I have been using Tumbleweed for a while now but as of the latest merger of Factory and Tumbleweed, my question is how difficult would it be to have both itself and Stable as a triple boot with Windows 8 (No scoffing :D)? I can’t see a problem apart from grub being confusing. I want stable as I intend to upgrade my graphics card for serious media work with krita so I would like to use the proprietary drivers for that.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
On Tue 04 Nov 2014 05:16:02 PM CST, Penguinclaw wrote:
I have been using Tumbleweed for a while now but as of the latest merger
of Factory and Tumbleweed, my question is how difficult would it be to
have both itself and Stable as a triple boot with Windows 8 (No scoffing
:D)? I can’t see a problem apart from grub being confusing. I want
stable as I intend to upgrade my graphics card for serious media work
with krita so I would like to use the proprietary drivers for that.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
Hi
I’m guessing UEFI booting? If so you probably need to rename
the /boot/efi/EFI/opensuse so the two don’t clash, else create another
small partition for an additional ESP.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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No I’m not using UEFI motherboard yet so would there still be a problem?
On Tue 04 Nov 2014 05:46:02 PM CST, Penguinclaw wrote:
No I’m not using UEFI motherboard yet so would there still be a problem?
Hi
OK, have you updated to windows 8.1?
In the past when I have multibooted, I let windows have the first three
and create an extended partition. In there I create separate /boot
partitions per install and then when installing tell the bootloader to
install in the extended partition (rather than mbr), then if either
updates grub you switch between loaders.
sda1 - windows boot
sda2 - extended partition
sda3 - windows
sda5 - /boot (os 1 260MB)
sda6 - / (os 1 40GB)
sda7 - /boot (os 2 260MB)
sda8 - / (os 2 (40GB)
sda9 - swap (common)
sda10 - data (common data for os 1 and os 2)
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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That shouldn’t be a problem. I’m actually doing that on my current desktop. I’m running 13.2 at present, but I also have factory installed on separate partitions. And, with today’s changes, “factory” is really the new “Tumbleweed”.
You may need to be careful about setting up grub2, so that you know which you are booting. But either install should be able to boot the other.
Okay. Thank you for both your replies.
@Malcomlewis yes I have windows 8.1 installed but I haven’t given it it’s own boot partition. Instead I rely solely on grub to chainload it. Would your method be the more flexible and reliable with likely future updates to grub or would the simpler setup suggested by nrickert be acceptable? I think if you advise your method I will have my work cut out reinstalling and configuring my various data partitions 
But if this is better so be it.
For a long time now, I’ve been using Tumbleweed, stable (13.1), Evergreen (11.4), and Windows 7 in a multi-boot configuration. That will now become Tumbleweed, stable (13.2 > Evergreen) , and Win7 in a triple boot. That’s all on legacy BIOS/HDD partitioning.
You are right to think about Grub2, bearing in mind that kernel upgrades will mean a rerun of the Grub2 config. I always used a separate /boot partition for my regular stable system, i.e. the standard release as I reckoned that would have the most stable Grub(1) that was easy to edit when the other systems changed (e.g Tumbleweed’s frequent kernel changes).
When Grub2 arrived, that way became less practicable, with Tumbleweed’s frequent kernel updates each time requiring Grub2’s reconfiguration over on the regular partition. So I switched Grub2 ownership over to Tumbleweed, and as it was also testing btrfs and required a separate non-btrfs boot partition, that also switched from the regular system. That worked out very well during 12.3 and 13.1, with old Tumbleweed’s good stability. However, I am now a bit concerned about the stability of factory-based Tumbleweed’s Grub2 going forward with the triple boot. Although that is what I plan to do.
On Tue 04 Nov 2014 06:46:04 PM CST, Penguinclaw wrote:
Okay. Thank you for both your replies.
@Malcomlewis yes I have windows 8.1 installed but I haven’t given it
it’s own boot partition. Instead I rely solely on grub to chainload it.
Would your method be the more flexible and reliable with likely future
updates to grub or would the simpler setup suggested by nrickert be
acceptable? I think if you advise your method I will have my work cut
out reinstalling and configuring my various data partitionsBut if
this is better so be it.
Hi
I guess since your chainloading, windows is using the disk mbr, the
current installed openSUSE somewhere else (/boot, extended partition?)?
