Following up, now that I've done it. All went well. At 11:12 AM -0500 3/12/06, Tony Nelson wrote: >At 8:31 PM -0700 3/11/06, Charles Curley wrote: >>Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; >> protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="3XA6nns4nE4KvaS/" >>Content-Disposition: inline >> >>On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 09:38:36AM -0500, Tony Nelson wrote: >>> I'd like to install FC5t3 on my system, in a spare LVM partition. I >>> already have 4 basic partitions, one of which is my /boot. I'd need to >>> have FC3 and FC5t3 sharing /boot. Do I need to do anything special when >>> installing FC5t3? Should I let the installer know about the real /boot and >>> do its thing? Should I have it put everything in the LVM partition and >>> copy the relevent files from its /boot to the real one, and modify the >>> grub.conf by hand? >> >>Yes, you can do it. The process below is what I do when I move from >>one major FC rev to the next. I have two 20 GB partitions, one root >>for FC(n), the other for FC(n+1). They share /boot, /home, and a >>partition for miscellaneous storage. > >OK, we're on the same wavelength. > > >>You should back /boot up entirely before you install. (Heck, you >>should back *everything* up before the installation.) > >Had decided to do that (/home, /boot, /etc, /usr/local -- /opt is empty). >Also, I'll make a separate tarball of /boot so I won't have to grovel >through the big backup to restor /boot if needed. > >>As you said >>elsewhere, the file names will be different -- with one exception. >> >>Do not allow the installation to write a new file system to /boot (or >>anything other than the new root partition). Let the new installation >>stomp on /boot/grub/grub.conf. Then boot to the new installation, and >>use your backup copy of grub.conf to restore the stanzas for the old >>installation. > >OK, I had hoped it would be no worse than that. (I didn't quite hope it >would know to /update/ my grub.conf. Perhaps I should file a RFE.) I told the installer to use a new LVM partition for /, and to use the existing /boot Basic partition. I told it not to install grub on the first Basic partition (the only choice I could see), as I'm using NTLDR there. It installed the new kernel, pictures, etc. to /boot, but made no change at all to /boot/grub, so I added a stanza to boot the new installation. >>You can share /home between them (if it's on its own partition), which >>saves you a bit of configuration hacking. However, you may find that >>the new versions of some apps change the config files to the point >>where you cannot go backwards. > >I might try that sort of thing later, but not for a test release, and I'd >have to re-partition. > > >>Once FC5 stable (ahem) is released, do a fresh installation! > >Well, yes. That's why I'm putting FC5t3 on its own partition. If I do try >an upgrade, it will be to a copy of my existion installation (copy to my >spare partition, get it working again, try an upgrade install, look for any >old packages, make sure they're up to date, look for any .rpmnew or .rpmold >files, resolve them). > >>Then >>start porting your old setup over by mounting read-only (ro) the old >>root partition to the new one, and comparing files. Make a list of the >>changes you make, so you have that list when FC6 comes out. > >Via diff, or by hand as I think of them? > > >>Works like a charm. > >Good to hear. Thank you. So now I have FC5t3 installed on along with FC3, and a couple of flavors of MSWindows. ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
