Triple booting. Where to install?

[phreak0ut]

I've got Windows XP and OpenSuSE 10.2 in dual boot. I need to install a distro . Its actually a live CD, but after booting into KDE, there is an option to install in the following manner

Install XXXXX from:_______________
Install XXXXX to:_____________
Write MBR to:______________



Select target and click Go:

The ________ indicates a box to enter the partition/drive to install from/to

This is my fstab:

/dev/sda3            /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/sda4            /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda1            /windows/C           ntfs       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda5            /windows/D           ntfs       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda6            /windows/E           ntfs       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda7            /windows/F           ntfs       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda8            swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
/dev/fd0             /media/floppy        auto       noauto,user,sync      0 0

Now, where do I install the distro and I don't wish to share the /home (atleast for now) till I test it properly. How do I go about installing?


The 'distro' name cannot be specified as its technically doesn't qualify as a distro. Don't want to violate forum rules and get kicked out

[Pathik]

install it in any ntfs partition of urs... after formatting it as ext3...
afetr installing it.. add its entry to suse's grub..
btw wat os/distro/non-distro is it????

[phreak0ut]

No! I don't want to lose any of the partitions as all of it is full!! I want to know if the existing linux can be resized/partition and the other distro can be installed, just like installing Windows 2003 on a seperate drive with Windows XP. Ummmm..... the distro is Slackware, but rest is classified

[eddie]

If your already existing partition with Linux install has some space left in it, then you can resize the partition using tools like gparted. Create a new partition from the free space just created and then install this new distro on it. If you are thinking about keeping the new distro for long then let it overwrite MBR otherwise don't and edit your GRUB files in openSUSE.

[phreak0ut]

I guess gpart is installed on opensuse 10.2 by default, but its tough for me to do via CLI. According to this link, they say a gui is available, but with a linux boot CD. Is it easy to resize from CLI? My partition looks like this

I see that /home has more space and the distro which I want to install requires just around 3GB, but recommended is 5GB. Is it ok to resized /home?

Could anyone give me the step by step procedure to partition from gpart? I would really appreciate it

[freebird]

gpart(guess pc disk partition table) and gparted are different.gparted is the gui one.use it to resize ur /home to ur need.

[phreak0ut]

@freebird-Thanks for letting me know the difference. I thought both were the same I see that it takes a lot of time to partition. Lot of load shedding here So, need to do it sometime in the night.

[freebird]

be sure to un-mount yo partns while doing a resize or for any reason.BOL

[phreak0ut]

Hmmmm.... thats the important part I guess. There is a slight problem with GParted. Burnt the ISO and while booting, it stops at ´Checking for udev devices' and doesnt boot further. What might be the reason? Also, it shows that the caching of gparted.dat failed(probably due to lack of memory)

Ok, found out that the burning speed was too 'high' for my drive to read the data off it properly. Finishing repartitioning to 4.99GB of unallocated space. Now, how do I tell the distro that there is unallocated space available? I want to follow the GUI installation and thus I'll be needing to tell where the unallocated space is.

[eddie]

The way you've explained the options in your first post, I do not think that you need unallocated space rather you actually need an empty partition. So create a new partition out of the free space and then direct your distro installer to use it.

[phreak0ut]

Well, once I resized the partition, GParted made it as unallocated. I didn't have any other option

[freebird]

~#partprobe

[phreak0ut]

Well, this is the output I got when I checked it on the live CD. I'm still on Live CD. There is one more problem. Though the kernel version of this slax is 2.6.20, its not able to detect my SATA HD

Warning: Unable to open /dev/hda read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/hda has been opened read-only.

Here /hda is my combo drive.

[mehulved]

/dev/hda on 2.6.20? Check the other thread by freebird. Shouldn't it be sda or something for 2.6.20?

[praka123]

@phreak0utt:/dev/hda is ur cd/dvd drive.U can resize the sata hdds too easily.for anything not committed properly by gparted,try cfdisk,a cli utility ||r to Windows fdisk.ur sata/scsi disks may be mamed as sdax .
@tech:with 2.6.20 kernel also the old ata detection is possible provided it is compiled in.most distros carries the old pata system compiled in their kernels,so no problem.

[phreak0ut]

@praka- The resizing is done, but the distro is not recognizing my HD at all!! That has become the problem now

There is an error something like this:
Disabling IRQ #10
ata3.00:qc timeout (cmd 0xef)


There are few more lines like this and finally the Live CD boots. Mainly, the SATA silicon driver is not able to load the controller.

