Mount points

[valid]

Can more than 1 distro of linux use the same mount point? This is a newbie question. Thanks.

[Irithori]

Hi and welcome

Yes, in general a linux distro can mount the devices of another distro.
But whether this makes sense depends on the files and data in such a mountpoint, and how it is used.

Can you share details on your usecase?

[valid]

Hi and welcome

Yes, in general a linux distro can mount the devices of another distro.
But whether this makes sense depends on the files and data in such a mountpoint, and how it is used.

Can you share details on your usecase?

I am talking about the root mount point. i.e. Can Mandrake and Mint use the same one. I had Mint installed on a Win7 comp. I installed Mandrake last night. So after booting up the comp Mint had no option to boot. Only showed Mandrake bootloader with Win7. Installed Mandrake to sda7. Just reinstalled Mint and it's bootloader shows all 3 operating systems. Not sure what usecase is yet but will Google it. Thanks.

[Irithori]

You cannot install more than one linux distribution to the same partition.
Even if you choose to not format the filesystem, the later install will overwrite files and config of the former install.

So either
- Choose which linux distribution you want to have in a dual boot scenario
- plan your partition layout to support more than one linux and then install each distribution to its own partition
- run a new distro in a virtual machine

[valid]

Thanks very much. That answered my question. Will use your advice.
Ham____

[mizzle]

I am talking about the root mount point. i.e. Can Mandrake and Mint use the same one. I had Mint installed on a Win7 comp. I installed Mandrake last night. So after booting up the comp Mint had no option to boot. Only showed Mandrake bootloader with Win7. Installed Mandrake to sda7. Just reinstalled Mint and it's bootloader shows all 3 operating systems. Not sure what usecase is yet but will Google it. Thanks.

This is most likely because Mandrake is using older version of Grub, and Mint is using Grub2. Grub won't add Grub2 distros automatically. Since Grub2 will detect older Grub, that's why you saw Mandrake when you reinstalled Mint. If you google around, you can find ways to fix this without having to reinstall either distro.

[valid]

Thank you also for the info. Will do the google.
Ham____