Dual booting multiple distros, should one stay on usb or can I partition my hard drive to handle them both?...

partitioning tip

put the big partition [data, movies, photos etc...]
at the start of the disk, partition 1
because it is much easy to fiddle and resize other smaller partitions you might make later on rather the big partition at the end of a disk

eg approx
128GB SSD
1st 80GB FAT32 for storing movies, photos music etc
2nd 20GB ext4 for big distro , ubuntu mint MX etc
3rd 20GB ext4 for second distro
4th 8GB ext4 puppy bionic or fossa or even zorin lite
 


@galen , just slow down a bit on the suggestions here, mate, as they may serve to confuse. :)

You may not have acquainted yourself with the OP's PC specs environment.

We not long ago completed this Thread

https://linux.org/threads/lenovo-winbook-100e-running-windows-10.33474

... but it gets a little complicated when Kari's focus moves from the Lenovo to "the old Dell", and she gets a Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1 TB portable external drive along the way.

If there is external storage available (as there is here) and if she had an SSD (which she doesn't) then it would be ill-advised to consume 80 GB of a 128 GB SSD with data, when it could be better deployed to running OSes quickly and efficiently.

I can see from David G.'s (@KGIII 's) How Long poll that you have 15 + years experience, so I expect you know this, but just for the benefit of The Viewers.

Kari, if you have not given us the specs for "the old Dell", and that is your choice of target for the enterprise (dual/multi-booting), can you supply those to us when you can?

Thanks.

If you can go to Terminal and type in and enter

Code: 
inxi -Fxz

and copy and paste the text to us, that would be good.

If inxi reports as not being found then first

Code: 
sudo apt-get -y install inxi

and when complete, retype and enter the inxi command.

If you are planning to use the Seagate with the old Dell, have it plugged in too.

Cheers

Wizard
 
wizardfromoz said:
@galen , just slow down a bit on the suggestions here, mate, as they may serve to confuse. :)

You may not have acquainted yourself with the OP's PC specs environment.

We not long ago completed this Thread

https://linux.org/threads/lenovo-winbook-100e-running-windows-10.33474

... but it gets a little complicated when Kari's focus moves from the Lenovo to "the old Dell", and she gets a Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1 TB portable external drive along the way.

If there is external storage available (as there is here) and if she had an SSD (which she doesn't) then it would be ill-advised to consume 80 GB of a 128 GB SSD with data, when it could be better deployed to running OSes quickly and efficiently.

I can see from David G.'s (@KGIII 's) How Long poll that you have 15 + years experience, so I expect you know this, but just for the benefit of The Viewers.

Kari, if you have not given us the specs for "the old Dell", and that is your choice of target for the enterprise (dual/multi-booting), can you supply those to us when you can?

Thanks.

If you can go to Terminal and type in and enter

Code: 
inxi -Fxz

and copy and paste the text to us, that would be good.

If inxi reports as not being found then first

Code: 
sudo apt-get -y install inxi

and when complete, retype and enter the inxi command.

If you are planning to use the Seagate with the old Dell, have it plugged in too.

Cheers

Wizard
Click to expand...
I had not planned on using the Seagate with the Dell... but do you think I should? I mean, the hard drive on it is 160GB, with only about 16GB used as of now... But I totally can use it with the Dell. Also, I am in the process of looking for a cheap SSD for the Dell on Newegg. the specs follow this...
 
karimfc said:
I had not planned on using the Seagate with the Dell... but do you think I should? I mean, the hard drive on it is 160GB, with only about 16GB used as of now... But I totally can use it with the Dell. Also, I am in the process of looking for a cheap SSD for the Dell on Newegg. the specs follow this...
Click to expand...
 
Specs
 

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.. but do you think I should?
Click to expand...

Totally up to you, Mate.

160 GB is certainly enough to run more than one, even 5 - 6 Linux.

But once your Home folder/partition starts to build in size with videos, games, pictures and complex documents, those limits can be pushed a little.

Further, we want to teach you how to use Timeshift as a System Restore solution which can save your bacon, and it does not feature a compression algorithm, so if 16 GB is consumed on your HDD, then the Timeshift snapshot stored will also be 16 GB.

Timeshift snapshots be default are set to store in Home, but they are best tweaked to be stored on an external drive, because if they are in Home, or even in a separate partition on the Dell's HDD and the HDD goes kaput, where does that leave you?

Have a think about it (and sleep), while I finish off the post I was working on for here.

Cheers

Wiz
 
if you do repartition the drive it is better to place the biggest need for storage first movies photos etc,
[........][..][..]
say your /home partition 1
and add a couple of
20MB partitions after that, 2nd for say Mint, 3rd for say MX
if you do multiboot dont use the same user name for each Linux (ive done that bad idea)
instead try usernames mint, mx

you can more easily resize those small partitions at the end of the drive than at the front
 
In #18, I mentioned an article here

https://www.linuxbabe.com/apps/create-multiboot-usb-linux-windows-iso at LinuxBabe, on multibooting burning solutions for USB.

It deals with

These 5 apps are:

  1. SARDU MultiBoot USB and DVD Creator
  2. MultiBootUSB
  3. MultiSystem
  4. YUMI (Your Universal MultBoot Installer)
  5. WinSetupFromUSB
Click to expand...

4. and 5. may be of use to other users, but can only be used under Windows. Kari’s target rig, the old Dell, has no Windows.

1. and 2. are cross-platform (Linux and Windows) and you download and install the appropriate version, or both if you are using both platforms.

3. Multisystem, is a French product I have had considerable success with for probably over 6 years now, and it is Linux only.

NOT mentioned in the article is a solution gaining more and more market share, and that is Ventoy.

