linux distro curiosity

[hungrygoose]

ok....i am intersted in learning more about linux and want to check out all the distros that are out there.....i have experimented with some mandrake and red hat in the past on an old 233mhz system with about a 3gb hard drive....this didn't really satisfy my curiosity b/c it runs so slow.....now, i have acquired and "extra" system that i want to turn into an outright linux box....it is a p4 1.8 with 256mb ram and an 80gb hard drive......i would like to do a multi boot with several different linux distros (mandrake, suse, red hat, linspire, debian, and gentoo).....is this feasible to do?.....where could i find a good tutorial on installation procedures for this many differented oses????.....thnx for all the help in advance

 

[binfalse]

For a "Newbie" Distro, i definatley recommend Mandrake as my first choice and Fedora as a Second choice.

One you gain some experience in CLI then it would be a wise choice to upgrade a System IV distro such as Slackware or Debian...

Cheers!

/bin/false

 

[Nothinman]

Generally most people just wing it and learn by trial and error, once you know the basics about things like mount points, networking, etc the installation is simple.

The main problem you'll have sharing that many distros is deciding which one runs the bootloader because there can only be one bootloader installation but each distro will most likely have it's own kernel (also making sharing /boot a PITA) unless you compile a custom one to run all of them.

One you gain some experience in CLI then it would be a wise choice to upgrade a System IV distro such as Slackware or Debian...

WTF is a System IV distro?

 

[binfalse]

Errr...

That should be System V Distro... It's a compatibili8ty level introduced in certain Linux distro's which makes it more "BSD" compliant.

Notoriously, FreeBSD and OpenBSD are far more stable and are able to use resources more effectivley than standard Linux distro's.

I am unbiased as to which you use, I personally use RedHat 7.2 and Slackware and am not particular on anyone of them. Both have there strengths and weaknesses...

Cheers!

/bin/false

 

[drag]

not sure what you mean. Most linux stuff is based on System-V style init scripts, Slackware has BSD "style". System V was the last widely used version of the original AT&T Unix. BSD unix was created by Berkley University of California. 2 different OSes... They form the basis for all Unix variants we have today.

I suggest installing Debian, and then Fedora. As a alternative to Fedora you can check out any of the other RPM-using distros like Suse, Mandrake, Redhat.

All distros that use rpm packages are forks from original Redhat distro.. around 6.0 or so is when they all got realy going. They are all very similar, although Suse is worth considuring because it's tie in with Novell. Novell had a kit of all it's commercial software for Linux you could sign up for, but it was overwhelmed by demand so Novell ended it. Check out Novell for that to pop up time to time.

Debian because it is Uber wonderfull. Best distro out their

Then install one or two of the BSDs. OpenBSD and FreeBSD are worth knowing.

That way you can get away from being so Linux-centric. All Unix-variants are very close, but it's interesting to see the differences.

Also Solaris for x86 is freely aviable. And their next release should even be opensource!!

That's a classic System-V based Unix. So that way you get the best of all the worlds to play around with.

Use Linux to handle the bootloader, grub should be able to handle booting all these diffferent things.

 

[Nothinman]

I think the only thing SysV refers to these days is the init system used during bootup and the only distro not using SysV that I know of is Slackware.

Notoriously, FreeBSD and OpenBSD are far more stable and are able to use resources more effectivley than standard Linux distro's.

Hardly. That may have been the case 5 years go, but not today. I use Linux as a desktop on 2 machines daily and the only problem I have is power flickers, but considering that you're still using RH72 I'm not surprised that you would think that.

 

[sciencewhiz]

I almost always have two linux distributions installed at a time, along with windows 2000. Debian unstable is my main distro. I installed Debian with a seperate /boot partition. I use grub from debian, and manually add the other distros kernels to menu.lst. I install the other distro in one partition, without installing a boot loader. The swap partition is used by both. I've shared /tmp too, but some distros don't clear it when shutdown/boot up, and that can cause problems sometimes.

Right now it's Debian unstable and SUSE 9.0, before that it was Fedora Core 2.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[binfalse]

<BT>

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I think the only thing SysV refers to these days is the init system used during bootup and the only distro not using SysV that I know of is Slackware.

I thought there were some memory things involved with SysV too.

Originally posted by: drag
Also Solaris for x86 is freely aviable. And their next release should even be opensource!!

Solaris is the child of BSD and SysV. SunOS was traditionally BSD (thanks to Bill Joy's involvement). It later got rolled into Solaris which was closer to SysV. SysV traditionally also takes the best parts of BSD.

 

[Nothinman]

I thought there were some memory things involved with SysV too.

