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GRUB HELP!

ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
edited April 2009 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
I got a new laptop recently for work. Dell Latitude E6400. It's very nice, much better than my old one, and I want to set it up right. Considering I am in the IT department, I don't have any restrictions on installations and other regulations you would normally find on a work computer. :D It's got a 150GB drive in it, fyi.

Here's what I want to do:
WinXP 32-bit - I need this for work to be in compliance with all the programs and inventory tracking, etc that we use. It's pretty much required, though I could get probably get away with Vista 32-bit for my own uses, but every other computer runs XP 32-bit. I'd like to have it so if people have trouble I can somewhat troubleshoot it on my own machine since it would be running the same OS.

Win7 64-bit - The laptop has 4GB of RAM. Obviously I will only see 3.5 of that in the XP partition and so for my own personal use, I'd like to use Windows 7 and have it be 64 bit so I can fully use the RAM I have.

Linux - I have always tinkered with Linux distros, but never really ran them for an extended period of time. I haven't picked a flavor, though I've usually used Ubuntu. My brother-in-law likes Fedora, but I really couldn't tell the different from one to another. Also, gnome or KDE? I dunno.

Data Partition - Should I make a data partition that each OS can access?


What I need help with:
What sizes should I make the OS partitions? I'm assuming any programs installed will need to be on those partitions as well, particularly because of the 32/64 bit and Win/Linux issues that I'm going to be introducing on them. Nothing huge will be installed outside of Office2007 on the Windows versions, and Linux will just have OpenOffice or something similar installed. Games will likely not be installed in any great amount, but a few extra gigs would be a good idea. Is 20GB good? 30GB?

Should I make a data partition? Or should I just split the harddrive evenly in 3 (50GB each) and keep data on each partition (work, personal, linux-personal)?


Bootloaders
What bootloader is a good one to handle this? If I install WinXP, then Win7 I'm assuming it should be ok, but I know Ubuntu has it's own bootloader it prefers to load. Is there a bootable CD I can use to set up the bootloader or how should I go about doing this?


Linux Distro
Do I need to specifically download a 64bit linux distro? Or generally do they all come with a 64bit version so I won't need to worry about it?

Which flavor would you suggest (Ubuntu and Fedora are only examples, any would be fine to suggest), and which GUI? Gnome, KDE, other?



I appreciate the help, as I've been searching around the web for a while now and it's pretty crazy all the different stuff and preferences people have, especially on linux flavors.

4dm3dwuxq302.png
ArcSyn on

Posts

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    you want to install XP first, then 7, then linux. the linux boot loader should be able to let you choose which one to boot to on startup.

    how big of a partition depends on the apps you want/need to install. XP fully patched is near 6GB by itself now, the min recommended for Vista is 16GB(although the Vista install is more around 10), and linux is impossible to guess.

    What I would personally do is make your XP partition FAT32, and use that to store any data you want to share across all 3, as fat32 will be the only thing that all 3 OS's can read/write easily.

    wunderbar on
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  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Fat32 would limit file sizes to 4GB or less though, wouldn't it? I thought Linux distros were pretty good about reading NTFS?

    ArcSyn on
    4dm3dwuxq302.png
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    If you trust Linux to read and write NTFS, then make the XP partition NTFS and store your data there. XP can drag its feet a little installing apps on another partition and if the data gets hosed, the install of XP going along with it is not going to be the most awful thing. You can get that back in an hour or two. You'll really want to minimize the number of partitions you have unless you're certain of how much space you'll need or you like to shuffle files around.

    ZackSchilling on
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  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    So I've downloaded Ubuntu (Gnome and KDE) and OpenSUSE (Gnome and KDE) to give a try. All are LiveCDs so I can see what they're like before committing to one. Having trouble getting Mint and Mandriva to download, so I'll bother with those if I don't like one of the above.

    I ended up going with 3 partitions:
    90GB WinXP (NTFS)
    30GB Win7 (NTFS)
    30GB Linux (unformatted)

    I have WinXP and Win7 (Build 7000) installed currently and working fine. I'm getting all of my drivers and patches set up on XP now. Hopefully I won't kill anything when I do the install of Linux. :)

    ArcSyn on
    4dm3dwuxq302.png
  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I am in over my head.. :D

    I have:
    Primary Partition 1 - WinXP
    Primary Partition 2 - Win7
    Extended Partition - Kubuntu
    Logical 1 - /home
    Logical 2 - /
    Logical 3 - /swap

    When I installed Kubuntu, GRUB installed and now loads, defaulting to Kubuntu with the option to choose like 3 other different ways of booting Kubuntu, as well as a "Windows loader" that takes me to my WinXP/Win7 choice that I had before Kubuntu.

