
not have a problem mounting any volumes. I was hoping FC2 and FC1 would 
get the needed upgrade.


> 
> This is a simple single user home based system whose usage is largely surfing, 
> email, and some Open Office stuff. No servers, no development, and no 
> Windows. My next task is to upgrade from dialup to cable access, and then 
> setting up a simple home network with my wife's Mandrake 9.1 PC; that should 
> be accomplished prior to the release of FC3.

If you are planning a single user system, the /home/user/data idea might 
be the best approach.

Sorry for the delay, moving, ISP crazyness and other items kept me 
off-line for awhile. I hope some information is useful.

Jim

> 
> -- cmg
> 


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