Follow-up: Red Hat / Fedora dual boot

[Ben Scott]

[CC'ing the list with the OP's permission.  Please include the list in
any replies.]

On 1/2/06, Zhao Peng <greenmt at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Thank you for still paying attention to my partition problem.

  Sure thing.  Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.  :)

>  1  What release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are you running?
>  It's Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.6.9-22.EL)

  I'm most interested in the release of the whole distribution.  RHEL
2.1, 3, 4...?  If you're not sure, you should be able to find out by
taking a look at the /etc/redhat-release file.

  2.6.9-22.EL is the kernel version.  I suppose kernel 2.6 implies
RHEL 4, but I'd like to be sure.

  Once I know what distribution and release you have, I can look up
what tools it ships with, and what features it enables, that we might
have to worry about.

>  2 What are your partitions used for?
>
>  "df" output:
>
>  Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
>  /dev/hda5              5036284   1130792   3649660  24% /
>  /dev/hda1               101086      8508     87359   9% /boot
>  none                    241772         0    241772   0% /dev/shm
>  /dev/hda7              6192896     42204   5961952   1% /home
>  /dev/hda2              5036316   3299548   1480936  70% /usr
>  /dev/hda3              5036316    105340   4675144   3% /var

  Okay, it looks like you're in good shape.  Particular things I note
from the above:

- You're using plain partitions (not LVM or RAID or whatever)
- You have a separate boot partition (hda1)
- You have a big home partition (hda7), with plenty of space free, at
the end of the disk

  The easiest way to tackle a dual-boot would then be:

- Shrink your home partition down to make room
- Install the new system in an additional partition (hda8)
- Share the same swap partition (hda6) for both installs
- Share the same boot partition (hda1) for both installs
- Possibly share the home partition (but one thing at a time)

  First, before proceeding, the obligatory warning: *BACK UP
EVERYTHING*.  If you don't have proper backups, you're gonna loose
data.  Maybe not for this adventure, but eventually.   Even if you
decide not to try this, you should still back up everything.  It's the
one rule that applies regardless of hardware or OS.  You have been
warned.

  The kernel boot files (vmlinuz and initrd) have unique names across
Red Hat distributions, so you have use the same boot partition for
both distros.  This actually works out in your favor.  Each can
install it's own kernel files in the boot partition, update the grub
config file, and generally be happy.  GRUB will let you choose between
installs at boot.  I'm pretty sure the Red Hat installer, anaconda,
will handle it all for you.

  The swap partition isn't used between boots, so you can use the same
one for both installs.

  The exact commands you'll need to use to resize your home partition
will depend on the release of RHEL, as well as the file system type. 
I expect you have an EXT3 filesystem, but again, best to be sure.  Use
the "mount" command to see what is currently mounted.  You should see
a line that looks something like this:

/dev/hda7 on /home type ext3 (rw)

  Just report the type -- in the above, "ext3".

  Once we've got the details established, we should be well on our way.

>  "swapon -s" output:
>  Nothing showed in terminal.

  Odd.  "swapon -s" should show you the status (currently active) swap
spaces.  From your "df" output, it's a pretty good bet that hda6 is
your swap partition, and you reported the same in a previous post.  I
would expect it to be there.  Well, it's probabbly not worth worrying
about.

  Cheers!

-- Ben