    Any help with changing GRUB to remove the Windows loader and create a nice simple Kubuntu, WinXP, Win7 choice?

    ArcSyn on
    4dm3dwuxq302.png
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Oh, yeah - I had that chainloading thing happen before. I think I wrote down my solution somewhere.. I'll take a look!

    Edit: Also, in case you didn't know, but you probably do, the answer is configuring /boot/grub/menu.lst inside kubuntu - It's the specifics that are tricky. Could you post the output of 'sudo fdisk -l' inside kubuntu?

    2nd edit: Also a post with /boot/grub/menu.lst would be handy.

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    sudo fdisk -l 
    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks      Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1           11808    94847728+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           11809       15632    30716280    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           15633       19457    30724312+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           15633       16269     5116671   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           16270       18947    21511003+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           18948       19457     4096543+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

    working on getting the menu.lst, but apparently gedit isn't installed so it's installing now. (Unless there's another way to view it, but gedit seems to be the main option from what I've been getting in my Google searches)

    Menu.lst 
    [spoiler]# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
#            grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
#            grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
#            and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default		0

## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout		10

## hiddenmenu
# Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu)
#hiddenmenu

# Pretty colours
#color cyan/blue white/blue

## password ['--md5'] passwd
# If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing
# control (menu entry editor and command-line)  and entries protected by the
# command 'lock'
# e.g. password topsecret
#      password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/
# password topsecret

#
# examples
#
# title		Windows 95/98/NT/2000
# root		(hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader	+1
#
# title		Linux
# root		(hd0,1)
# kernel	/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro
#

#
# Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST

### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below

## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs

## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
## default kernel options for automagic boot options
## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z
## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted.
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
##      kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
##      kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=UUID=2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c ro

## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c

## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
##      alternative=false
# alternative=true

## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
##      lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=false

## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the
## alternatives
## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5
# defoptions=quiet splash

## should update-grub lock old automagic boot options
## e.g. lockold=false
##      lockold=true
# lockold=false

## Xen hypervisor options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenhopt=

## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenkopt=console=tty0

## altoption boot targets option
## multiple altoptions lines are allowed
## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options
##      altoptions=(recovery) single
# altoptions=(recovery mode) single

## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
##      howmany=7
# howmany=all

## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option
## e.g. memtest86=true
##      memtest86=false
# memtest86=true

## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system
## can be true or false
# updatedefaultentry=false

## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options
## can be true or false
# savedefault=false

## ## End Default Options ##[/spoiler]

title		Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-7-generic
uuid		2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c ro quiet splash 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic
quiet

title		Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-7-generic (recovery mode)
uuid		2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c ro  single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic

title		Ubuntu 8.10, memtest86+
uuid		2ac9c8f6-707b-4126-828c-b6d60bcff44c
kernel		/boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title		Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title		Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root		(hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

    ArcSyn on
    4dm3dwuxq302.png
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    ArcSyn wrote: »
    sudo fdisk -l 
    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks      Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1           11808    94847728+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           11809       15632    30716280    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           15633       19457    30724312+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           15633       16269     5116671   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           16270       18947    21511003+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           18948       19457     4096543+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

    working on getting the menu.lst, but apparently gedit isn't installed so it's installing now. (Unless there's another way to view it, but gedit seems to be the main option from what I've been getting in my Google searches)

    gedit, nano and even cat would be alright choices for just posting it here. Since you're rocking kubuntu, I believe the equivalent is kate instead of gedit. K for KDE apps and G for Gnome, usually.

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Ohhh, well now I have gedit installed and menu.lst is in the post above.

    edit: Yeah, Kate is the one. Oh well.

    ArcSyn on
    4dm3dwuxq302.png
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Well for starters you can comment out the options you don't need from kubuntu in menu.lst and just renaming the title to what you want. I also suggest posting a thread on ubuntuforums.org for quick, knowledgeable replies.

    Also, perhaps look at this: http://digg.com/software/How_To_Boot_Windows_Vista_from_GRUB_bypassing_Vista_s_winload

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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