Re: Multiboot

From: George <GeorgeZweistein(at)gmail.com>
Date: Thu Nov 22 2007 - 08:27:14 EST

Loeghmon T. Nejad wrote:
> I am learning Debian and I was wondering if it possible to install two
> instances of Debian on the same machine. One as the production
> workstation for the daily work, and the other for experimentation,
> testing software, add/remove apps, etc. I can then boot into the
> partition that I like based on the task at hand. Thanks.
>

I have two instances of Debian on each of 2 Thinkpads and Desktops. On main Thikpad I have Deb-test and Deb-unstable along with a mini-RIP-Linux and somethimes Ubuntu/Suse... On others PC's simply two copies of Debian-test. I run one for several weeks, back it up, do synaptic/apt-get upgrade, run a few days then swithch over to alternate and do likewise.

In all cases my data is on a DATA partition with logical pointers to it. I also have a BKUP partition which contains .tgz backup of each Linux environment and data as well as grub and bootable mini-RIP-Linux.

Warning, simply copying Debian from one partition to another will no longer work as of 2-3 years ago unules you rebuild, via yaird, a new initrd.img (changing fstab prior, then restoring after) for the aother partition. (you also have to change fstab for that partition and add info to /boot/grub/menu.lst in the main boot partition. I do not know if this is still true, something changed there recently. This problem was never encountered with Suse or Ubuntu, but this quirk allowed me to install Debian on a USB-HD, booting and running from USB last year.

---

# X4: grub.conf: grub : root (hd0,3) : setup (hd0) GRUB_PARTION=hda4/BKUP
#
timeout 4
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default saved
fallback 1

   title WinXP (HDA1)
   rootnoverify (hd0,0)
   chainloader +1

   title Debian-beta (HDA6) final_test NO_RESUME    kernel (hd0,5)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 ro vga=791 selinux=0 noresume    initrd (hd0,5)/initrd.img

   title Debian-beta (HDA6) final_test    kernel (hd0,5)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 ro vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5    initrd (hd0,5)/initrd.img
   savedefault

   title Debian-alpha (HDA7) early_test    kernel (hd0,6)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 ro vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5    initrd (hd0,6)/initrd.img
   savedefault

   title RIP-X on BKUP (HDA4) RIP RecoveryIsPossible + GUI    kernel (hd0,3)/RIP-kernel root=/dev/hda4 vga=1 nokeymap

   title RIP on BKUP (HDA4) RIP compressed into RAM no GUI    kernel (hd0,3)/RIP-kernel root=dev/ram0 rw vga=1 nokeymap    initrd (hd0,3)/RIP-rootfs.cgz

#

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Received on Thu Nov 22 08:46:25 2007