[freebird]

try while in live cd.press ALT+F2 to get a tty,

~#modprobe sata_sil

[phreak0ut]

Well, here is what tty says:

/dev/pts/1

and for ~#modprobe sata_sil

FATAL: Module sata_sil not found.

[eddie]

Post the output of commands lspci, fdisk -l, uname -a and lsmod

[phreak0ut]

Output for lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:11.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc ATI 437A Serial ATA Controller
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc ATI 4379 Serial ATA Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 04)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Contro
ller ATI
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge
00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 AC'97 Audio
Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTra
nsport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address
Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Con
troller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscella
neous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 [Radeon Xpress 200
G Series]
02:02.0 Communication controller: Conexant HSF 56k HSFi Modem (rev 01)
02:03.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139
C+ (rev 10)
02:04.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (

fdisk -l doesn't give anything.

uname -a gives this:

Linux bt 2.6.20-BT-PwnSauce-NOSMP #3 Sat Feb 24 15:52:59 GMT 2007 i686 athlon-4 i386 GNU/Linux

lsmod gives this:

Module Size Used by
ipv6 227680 10
snd_seq_dummy 3084 0
snd_seq_oss 30720 0
snd_seq_midi_event 5888 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 44016 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6668 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42048 0
snd_mixer_oss 15232 2 snd_pcm_oss
pcmcia 31272 0
yenta_socket 24476 0
rsrc_nonstatic 11276 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 34488 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
capability 3468 0
commoncap 5376 1 capability
fuse 38804 0
lp 9928 0
parport_pc 24548 1
parport 30408 2 lp,parport_pc
psmouse 35616 0
snd_atiixp 16296 3
snd_ac97_codec 95276 1 snd_atiixp
ac97_bus 2176 1 snd_ac97_codec
8139too 22032 0
snd_pcm 68752 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_atiixp,snd_ac97_codec
shpchp 30240 0
mii 4992 1 8139too
snd_timer 19336 3 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 44644 12 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,s nd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_atiixp,snd_ac97_codec ,snd_pcm,snd_timer
ehci_hcd 29336 0
ohci1394 31284 0
soundcore 5984 2 snd
pata_atiixp 5632 0
k8temp 4608 0
ieee1394 84576 1 ohci1394
ati_agp 6924 0
snd_page_alloc 7816 2 snd_atiixp,snd_pcm
hwmon 2452 1 k8temp
agpgart 27952 1 ati_agp
ata_generic 5256 0
evdev 8320 0
pcspkr 2432 0
serio_raw 5380 0
i2c_piix4 7572 0
i2c_core 17680 1 i2c_piix4
ohci_hcd 19212 0
nls_iso8859_2 4608 0
nls_iso8859_1 4096 0
nls_cp437 5760 0
aufs 83888 1
squashfs 44680 10
sqlzma 3204 1 squashfs
unlzma 4352 1 sqlzma

[shantanu]

hey buddY! r u using that RS480 ATI x200 chipset.. i suppose that only... i have used that thing and it is having silicon image SATA controller... well i dont have much knowledge about linux but i think SDA is SATA drive .. and i was unable to install any distro on it...

cant say in your case.. but silicon systems emailed back to me saying that sil437* .. or something... controller is not fully compatible with RS480 and RS482 series of mobos... (i think you have MSI )

[phreak0ut]

Originally Posted by shantanu_webmaster

hey buddY! r u using that RS480 ATI x200 chipset.. i suppose that only... i have used that thing and it is having silicon image SATA controller... well i dont have much knowledge about linux but i think SDA is SATA drive .. and i was unable to install any distro on it...

cant say in your case.. but silicon systems emailed back to me saying that sil437* .. or something... controller is not fully compatible with RS480 and RS482 series of mobos... (i think you have MSI )

How crappy!!! What do they do sitting in their huge complex? Why is it that ATI ALWAYS HAS TO SUCK THIS WAY!! Well, i'll wait and watch

[mehulved]

And fdisk -l will only give the output if you try it as root or with sudo.

[phreak0ut]

The cd can be booted only as root. Well, if Silicon systems has trouble for my motherboard, then how come other distros are installing fine?

[mehulved]

Which cd is that, which boots only as root?

[phreak0ut]

@Mehul-Its a base of slax. @Shantanu-Could you please PM the mail which you got, if you still got it in your inbox?

[shantanu]

i pmed you

[Vivek788]

I have opensuse installed already.Recently I installed FC6 and now the grub in it is not detecting opensuse...?what change should i make to grub.conf to bring it back?

My opensuse is installed in /dev/hdc3 while fc6 is in /dev/hdd10