Anyone know about Ubuntu?

Hi all,

I recently tried to install Ubuntu in my 'mix' of Windows 98/XP, Mandriva, SuSE and Fedora with mixed results. Ubuntu took a lot of time install and once in, I couldn't boot into the other distros once I'd merged it's GRUB with SuSE's. I've sucesfully done this with Fedora and Mandriva, SuSE's GRUB now boots both those for me but when I tried to merge Ubuntu as well, only Ubuntu would boot. Also, through Partition Magic, I could see the Ubuntu had set itself up as the 'Primary' partition - that can't be right! So in the end, I had to remove Ubuntu by formatting the partiton and afterward, eveything went back to normal.

So now I'm looking for help from someone who knows this distro and can explain to me what went wrong.....

Martin,

Dublin, Ireland

Usually there could be up to four "primary" partitions. Due to limitations of the PC, you can only have 4 partitions, they meant "nobody would ever need more than 4 partitions"... To work around this, "extended" partitions were created, these were primary partitions which worked as a container for other partitions called "logical" partitions. So there is generally nothing wrong with ubuntu being a primary partition, but it is a bit weird to only have one primary partitions (even thought I've done it myself before).

Sorry, that should have read 'Active partition'.

Martin,

Dublin, Ireland

You need to edit the bootloader configuration file of whichever distribution of GNU/Linux is installed to the partition with the bootable flag. In this case, it was Ubuntu. If Ubuntu uses GrUB, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and if it uses LiLo edit /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo.

Follow the format of the current entry or entries in the configuration file and add a new entry to boot another operating system. It should be pretty straightforward, and if in doubt, paste the configuration file here so we can have a look. You should also consult the respective man pages, info pages, and online documentation.

Hi Sether,

Sorry to be late responding, I'm been busy fixing my brother's Windows (sorry) machine for the past while.

If I edit Ubuntu's GRUB to show only Ubuntu, should SuSE's own GRUB loader pick it up and add it the way it did with Fedora and Mandiva?

Martin,

Dublin, Ireland