[CALUG] SuSE and Ubuntu dual boot

[Russell Evans]

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 08:13:49 -0400
"Rajiv Gunja" <opn.src.rocks at gmail.com> wrote:

> Lets assume that you have enough hard-disks available on your system.
> For our example, lets say you have 60 GB HDD.
> while installing Windows XP, carve up you disk into 4 partitions.
> { Windows XP (20[OS only] + 20[data only]), suse (10) and Ubuntu (10)}
> Next install SuSE on the 3rd partition making sure that you install
> its boot loader into the MBR.
> Next install Ubuntu on the 4th partition making sure that you install
> the boot loader on the root partition and not the MBR.
> SuSE should recognise the 3rd OS while rebooting for the 2nd time, if
> not, you can point the LiLO config to the root partition and you will
> have all 3 OSes installed and bootable.

If you are not leaving room for a fat32 partition and a separate
partition for /home for your Linux installs, you're not going to be
efficient with your system.

Linux support for writing to a ntfs file systems is getting there, MS
windows writing to Linux is a lot worse. The easiest way to deal with
file transfer between OS on a dual boot system is to have a fat32
partition to keep your data on. 

For the MS side point either your My Documents folder to the partition
or, if you are comfortable with regedit, edit the profileimagepath
entry for your user id. If you do the regedit, you can then have your
user's MS Windows home be separated from the MS OS file system much like
having the separate /home partition in Linux.   

On the Linux side, you can mount the fat32 partition in your home
directory as Documents or make a link to it if you let the install
decide the mount point.

You can use either the Windows boot loader or a standard linux
distribution boot loader (grub, lilo) or a third party boot loader
like xosl or gag http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm
http://gag.sourceforge.net/ to boot all your OS installs.

You could use colinux on MS Windows to mount your Linux partitions and
then use WinScp to move files around, you could setup the user space
ntfs tools on Linux but the simplest way is just to have a fat32
partition. 

I tried at one point to a have a dual boot laptop set up where both
linux and ms windows used the same home partition. I wanted to use the
same tools, sylpheed-claws, firefox, gaim, openoffice, with the same
config files, and have my data files as well, so that it didn't matter
what OS I was in, it would just be the same. I would be able to add
email filters, bookmarks, openoffice templates, gaim contacts,
firefox extensions, ... and it would be there in either OS. I would  be
able to find emails, documents, gaim logs, ... no mater what OS I
received or created them in.

I got some of it working before getting to the point where I
wanted a working laptop again. I tried Thunderbird, Sunbird, and a few
other tools as well. I think it can mostly be done. The mozilla
software was the hardest as I needed to track down how to get the
applications not to use the unique file naming structure. Updates,
where an issue as well and I think the main reason I stopped working on
it. 

If you can't abandon MS it might be worth looking into again as it has
been a couple of years now since I tried it. 

Thank you
Russell