dual booting 2 different versions of opensuse

[bcrisciotti2]

Hi all. i have a netbook asus p1001 px. the hd is partitioned as i will show. the production os was opensuse 12.3 32 bit, then i decided to install thumbleweed. from then i was able to boot opensuse 12.3, but only in text mode, and i cannot start kdm, only startx works. seems clear to me that the installiation of thumbleweed messed the grub2 bootloader . any help?

this is my hd partitioning

Disk /dev/sda: 232,9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: ST9250315AS
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00085877

Dispositivo Avvio Start Fine Settori Size Id Tipo
/dev/sda1 2048 83891429 83889382 40G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 83891430 104856254 20964825 10G 1b W95 FAT32 nascosto
/dev/sda3 * 104856379 488343869 383487491 182,9G 5 Esteso
/dev/sda4 488355840 488392064 36225 17,7M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sda5 484520400 488343869 3823470 1,8G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 422252523 484520399 62267877 29,7G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 360048843 422252459 62203617 29,7G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 296768808 360048779 63279972 30,2G 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 214628463 296768744 82140282 39,2G b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda10 104856381 214628399 109772019 52,4G b W95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Disk /dev/sdb: 14,4 GiB, 15472047104 bytes, 30218842 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 3.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x79701864

Dispositivo Avvio Start Fine Settori Size Id Tipo
/dev/sdb1 * 63 30217823 30217761 14,4G b W95 FAT32



the old opensuse 12.3 is installed in sda6


thanks for any help

[hcvv]

Hello and welcome to the openSUSE forums.

It is not clear to me what you want to achieve. Do you want help with the repair of the 12.3 boot, or do you want to get rid of the 12.3 and let Grub only offer you Tumbleweed to boot?

Also, as you are new, an important message:
There is an important, but not easy to find feature on the forums.

Please in the future use CODE tags around copied/pasted computer text in a post. It is the # button in the tool bar of the post editor. When applicable copy/paste complete, that is including the prompt, the command, the output and the next prompt.

An example is here: Using CODE tags Around your paste.

[gogalthorp]

Maybe a mix of 32 bit and 64 bit OS??? Usually yhe last OS installed controls the boot. Maybe better luck settin the 32 bit OS to control the boot????

[bcrisciotti2]

Hi and thank you for reading my post. Actually i would like to have a full funcional multi booting machine, repairing the 12.3 installation.
I don't Think that the problem is related in the "mixture" of 32 and 64 bits . In fact i had installed opensuse 11.2 32 bit in the partition where Now is thumleweed, and the problem was the same. In few words, when i install a new version of opensuse, in another partition, the old one is messed

[karlmistelberger]

In few words, when i install a new version of opensuse, in another partition, the old one is messed

openSUSE boot loaders by default all go to /boot/efi/EFI/opensuse, thus overwriting each other. Always specify distributor:

3400G:~ # grep GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR /etc/default/grub
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=TW-btrfs
3400G:~ #

3400G:~ # efibootmgr 
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,0007,000B,0010,000D,0009
Boot0000* tw-btrfs
Boot0001* leap
Boot0002* opensuse
Boot0003* tw-ext4
Boot0004* tw-new
Boot0005* Manjaro
Boot0006* Fedora
Boot0007* tw-20201104
Boot0009* Windows Boot Manager
Boot000B* Fedora
Boot000D* ubuntu
3400G:~ #

[nrickert]

I don't Think that the problem is related in the "mixture" of 32 and 64 bits . In fact i had installed opensuse 11.2 32 bit in the partition where Now is thumleweed, and the problem was the same. In few words, when i install a new version of opensuse, in another partition, the old one is messed

That suggests that the problem is related to what you are doing when you setup these system.

On my current desktop, I have Tumbleweed, Leap 15.2 and Leap 15.1 all installed. And all are working well, though it has been around 2 months since I last tried booting 15.1.

In the past, I have mixed 32bit and 64bit, without any problems. Actually, I have Leap 15.2 (64bit) and Tumbleweed 32-bit dual booting on a virtual machine.

Things that could possibly cause problems:

1: Using a separate "/boot" and attempting to share that partition with both systems;
2: Using a separate "/home" and attempting to share that between both systems.

[bcrisciotti2]

Nop. This is not my case. I don't have separated boot or home partitions