Dual booting fc5 & fc6
Nigel Henry
cave.dnb at tiscali.fr
Sat Oct 28 22:20:18 UTC 2006
On Saturday 28 October 2006 22:03, George Hare wrote:
> Many thanks to Jim, Robert and Nigel. When I installed fc6 I got
> /1/boot/....I thought my selection at that point would auto-magically
> put fc6 in my selections at boot time. It seemed to go just like that
> when I dual booted RH8 and NT, but I guess much has changed since
> then. I intended to eliminate the last fc5 under the "chainload + 1"
> but you guys are a bit over my head here and I had no idea you could
> install grub more than once...not that I want to yet. /dev/hda1 is
> where I have fc5, /dev/hda2 is a swap, /dev/hda3 is where fc6 is and
> has no mount point according to the LVM, /dev/hda4 is an extended
> partition ? I did not ask for that(110G), then /dev/hda5 is swap, then
> it says I have 110G of unpartitioned and uninitialized space on hda. I
> thought the partitioning possibilities were a bit confusing; but then,
> I find many things confusing. Below is my fc5 grub config. I know you
> guys are busy and don't always have time to hold someone's hand, but I
> really appreciate your help.
> # grub.conf generated by anaconda
> #
> # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
> # NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
> # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
> # root (hd0,0)
> # kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
> # initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
> #boot=/dev/hda
> default=0
> timeout=8
> splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> hiddenmenu
> title Fedora Core (2.6.18-1.2200.fc5)
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
> initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5.img
> title Fedora 6
> root (hd0,2) /1/boot/grub/grub.conf
> chainloader + 1
> title Fedora Core (2.6.15-1.2054_FC5)
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
> initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
>
> George hare
Hi George. If you have a Windows OS as the first install, then put, say, for
instance FC5 on as a second install. You elect to put GRUB in the MBR, and
GRUB automatically adds the chainloader for the Windows install. You can then
boot both Windows from GRUB using the chainloader entry, which is usually
titled "other", or you can boot FC5. Kernel updates will automatically be
added to GRUB for FC5 giving you a choice of kernels. If you then add another
linux install, say FC6, the bootloader page on install gives you some
options. If you put FC6's GRUB in the MBR, it will replace FC5's GRUB. You
will be able to boot into both Windows, and FC6, but no longer into FC5
without quite a lot of messing about. Another option is to go for no
bootloader when you install FC6. This way you will be able to still boot
Windows, and FC5, but will have to do some work in
FC5's /boot/grub/grub.conf, so as to boot FC6. You will have to add an entry
to boot a kernel, similar to the entries for FC5's kernels, but directed to
the /boot partition where the FC6 kernel is, and making sure that you
describe the kernel, and initrd correctly. I don't like this way. For one
thing, there is more typing to be done, and it's easy to make mistakes.
Secondly, whereas FC5's GRUB automatically adds kernel updates for FC5, your
FC6 install with no bootloader option won't. Everytime the kernel is updated
you will have to go back into FC5's grub.conf, and add the new kernel for
FC6. Personally I'd not go for the "no bootloader" option. The third, and I
believe the best option is as I mentioned in my last post.
This applies if you have Windows as your first install, or Linux. If you have
Windows first, which it likes to be, and then install FC5. Put FC5's GRUB in
the MBR, and you'll be able to boot both Windows and FC5. If you only have
FC5, just put GRUB in the MBR. Now you install FC6. The bootloader page is
defaulted to installing the bootloader in the MBR, but at least on FC5
somewhere near the bottom of the page is a button for "other options",
"customising", or something like that. Press the button. This takes you to
another page and gives you options of where to install GRUB. In your case
with FC5 on hda1, it probably shows hda (which is the MBR), and also hda3,
which according to your post is where FC6 resides. Go for anything but the
MBR (hda) one. When you reboot after the install you will still have to add
the chainloader entry for FC6 in FC5's GRUB, as I mentioned in my earlier
post, but kernel updates will automatically be added to FC6's GRUB, which
saves a bit of work.
I don't know what you did with GRUB when you installed FC6. Perhaps you could
let me know, as if GRUB for FC6 is not in the right place it can be fixed.
Regarding your FC5's GRUB, it may be worth changing the timeout to something
more sensible like 30. If you put a # in front of the "hiddenmenu" entry, you
will see the menu without having to press "any key", and removing "rhgb
quiet" at the end of the kernel entries will show you text on bootup, which
can help with seeing any problems on bootup.
All the best.
Nigel.
btw. Looking at your entry for the chainloader for FC6, and if you have put
GRUB for FC6 in hda3 when you installed it, the entry should look like this.
title Fedora 6 (you can put what you like here)
root (hd0,2)
chainloader +1 (no space between the "+" and the "1")
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