Yea there are some things like shared memory and IPC but in most cases SysV is generally referenced as opposition to something in BSD and from a quick look atleast FreeBSD has the same API for things like shmget and ftok so I don't think it's that relevant any more in those respects.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I thought there were some memory things involved with SysV too.

Yea there are some things like shared memory and IPC but in most cases SysV is generally referenced as opposition to something in BSD and from a quick look atleast FreeBSD has the same API for things like shmget and ftok so I don't think it's that relevant any more in those respects.

Those appear in OpenBSD too.

 

[drag]

What about "init"

One of the SCO sticking points was their ownership of the systemV style init.

I thought I was just about the init scripts, so I automaticly assumed BS. But I was told that not all Unix variants have a "init" like Linux does. (still think it's BS, I don't want this to turn into anything anti-SCO in this thread)

While Slackware uses BSD-style scripts it still uses SystemV style "init". Does that make sense?

 

[Nothinman]

Those appear in OpenBSD too.

I'm sure they do, I just didn't have access to a box to verify that the API was the same on anything other than Linux and FreeBSD.

 

[NewBlackDak]

You really want to learn something about the system and how it works? Use LFS, or Gentoo if you want package management.

 

[Nothinman]

Yea because watching all that text scroll by while the automated system compiles everything teaches you a lot...

 

[groovin]

Originally posted by: NewBlackDak
You really want to learn something about the system and how it works? Use LFS, or Gentoo if you want package management.

LFS, will teach you alot... but gentoo isnt as educational as it seems.

 

[imported_joey]

I recomend Mandrake 10.0 or 9.2....OR....Fedora Core 1.

 

[hungrygoose]

thnx for all the replies but......u guys have gotten a little off topic.....ya'll have gotten into discussing differences between distro's and sys5 stuff......i need help with installing different distros on one system, not help deciding between distro's......again thnx for all the replies, but there is a great sticky already in the os forums to help decide between distros

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose
thnx for all the replies but......u guys have gotten a little off topic.....ya'll have gotten into discussing differences between distro's and sys5 stuff......i need help with installing different distros on one system, not help deciding between distro's......again thnx for all the replies, but there is a great sticky already in the os forums to help decide between distros

What do you need help with? Install the first one, install the second one, install the third one, etc. If you take your time you can use the same swap partition, and if you really wanted to you could use the same kernel.

You'll probably need multiple hard drives though, because Linux can't get more than 4 partitions on a disk, IIRC.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You'll probably need multiple hard drives though, because Linux can't get more than 4 partitions on a disk, IIRC.

Using XOSL will get you around this. When you run out of primaries, just install to logical partitions and install the bootloader to the partition's boot record. XOSL has no problem chain loading to those boot records.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Grub will boot a kernel off of a logical partition as well. I can post my menu.lst later, but it's just a matter of remembering that /dev/hda7 is (0,6) in grub.

Just make sure you do a custom installation of each distro.

 

[cleverhandle]

True, Grub will work too (probably LILO also, for that matter), but I find it much less convenient because I then have to remember which installation contains the menu.lst file that Grub is reading from. XOSL is nicer, IMO, because it's "stand-alone" - you don't need to boot into any of your installed systems in order to configure it. Not a big deal if you're only dealing with a few installations, but if you're talking about a half dozen or more then keeping track of the boot loader config seems to me like a big headache.

 

[hungrygoose]

thnx guys......from what you all have said, this sounds like it may be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth......i think i may just install mandrake or suse and play around with it, then later on i'll remove it and install another distro

 

[n0cmonkey]

Think about it this way: How often are you going to be using multiple Linux installs at the same time?

 

[imported_pak9rabid]

As far as learning how to use Linux and which distro is right for you, it really depends on what kind of learner you are. If you are able to figure things out on your own pretty well and are patient, then I'd go with slackware, as it is a more bare-bones distro, meaning there are less scripts provided for system configuration and so forth and you will gain more experience with the system directly. Also, if you are going to want to learn how to recompile a kernel (which i think EVERYONE who wants to use Linux should know how to do), then I think you should go with slackware, or the like. my reason for this is because compared to distros like RedHat, I've found that recompiling/installing a kernel is MUCH easier to do with slack. to be honest, i never have been successful in getting a recompiled kernel in RedHat to install and boot without getting a kernel panic or something like that. of course, it's been a few years since i've tried it again with redhat, and i've learned some important steps since then that I was leaving out.

On the other hand, if you prefer to have a little wider learning curve, then RedHat/Mandrake/etc would be better for you, as there are more system configure scripts provided so that you can just get whatever you want to work quickly and then learn how to do it manually later. These types of distros also provide native RPM support. Not to say that distros like slack/debian/gentoo don't, but it's much friendlier in RedHat-based distros.

Hope that helps