Dual booting 2 linux syatems

[Jim Cornette]

Ed Lewis wrote:
> Hello,
>     I have a 64bit AMD 3000 computer with dual hard drives, I have two 
> copies of Linux installed on them. FC2-64 on one of them and Suse linux 
> 9.1 installed on the other. They both boot with grub and I have 
> configured /boot/grub/grub.conf in Fedora to attempt to boot the Suse 
> system. All I am able to get is an error 15- file not found.
>     To boot either system from boot floppies is impractical as Suse 
> Linux has 8 floppies to start it and then it doesn"t use the latest 
> kernel. The most practicable boot system would be to configure the mbr 
> to be able to boot both.
>     I have searched the archives and found numerous letters concerning 
> dual booting Windows and FC2. I do not use any Windows programs on any 
> of mt computers except one and I have an old version of Windows 98 SE on 
> one drive. So, for the most part, I am out of the Windows business.
>     The /boot/grub/grub.conf has the following statements in it/. On 
> first boot the statement shows one selection as Suse Linux 9.1 
> 2.6.5-7.i04 default. Then /grub.conf has:
> root hd1,1
> kernel/vmlinuz 2.6.5-7.104 root LABEL=rhgb quiet
> 
>     I sincerely hope that someone can give me a suggestion other that 
> Scrap Suse Linux because I use both systems.
>     Thanks you very much for taking the time to read this.
> 
> Ed Lewis
> 
> 

The easiest way is to copy the segment that boots your kernel from the 
inactive boot loader to the boot loader that is actively booting your 
system. This trick can be easily accomplished using a text editor.

1) Make sure that you mount the other systems boot partition.
2) Navigate to the menu.lst or grub.conf file under the /grub directory 
on the mounted boot partition.
3) Highlight the text that contains your boot stanza and copy to clipboard
4) Open up /boot/grub/grub.conf file from active installation and find 
area where you want to paste the boot information into the active boot 
configuration file.
5) Paste the text from the mounted other installation into the active 
boot config file. Save the file.
6) On next boot, you should be able to choose whichever installation 
from the boot menu.

There are other ways to accomplish this. This is the easiest to 
accomplish. The drawback with this approach is that you have to manually 
do this to the grub.conf file for every chage in kernel. The best method 
is to install grub onto the boot partition for either installation and 
then chainload the second installation from the active installation.

My setup, I boot one installation from mbr (grub on hdb5) and the other 
two are chainloaded (hda1 and hdb1). This is better that the hda1 
install takes care of it's boot config file as does the other two 
installations change their references when a newer kernel is installed.

Good luck with getting both OS versions working from choices in the grub 
boot menus.

The archives had this topic covered a long time back. Other explanations 
might be clearer.

Jim

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