Windows, suse/open suse, and ubuntu on lappy

[Texkonc]

yippee for reviving a dead thread!


I got a similar situation.
I want Windows, suse/open suse, and ubuntu on my lappy.

I turned my lappy into a learn Linux rig.

Install windows, then install suse and use yast to partition, and then install ubuntu?

I am thinking about doing 3 different partions or should i make 4 and have one dedicated swap partion for both linux partions??????
How much HD space should i allocate for the linux installs, i want to install all the options and play around with everything? my drive is a 160gb.

[aliov]

you can use the same swap partition for many linux distro since you're not planning to boot two or more Linux at the same time, the swap partition is recomended to be at least the size of the physical memory.

it's up to you to decide how much space for Linux but at least 10 GB, and also you can share the windows data (music,video) in linux without having to copy them into the linux partition.

Regards.

[devils casper]

Install windows, then install suse and use yast to partition, and then install ubuntu?

Correct.

How much HD space should i allocate for the linux installs, i want to install all the options and play around with everything? my drive is a 160gb.

10 GB is enough for each Linux Distro. Create a FAt32 partition to share data between Linux/Windows. Linux supports FAT32 read/write access out of box.

[waterhead]

I have heard that some people use a separate partition for their home folder. This way they can use only one home folder with every distro, and save disk space.

Not sure if this is really feasible. Maybe someone that has done it will explain how.

[devils casper]

I have heard that some people use a separate partition for their home folder. This way they can use only one home folder with every distro, and save disk space.

Not sure if this is really feasible. Maybe someone that has done it will explain how.

Its feasible but not recommended. There are user-specific configuration items stored in "dotfiles" ( filenames starting with . ) in each user's home directory. e.g. all KDE preferences are stored under the directory $HOME/.kde/. These files are often not backward compatible between versions of applications. The preference files in $HOME/.kde/ for KDE 3.4 are probably not compatible with KDE 3.5. This is even more true for Desktop preference files between different Linux distros and If you are share same home partition in different distros, you might have problems.

[gogalthorp]

If you setup different user names for each distro this should be ok. Since the user log on info is stored in the root partition each distro would only log on to the correct user for it. This would save a partition or more if you have multiple distro's installed. You would just need to be sure your user names are different.

[devils casper]

I agree with gogalthrop. If you create different user in each distro, you can share /home partition. Make sure not to format /home partition during Installation of second distro.

[Texkonc]

Working:
WinXP
SUSE 10.3beta3
Fedora7
Ubuntu7.04

Lets see how well the stability will be. I think the MBR might be the first thing to die


Since i am using the beta of suse, when the development release (Stable) comes out, what would be the best way to change the SUSE install?

I would like to run all stable versions.

[lx4svr]

Wouldn't it just be easier to install opensuse, or which ever you chosse to be you dominant OS, then install VMware, and create two virtual machines. Create one that is ubuntu, one that is XP, and as many other that you want. Plus you can use all of that all at the same time. You can also mount file systems between them for file sharing.

Currently, I have opensuse as my installed OS, then I have both Solaris10, and WinXP running all on my laptop at the same time. Yes I can run all three at the same time, and still have good speed. I suggest that you do not use XP as the host OS, due to the fact that you will loose to much resources. I suggest to have 512MB of RAM for each OS that you have. I run three so I have 1.5GB RAM. You can still share the home directory if you want as well.