Installation of multiple Linux Instances

[Frode Petersen]

Chris Snook:
> kevin kempter wrote:
>> Hi List;
>>
>> I have a new dev server. As an independent consultant I want to 
>> maximize it's use. Some of my clients use RedHat/CentOS 64 bit, others 
>> Redhat/CentOS 32bit, some are even using Fedora and Debian.
>>
>> Here's my thought:
>>
>> I'd like to install each OS/version into it's own space on the disk.  
>> I'm thinking all I have to do is install one OS (say CentOS 64bit)
> 
> 3)    Allocate your swap space and other shared filesystems (such as 
> /home) in the LVM volume group.  All modern (2.6 kernel) distros will be 
> able to use these. Allocate your root filesystem out of this volume 
> group as well.  10 GB should be more than enough for any distro's root 
> filesystem.

I am planning to do something similar to what Kevin is, though in a 
desktop setting. There is one potential problem I see with using a /home 
  that is common to all the OS's, and that is configuration files. There 
would probably not be any difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions 
of the same OS, but MAYBE between different ones, such as F9 and CentOS 
5.2 (based indirectly on FC6, there COULD be older versions of some 
software, and therefor possibly different versions of config files?), 
and certainly between Fedora and i.e. Debian, if I later want to try it 
out.

Because of this I plan to not separate the /home filesystem from /, but 
instead have a separate filesystem where I put 'work' directories for 
each user, and then symlink them into the users' /homes.

This creates a bit of extra work, but this is a small system, so it's 
manageable.

Mind you, I'm not writing this up as the way to do things; it is rather 
a sanity check. Please don't tell me I failed it....


> This is a little bit of a pain, but it works.  I recommend using 
> virtualization when suitable, as it saves a lot of the hassle of 
> bootloader configuration.

I suppose this is valid on hardware that supports virtualization, but 
not older stuff like AMD socket 939 and earlier? Wouldn't the speed loss 
be severe?

Frode