I don’t have any multiboot non uefi systems these days… mbr and fdisk
are ‘oh so last year’ 
Maybe some details of your current disk setup and boot details will
help.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!
I know, I’m a stick in the mud for the old ways
You are right I am using extended partitions for openSUSE as follows: sda1: windowsc, sda5 / for 13.2, sda6: swap, sda8: /home for 13.2. sda7: / for tumblweed (factory) install and sda9 /home for tumblweed There are numerous other drives and partitions for data that are mounted under /mount/partition.
@consused (great name!!) Yes that is what I’m worried about. Maybe I should leave off this plan for a little bit to see how everything pans out? But then I loved the old Tumbleweed and like tinkering How difficult would it be to fix grub2 with a live disc if problems occur?
I had to fix grub2 just once using SystenRescueCd when the system wouldn’t boot after I made a stupid error. IIRC I used chroot from that liveCD in order to run the command to remake grub.cfg on the owning system. After the reboot all was well again. The main difficulty I find is recalling the chroot setup commands. Luckily they were easily accessible via SystemRescueCd’s online documentation. Maybe easier than using an openSUSE liveCD, YMMV.
I don’t have Windows (not since 2001), but what I do is basically the same:
SSD1 - 120 GB:
#1 on SSD2 contains a DVD iso (currently 13.2). If for whatever reason I need a default stable install with no personal adjustments, a clean install takes about 5 minutes. I’ve been doing this for a while now, never had anu issues that I didn’t cause myself, re. this subject. Most of the stuff in my homedir is synced to my owncloud server.
Next I have a 16GB USB emergency disk, in case I bork GRUB2 or need a linux machine, always with me, where ever I go.
On Tue 04 Nov 2014 07:36:02 PM CST, Penguinclaw wrote:
malcolmlewis;2672848 Wrote:
>
>
> I don’t have any multiboot non uefi systems these days… mbr and
> fdisk are ‘oh so last year’
>
> Maybe some details of your current disk setup and boot details will
> help.
I know, I’m a stick in the mud for the old ways
You are right I am using extended partitions for openSUSE as follows:
sda1: windowsc, sda5 / for 13.2, sda6: swap, sda8: /home for 13.2. sda7:
/ for tumblweed (factory) install and sda9 /home for tumblweed There are
numerous other drives and partitions for data that are mounted under
/mount/partition.
Hi
Hmmm, not really sure of the best course, do you know where the 13.2
bootloader installed (extended)?
I don’t use a separate /home these days, I use symlinks to my common
stuff and leave /home on / (plus use btrfs).
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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Okay thanks everyone, that has given me some food for thought before I go ahead with my plan. Yes I love SystemRescue it is such a handy distro to have around for those times when things go wrong. I will certainly read up on the chroot commands, as I’ve been meaning to for a while!!
Once again thanks for everyone’s input, much appreciated 
I keep things like that chroot setup procedure in a couple of text files, handy at all times for quick lookup.
Well after a bit of thought I think I’ve come up with an elegant solution…
I have installed openSUSE 13.2 with grub installed to the MBR. Then installed Factory’s to it’s / partition. Then from openSUSE, I’ve gone into YAST bootloader options and asked it to search the mbr and / partitions for operating systems. It seems to work and hopefully any changes will be picked up by grub2 in the mbr… well that’s my theory.
Does anyone think this will work in the long term or am I asking for headaches in the future?
Ok, so you can now boot into 13.2 or new Tumbleweed (Factory?). At some point you do a kernel upgrade on Tumbleweed and reboot. I think Grub2 will not know about Tumbleweed’s new kernel, until you first boot 13.2 and update grub.conf, then you can reboot to Tumbleweed. Does that fit well with your cunning plan? 
Yes, ever since that occasion I now keep it in a text file, also on usb flash, along with opy of terminal sessions when using SystemRescueCd e.g when cloning partitions for backup.
Good point!! Still I re-installed Tumbleweed today as I had installed Gnome desktop and didn’t like it (I’m a KDE person) and although grub threw up an error about not finding an image (I think) it booted okay… On going into 13.2 and running grub.conf the error went away. I think I can probably live with this as stable will be my main choice; Tumbleweed for testing