having more than one distro

[AceAll]

hi all,
i would like to know which software do most of linux users use for partitioning the hard disk. I am planing to write that software on the bootable CD and use it for partitioning the hdd first then install the operating system. I would like to have more than one linux distro in my computer. let me know if anyone has done it.

thanx

[AlexK]

Personally, I use something like qtparted or fdisk to partition my drives. If you want these programs on a livecd of sorts, check out Knoppix or something like Systemrescuecd.

As for multi booting, make sure you have only one swap partition and do not have a common home partition between each distro. Also, you can check out this tutorial for getting a tri-boot to work, it will also work with quad + boots.

[AceAll]

thanx.
I would like to know the different between ext3 partition and extended partition. How are they different and what does linux use ? kindly, let me know ...

[wolferd1]

"i would like to know which software do most of linux users use for partitioning the hard disk. . . . I would like to have more than one linux distro in my computer. let me know if anyone has done it."

I added a second hd to my XP machine and installed fedora, mandriva, suse, and ubuntu. I decided how much space I wanted to devote to each distribution. Then I installed fedora and used the partitioning option during installation to partition the part of the hd that I wanted to use for fedora, leaving the rest. I then had it write to the mbr of the xp installation giving me a dual boot machine.

For each of the next three linux installations I just used the partitioning tool in that distribution to partition the part of the hd that each was going to be using. But instead of writing to the mbr I had each write to a floppy so I could boot from a floppy if I wanted. The point of this was that I didn't want to overwrite the mbr which sent me to the fedora grub, since you always have more kernel updates with fedora and those changes would automatically show up in the grub.

After I got finished, I booted into fedora and mounted all the distributions so I could read them. Then I went into the grub.conf file for each version and got the particulars for booting into each and copied them into the fedora grub.

Now when I boot up, the mbr sends me to the fedora grub which has options for xp and all 4 linux systems.

There may be simpler ways to do this, but this is much easier than some suggestions I've seen. And it seems to work well. But if you do have a kernel update in either of the non-fedora distributions, you need to make the change to the fedora grub so it will boot into the updated kernel.

Robert

[AlexK]

thanx.
I would like to know the different between ext3 partition and extended partition. How are they different and what does linux use ? kindly, let me know ...

Uh,
think of an extended partition as a partition inside a partition. See, most hard disks allow only for 4 primary partitions, the way that people have multiple distros + windows is to use extended partitions. i.e. they create a "fake" partition inside one of the primary partitions. Take for example my setup:
Primary Partition 1: Windows XP (NTFS)
Primary Partition 2: Shared Data (FAT32)
Primary Partition 3: Linux Swap
Primary Partition 4: Used as Extended partition (Not formatted)
Extended partition 1: SUSE root partition (ReiserFS)
Extended partition 2: Gentoo root partition (ReiserFS)

And ext3 is a file system type much like NTFS, ReiserFS or plain old FAT. Linux partitions typicially use either ext2/3 or ReiserFS. Personally I use Reiser for my Linux partitions as it tends to give better performance.