I’m looking to move more towards Linux since Vista.
In the past I used Ubuntu and Xubuntu, but didn’t like the gnome very much.
So now I want to try KDE.
I would like to install a multiboot to try out 3 Linux versions, since the live cd’s are to the liking, but slow.
I would like to have Vista, OpenSuse, Kubuntu and PClinuxos.(to see the difference between 64-bit Suse and Kubuntu and PClinuxOS 32-bit)
This how I would like to work.
1 partition Vista
1 partition Suse
1 partition Kubuntu
1 partution PcLinuxOS
1 partition wich stores all data accessible by all OS.
Is it possible to have 1 swap for all 3 linux?
Can I, if I wish to delete 1 or 2 OS clear the partitions and add them to the data partition?
Anything I need to consider while or before doing this?
I wish to delete 1 or 2 OS clear the partitions and add them to the data partition?
I read that to suggest partitions already exist, he wants to delete them and incorporate the space to data.
We would need to know what already exists, if anything?
if you are just trying out the distros, and your CPU supports it…have you considered virtualization? You can try out the distros in virtual machines, without having to format/create partitions and all that jazz.
Granted, an operating system running inside a virtual machine is not the same as running it on bare metal, but in my opinion, its worth the realitvly small sacrifice of speed just not have to have to mess with partitioning.
I did consider VM, but I just feels better if I can test them like they would without, and this way I can keep the installation from the one (or 2) I like without having to migrate things,…
One last question, the data partition in what do I need to format it?
NTFS
EXT3, …
It has to be readable and writable by all OS.
(the idea is putting all kind of files on it, but also thunderbird profile and data so I have access to all my e-mail from all OS)
Note that you can’t share a /home partition between distros if you intend to have the same username on each distro (well, you can, but it’ll go wrong, because they’ll overwrite each others’ configuration files)
There are several ways to approach this. Arguably the simplest one is to just use different usernames on each distro. The one I chose is;
Ensure all usernames have same UID on all distros - essentially this normally only requires adding the users in the same order for all distros. If it goes wrong, it can be fixed.
Decide which distro you’re likely to keep longest, and create a separate /home partition for that. You can create separate /home partitions for the others, if you don’t mind your partition table looking like a phone book. Personally, I didn’t see the point, because I normally have one distro for real use, and others to play with, and if I have to reinstall them from scratch it’s no major hassle to loose my settings.
For all other distros, mount the main distro’s home partition as a data partition by adding something to their /etc/fstab
/dev/sdb2 /mnt/data ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1
sdb2 is my main distro’s home. Note that you’ll need to create the /mnt/data directory manually in the other distro’s /mnt directories, and the settings (ext3, noatime etc, are not necessarily going to be the same - post back if you want me (or preferably someone more technically competent!) to explain further)
Create symlinks in the other distros’ homes to the constituent directories in the main /home partition. In other words, main distro has the Documents, Photos and so forth directories in its /home partition. Other distros have links created by switching to their users’ home directories, then going