On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:48:16 -0700, Karl Larsen wrote:
> I have tried to load this software as another to keep an eye on, but
^^^^^^^^^^^
> when I do load it it takes over Grub! I didn't see any way to stop it
> from doing this. Has anyone else had success? If so let me know what to
> do.
I take that to mean what you really have is neither a straight
Fedora problem, nor a straight Ubuntu problem, but a multi-boot problem
involving both. Right?
After much effort and with lots of help online, I have just
managed to make my testbed machine triple-boot, reliably, with Fedora 8,
Ubuntu 7.10, and CentOS 5.1; I'm not quite sure what I did, nor how, but
I can outline it.
First, back up your data; the next step will wipe *everything* --
leaving you with not even an OS.
Now download and burn a CD with DBAN, boot to it, and tell it
autonuke. It will take several hours.
Then partition the hard drive; use knoppix, or gparted or
qtparted on a live CD. I made a separate /boot partition first, then one
for each OS, and a swap partition.
Boot from the install medium for the first OS; do the manual
install, making sure you install only into the partition you want; let it
build you a grubbery in /boot. I did CentOS first. Make a note of what in
in any grub.conf a/o menu.lst you can find.
Install gparted or qtparted or both in each OS as you go -- not
to partition with, but to look with. Keeping track of what's on which
partition is going to grow into a major pain.
Now do the like with the second OS -- I used Fedora. It will
probably wreck your ability to boot to the first one.
So boot to what you can, and command mkdir /TEST. Then start
running "mount -t ext3 /dev/sdax /TEST" for x = 1 to whatever your last
partition is. (In CentOS and Ubuntu, use hda, not sda.)
Whenever a partition does mount, do "cd /TEST," then ls, and
drill down to find any grub.conf a/o menu.lst in any OS but the one
you're running.
In another terminal or terminal tab, su to root, and do the same
inside the one you're running.
Copy and paste, adding each OS's boot data to the boot record for
the other. It should now boot to both.
If you add a third, as I did, expect it to wreck your ability to
boot to at least one of the others. Apply a similar remedy.
As I said, I'm not sure; I *think* the above is what I did. But I
notice that what's in /boot is *not* all the boot data, but that for one
OS (the last, iirc), and some directions to chainload.
You may have to do something similar to all the above *again*
whenever one OS updates its kernel. Or the chainloading from the
dedicated /boot partition may spare you that. Be sure at least that you
do save the boot data for the new kernel, where you can get to ti even if
not to its OS.
It's not pretty; but if you put the testbed -- *after* all the
installing -- behind a KVM switch along with your main machine, it's very
convenient once it's running.
--
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.
