Which one?

[David A. Bandel]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2002 07:40:38 -0700
begin  rplummer at wvi.com spewed forth:

> Hewy if you have a large enough hard drive, give em each about 5 gig 
> and put both of them on, then if you have any room left, try Libranet, 
> Elx, and whatever else you want to play with. 
> 
> It will give you some good experience dealing with multiple boots.
> 

Let me tell you the absolute surest, easiest way to do multiple boots:

Create a small /boot partition (about 10-20Mb) -- make it ext2.  You'll
keep your kernel here (and more, see below).  This partition should _not_
be mounted automatically.

Create a custom kernel with everything you need, mount /boot and copy. 
Make sure you can boot into your system with it.

tar up /lib/modules/<your_new_kernel_modules>/ and stash it in /boot.
(Make sure you mount /boot, copy, umount /boot).

Install any other distros you want.

Make a lilo or grub (or <enter bootloader name here>) stanza for the new
distro.

For lilo.conf, something like this:

image = /boot/mykernel
	label = primary
	root = /dev/hda2

image = /boot/mykernel
	label = testdist
	root = /dev/hdX#

... (etc.)


Open the tarball w/ your modules into /lib/modules (make sure the
directory structure is correct).

Test boot into your other distro (using the same kernel as your primary
distro).

Note:  you can test w/ lilo by hitting the <Tab> at the lilo: prompt and
entering the kernel name followed by root=/dev/XXX#

On my test system I use this method to boot between several different
distros (and why not, the hardware is the same).  This eliminates the
kernel as a possible source of the problem with software.  If it works in
one (and the same modules are loaded), it should work in the other.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
		-- Nemesis Racing Team motto