Kubuntu user here - Latest Kubuntu, Intrepid 8.10, KDE 4.13
I’m interested in trying out OpenSUSE, specifically the new KDE 4.2 Beta, either via the LiveCD Beta or a stock 11.0 install with the 4.2 repos.
Can OpenSUSE repartion the boot drive and add its boot partition to an existing grub/Kubuntu Install?
Also my home partition is on a separate hard disk so I can just mount it in OpenSUSE as my home dir. Will OpenSUSE’s vs of KDE be able to coexist with the KUbuntu config setting in my home directory?
Uh-oh, I’d never share a /home partition between two or more distros. LiGNUx work in mysterious ways…
As for Grub: I’d advise you to simply direct SuSE’s Grub loader to install itself into SuSE’s root partition (and not in the MBR). Then, you just edit your existing Ubuntu menu.lst to chainload to your new SuSE installation and that’s it. It’s the cleanest, and the most hassle-free configuration you could imagine.
Hi, How can do it? Where and how can I add suse information to make dual boot with ubuntu? Every time ubuntu updates, it`s change the boot. But ever maintains windows, it will maintain suse too?
AFAIK, it will.
If you install the SuSE Grub to its own root partition as I told you, all you have to do is edit your Ubuntu’s /boot/grub/menu.lst. You have to have root privileges to do that. First you back up the file of course, then you edit it. You’ll find a stanza therein that looks roughly like this:
Title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader (hd0,4)
You just copy’n’paste it, and then you edit the pasted section, changing
Title Windows
to
Title openSuSE
and changing
chainloader (hd0,4)
to
chainloader (hd0,x)
where x is the partition number of your openSUSE install.
Now you just save the file and reboot.
:\ Hi, before I read your information I install suse on MBR and now my ubuntu don’t boot. Do you know how can change it? I’d like to recover my boot with ubuntu and make the changes on it like you wrote. Think you.
The info posted above is correct. However . . . be advised that Kubuntu uses the “update-grub” script to maintain the grub control file /boot/grub/menu.lst. And within that file is a Debian-specific method of controlling how update-grub behaves; it is self-documented, you should take a look at that. After installing openSUSE (and as already advised, you should install grub to the openSUSE root partition boot sector, not the MBR which is the default) and when you run update-grub in Kubuntu, it probably will see openSUSE and automatically add a stanza for booting openSUSE - I don’t remember whether it will set that stanza up for chainloading based on looking for a boot sector vs whether it will simply copy the stanza in from the openSUSE menu.lst (probably). If you want to set it up manually, again check the documentation so that update-grub doesn’t overwrite what you add (IIRC there is a section of menu.lst under control of update-grub and outside of that you can do what you want manually). Back up your Kubuntu menu.lst before doing anything else.
I posted before I saw your post, and only now realized you are not the OP - coming into the middle of a thread like that can result in getting the wrong advice (it’s better to open a new thread).
So, try this: Boot into openSUSE. Go to YaST/Boot Loader. Click on the Other button (lower right), then click on “Propose & Merge with Exisitng Grub Menus” (this will take ~a minute, so be patient). Click on Other again, then click on “Edit Configuration Files”. You will be taken to another screen, with a pull-down at top and underneath an editing window. In the pull-down, select /boot/grub/menu.lst and the content will display below. Look for a boot stanza for Ubuntu; it may be identified by the partition name. Check the other stanzas for accuracy, and if everything looks right, click Finish. Reboot. Now there should be an entry on the openSUSE grub menu for booting Ubuntu. Boot into Ubuntu. Then open a terminal window, and do:
sudo update-grub
sudo grub-install /dev/xxx
where xxx is the boot disk, for example, sda or sdb, etc. The first command is a script which should find the openSUSE menu.lst file and add a stanza to the Ubuntu menu.lst for booting openSUSE. The second command will re-install grub to the MBR except this time pointing to the Ubuntu boot partition instead of openSUSE. Reboot. You should now have your Ubuntu grub menu with an entry for booting openSUSE.
If when doing the above in YaST, when checking the new proposed menu.lst, if you are unsure it is right - you can copy/paste back here the contents from the window and then we can check that for you. If you do that, then just click on Abort instead of Finish and nothing will have been changed.
Josip, Mingus, thanks for info, very useful. Unfortunately I already tried the sharing of home my directory - I can confirm that doesn’t work Couldn’t even logon, however no damage done.
Set up a test user and had a play around, most interesting.
- Latest Kubuntu, Intrepid 8.10, KDE 4.13