Best practice for multiple version/OS boot?

Michael Schwendt mschwendt at gmail.com
Mon Nov 25 09:11:37 UTC 2013


On Mon, 25 Nov 2013 06:33:03 +0000, Tim Landscheidt wrote:

> So what are Fedora developers /actually/ using?  Creating a
> separate GRUB partition and "chainloader"/"configfile"?

Chainloading (via 40_custom) is what I'm still doing with GRUB2, and it
works with different bootloaders, too (unlike "configfile"). I've used
configfile manually and as a last resort only. Installing boot loaders
into boot partitions also has the benefit that those are available when
I replace the "main OS" *and* MBR.

> Running OS prober in the "main" OS after each installation/
> kernel update?

Not really an option. Only three installed kernels are kept during
updates, so if you ever forget rebooting to the "main OS" to recreate the
GRUB2 config file, you've lost.

> Something else?  How often do the setups al-
> low one to shoot oneself in the foot, or are they (more or
> less) "foolproof"?

The most important breakage I remember is that eventually I've had to
repartition in order to add an MBR gap (around Fedora 16).


More information about the devel mailing list