Jarret Buse has written an article on it here

https://linux.org/threads/usb-linux-boot-ventoy.29944/

… but be sure to read the additional Posts by our own @captain-sensible , who is well-versed in Ventoy, and was the first to mention it in our Forum.

The LinuxBabe article is deficient in two (2) areas; in one it is lacking detail, and in the other the author is clearly mistaken. They both relate to Multisystem

The first (incomplete) is where he says

To install MultiSystem on Debian and Ubuntu-based Linux distros, open up a terminal and run the following command.

sudo apt install software-properties-common
Click to expand...

In fact, you only need to install software-properties-common on Debian itself, and its immediate derivatives, that includes MX-19, antiX, and so on.

That is because by default, Debian does not allow the use of the Ubuntu concept of PPA's (Personal Package Archives).

On Ubuntu-based distros (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin, Elementary OS, Linux Lite and so on), software-properties-common is already installed.

The second (totally wrong) is where he says

Cons:
  • Only works in Debian and Ubuntu-based Linux distros.
  • You need to write ISO images to your USB flash drive one by one.
  • The Linux distro ISO images written to the USB flash drive can’t be booted in UEFI mode, you need to enable legacy BIOS support in order to boot them.
Click to expand...

Bolded parts are wrong.

Multisystem supports well over 100 Linux, including the Families RPM (Fedora, centOS &c), Gentoo (Gentoo, Sabayon, Calculate), Arch-based such as Manjaro, Puppy, Slax, and so on.

You can see the list at

http://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?pages/os

Multisystem can be booted in UEFI only mode (did it today, and when it is burning it mentions the UEFI is recognised.)

So in summary, Kari and others could well do with having a sizable USB stick (16 GB to 64 GB), put on a number of Distros and give them a whirl, that is try before you buy, before installing any of them.

Tomorrow, I will deal a little more with the nuts and bolts of installing multiple distros to your hard drive.

Cheers

Wizard
 
wizardfromoz said:
In #18, I mentioned an article here

https://www.linuxbabe.com/apps/create-multiboot-usb-linux-windows-iso at LinuxBabe, on multibooting burning solutions for USB.

It deals with



4. and 5. may be of use to other users, but can only be used under Windows. Kari’s target rig, the old Dell, has no Windows.

1. and 2. are cross-platform (Linux and Windows) and you download and install the appropriate version, or both if you are using both platforms.

3. Multisystem, is a French product I have had considerable success with for probably over 6 years now, and it is Linux only.

NOT mentioned in the article is a solution gaining more and more market share, and that is Ventoy.

Jarret Buse has written an article on it here

https://linux.org/threads/usb-linux-boot-ventoy.29944/

… but be sure to read the additional Posts by our own @captain-sensible , who is well-versed in Ventoy, and was the first to mention it in our Forum.

The LinuxBabe article is deficient in two (2) areas; in one it is lacking detail, and in the other the author is clearly mistaken. They both relate to Multisystem

The first (incomplete) is where he says



In fact, you only need to install software-properties-common on Debian itself, and its immediate derivatives, that includes MX-19, antiX, and so on.

That is because by default, Debian does not allow the use of the Ubuntu concept of PPA's (Personal Package Archives).

On Ubuntu-based distros (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin, Elementary OS, Linux Lite and so on), software-properties-common is already installed.

The second (totally wrong) is where he says



Bolded parts are wrong.

Multisystem supports well over 100 Linux, including the Families RPM (Fedora, centOS &c), Gentoo (Gentoo, Sabayon, Calculate), Arch-based such as Manjaro, Puppy, Slax, and so on.

You can see the list at

http://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?pages/os

Multisystem can be booted in UEFI only mode (did it today, and when it is burning it mentions the UEFI is recognised.)

So in summary, Kari and others could well do with having a sizable USB stick (16 GB to 64 GB), put on a number of Distros and give them a whirl, that is try before you buy, before installing any of them.

Tomorrow, I will deal a little more with the nuts and bolts of installing multiple distros to your hard drive.

Cheers

Wizard
Click to expand...
I really appreciate all of y'all sharing your knowledge with me and walking me through the parts that I get stuck on. In the last few days, I have tried several different distros from live usb's and let me tell you, it's a pain in the rear installing a single iso on several different usb sticks (all of which are 32GB, so I know they can hold WAY more that just one). I have gotten 1 or 2 of them from a post on my first thread here, from a post made by wizardfromoz, where he was addressing Stan, I believe, but also I've tried to just randomly pick these distros from the drop down list on distrowatch.com, or, from the same menu, I have picked a couple that just caught my eye. They aren't all in the same "family", I don't believe, but here's my list of the one's that I've tried, and my thoughts on them:
1. Kubuntu; I didn't see anything that stuck out to me about this one, really. It's an "Ehh" in my book.
2. Zorin 15.3 Lite; Same as Zorin, as far as I could tell.
3. Star 3.1.0.-spock_2021.03-jmw-i686; I didn't like this one at all.
4. Nitrux; I never really tried it, despite the fact that it was the distro that I based my original content on. Still haven't but it is in the plan for Thursday, if I'm up for it.
5. RebellinGnome; Also, waiting for this surgery to happen first.
6. Anarchy-1.3.1; Lastly, waiting on Thursday.
I will gladly take comments/opinions/criticism about these distros, etc., it will just have to wait until I feel a little better. Anywho, it's almost midnight here, and I have to be up at 4 a.m., so, goodnight to y'all, and good wishes.
 
Good luck Kari - hopefully you won't need luck :) , you take your time recovering and we'll be here when you get back. I'll have some more in this Thread for when you are able.

Cheers

Wizard
 
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