HD Install :: multiple frugal install - booting to the wrong one



Quote (mikshaw @ June 22 2006,22:42)
There should be no problem using multiple frugal installs...I have 3 installed on the same partition at the moment.

Mikshaw, how did you get your bootloader to select between 3 DSL versions on the same partition?

I use Grub - and I've got that working, to choose between Windows, and a couple of Poormans versions of of another 700M distro, but only a SINGLE copy of DSL (301 at the moment) on an Ext2 partition, hdb2.  I tried renaming the DSL 'KNOPPIX' image, and played with BOOT_IMAGE=[namelikeDsl301] hoping that I could name another DSL version [namelikeDsl092] etc.  But that didn't seem to work.  In fact, I can only get DSL loading from hdb2 if use the standard image names, AND using fromhd=/dev/hdb2 - which seems to mean I can only have 1 DSL per partition.  

I've searched a lot of threads looking for suggestions, and your post was the closest I found.  Would it be possible for you to post how you labelled 3 versions on a single partition?  Apologies if it's been posted elsewhere and I didn't find it.

Many thanks,
regards, Islander
If I remember correctly, you can use the following codes:
knoppix_dir to specify the directory name
knoppix_name to specify the image name
thehats is correct, although I'm using only knoppix_name myself.

I have a little redundancy with my system simply because I have multiple copies of the boot directory, and i don't need to do that as long as the kernel/initrd is the same.  I just had a different kernel version for 2.1 in there at one time, and the separate boot directories kept things consistent.

This is my current Grub config, now reduced to two versions of DSL since i stopped bothering with v2.1...one for stable and one for RC (needs to be updated since 3.1 final was released).  Note the directory name for kernel and initrd files, and the name of the KNOPPIX files.

Code Sample

color white/red black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 15

 title Slackware (/dev/hda1)
 root (hd0,0)
 kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=794

 title Suse (/dev/hda3)
 root (hd0,2)
 kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=791 splash=verbose desktop hdc=ide-scsi hdclun=0 showopts
 initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd

title Damn Small Linux 3.0.1 (/dev/hda4)
   kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.0 dsl host=bungle home=hda3 mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl norestore vga=794 syslog dma
   initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/minirt24.gz

title Damn Small Linux 3.1RC4
   kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.1 dsl host=bungle home=hda3 mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl legacy norestore vga=794 syslog dma
   initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/minirt24.gz

title DSL 3.0.1 clean
   kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.0 dsl norestore base vga=791 dma
   initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/minirt24.gz

title DSL 3.1RC4 clean
   kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.1 dsl norestore base vga=791 dma legacy
   initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/minirt24.gz

title --- For help press 'c', type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)
The Hats, and Mikshaw, thanks for your suggestions.

I used "knoppix_name=dsl301" and "knoppix_name=dsl092" successfully.  Well, almost.  I can load dsl301 from hdb2, and from USB sda1.  [Excellent, and thanks.]  I can load dsl092 from USB sda1, but not from hdb2.  [I had already generated separate boot[s] and initrd[s] for each of these, using separate folders and pointing Grub to them, in a similar fashion to mikshaw's.]  The failure to load dsl092 from hdb2 shows up as a blue text repeat, of the loader at some stage trying to read sda2, 3, 4 ...15, then sdb1, 2, 3 etc, all the way to sdg, I think, then it announces kernel panic.

This is the same symptom that I had up until I started using, in the last few days, dsl 301.  I wanted to get dsl092 running on hdb2, and had tried to use "knoppix_dir=something" as The Hats suggested, and in fact as I had used without difficulty for the other distros on the machine.  I was familiar with that option, but it just didn't work for me with DSL.

Now that I've reached the same problem despite using 'knoppix_name', I'm wondering if the problem was that dsl092 always would load off CD and USB, but not off hdb2 - which is an ext2 drive on my system.  I'm not very familiar with the linux loading sequence, but I remember reading somewhere that isolinux, and syslinux differ, and that one of the differences relates to loading from FAT or Ext2 partitions.  I think that might be the reason why I've had difficulty getting dsl092 loading from my Ext2 partition.

DSL 301 seems very happy, and it works with the 'old' "optional" system for apps, (which is why I had wanted to stick with 092), so I think I'll run with 301 now.  It is very good, and very fast to load, and pretty easy to use, so why not.

Again, Mikshaw and The Hats, thank you for your pointers - it's more or less working for me now, and I can adapt with more versions when I want to.

regards, Islander

original here.