Re: Dual boot problem

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:54:41 +0100, mayayana <mayayanaXX1a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

mayayana <mayayanaXX1a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nlysf.1415$M%4.188@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


     I'm having trouble with 2 Linux installs on
the same machine. In an effort to compare
versions, I installed Mandrake last week, and
yesterday installed Suse 10 next to it.

       They each have their own (logical)
 / partition on an extended disk partition. I also
made some data partitions. But the Suse install
seems to have got confused and I can't get
the bootloader to work. (Grub. It wouldn't do Lilo.)
     Mandrake is still fine, but it seems to see the
Suse partitions as links to its own. It spontaneously
created etc/fstab entries but the Suse entry only
has:   /

   Both systems are being loaded by a MBR-loaded
common boot loader, BootIt NG. If I boot into Mandrake
it works, and BootIt will boot into Suse, but then nothing
happens - just a flashing prompt.

  ....Sorry if this is convoluted. What I need to know
is how to keep 2 Linux systems from tripping over
each other.


  In case it might be helpful to anyone:

    It turns out that two Linux installs can, indeed,
cause a conflict.

   I was installing Suse after
Mandrake. I never did figure out for sure whether
the Mandrake install was confusing the Suse
boot loader, but I found an interesting thing
when booting into Mandrake: The boot would work
OK, and Mandrake was fine, but if I then browsed
to the Suse install partition, the ambiguous double
root mounts disoriented Mandrake. From that point on
Mandrake would begin to be unable to find
files...windows wouldn't open....if I managed to
get to the main menu to call the logout window,
that came up and worked but the text was just
squares. Then if I logged out it bumped me back
to console mode. ....Interesting.


You are making me really curious about what you are doing and how.
What you describe is more or less what we usually discard as "impossible",
it is just not "how it works".  But of course I know you are experiencing
what you say.  I guess the problem is (almost certainly) the concepts and
the terminology.  Or the mental picture you are having of what goes on,
being sufficiently different from what we would describe it as, so it
is hard for me to translate.

You say

  "Mandrake was fine, but if I then browsed
  to the Suse install partition, the ambiguous double
  root mounts disoriented Mandrake."

What exactly do you mean by "browsed to the Suse install partition"?

My first reaction is that I imagine a computer screen in front of you,
and you are having some Nautilus windows showing icons representing
files and directories ("folders"), and you click upon successive
folder icons opening new windows showing the contents of the directories.

In this process, you reach the Suse install partition.  How do you know?
Where is the Suse install partition mounted?  Is there a label below
an icon, reading "Suse install partition" ?  Or is there a label reading
"/(2)" showing this is some kind of alternate root partition?

Or have you done something more, like *mounted* the partition over
some directory?  It would be helpfull if you said so, otherwise it
is hard for us to translate you experiences into something for us
technically explainable and understandable.

Even with respect to the ensuing problems, it would be helpfull for
us to know not only "Mandrake is disoriented", but exactly what happens.
"Be unable to find files" is of course a lot better, but it does not
help much yet, because it sounds almost like a magician trick.  I'm
stupefied.  Would you please tell us exactly what you did, and what
resulted?  In what way did you have Mandrake "find files", and in what
way do you determine that it "fails to find it", and how exactly do
you know the file is there and should have been found?

I means, just imagine that you are now the magician who has just sawed
a lady in two in front of our eyes, and put her back together.  With
the difference that you are saying it's real, and I believe you mean
it.  Can you understand that the public want to find out how it is
possible?  First we need to understand what exactly are we in need of
explaining.  We start with some somewhat helpless or even impertinent
questions, like "what is the saw made of".

If what you want is to leave the scene and leave us just stupefied
behind,  it's OK, I can get over it.  (And I won't believe the laws of
nature have been canceled.)   But if you want to see if the
problem or the questions can be resolved,  have some patience with
us and do provide all the information we may need.  Of course, if
we do find an explanation, it won't seem as intriguing any more.

You wrote that Mandrake had put the new partitions in the /etc/fstab
file.  Would you mind posting the contents of the file, and point out
which lines are the original, and which are the added ones?  I would
like to know what mount options are in the added lines, what mount
point is used, and how is the device specified.  Come on, give us
something to go on!  And no, don't use the drop counter to supply the
information.

-Enrique.
.

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