Some of the filesystem lend themselves better to dual-mounting than others. As Sun Liwen pointed out, mounting the swap partition on both systems makes is a good idea. Mounting /home on both systems is also an excellent idea. If you do this, all you applications should maintain settings acroos both installations. /var/www should be fine to share also, assuming that this is the document root of an Apache installation.
Sharing /boot and and / is not a good idea however. Particularly since you don't have a separate /etc where all the machine specific configuration files live. You can get a lot of information on this topic from the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). An advanced technique that you could consider is not to dual-boot at all, but to run Debian in chroot environment under gentoo. In this setup, both distributions can run simultaneously while sharing the same kernel. I haven't this myself I'm afraid but there is plenty of literature describing it. > -----Original Message----- > From: Sun Liwen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, 1 December 2004 4:39 PM > To: Lian Liming; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Question about Dual boot Linux on one box > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Lian Liming" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 12:14 PM > Subject: Question about Dual boot Linux on one box > > > > Hi all, > > I have a box with a pre-installed gentoo system. Since > that system is > > installed by my friend and we share the same box, i can't > destroy it. I'd > > like to use Debian system. So i am thinking about two boot > linux system -- > > Gentoo && Debian -- working on the same box. > > There are several questions that i am quite confused as > following: > > > > 1) the partitions. > > The pre-installed gentoo system has the following > partitions: > > /dev/hda1 mount at /boot > > /dev/hda2 mount at swap > > /dev/hda3 mount at / > > /dev/hda4 mount at /home > > /dev/hda5 mount at /var/www > > and there is another partition /dev/hda6 has no > filesystem on it. > > My questions about partitions is that, to install > debian system on > > it. Is it possible to share /boot, /home, /var/www with the > gentoo system? > > The advantage doing this is that we can share the > information better. If > > we share /home, then i can have accounts on both Gentoo and > Debian system. > > And the two accounts on both system share the same > directory, i don't need > > have two copy of my personal datas. > > > > Another further and *crazy* question is that : can > i share "/" > > partition with Gentoo && Debian? I know that they are all > linux system > > with similar filesystem structure, but Gentoo and Debian have their > > different features, for example, Gentoo has a way to hold > its portages > > system. To share the "/" really sounds crazy, but i just > wonder is it > > possible? Maybe someone else has tried on this. > > 2) the boot loader program > > I am not familiar with the boot loader on Linux so > this is another > > question that confused me so much. > > The pre-installed Gentoo has installed "Grub" and > the boot loader > > is installed on mbr. So if i install debian, Should i > installed another > > boot loader such as Grub or lilo? > > Or is it possible that i don't install boot loader > on debian , and > > just use the "grub" on the Gentoo, add some entries to the > grub config > > file so that i can select debian on the system boot? > > > > 3) insteresting kernel question > > It is really an insteresting question, can i use the kernel > > compiling on the other system? For example, i compile a > 2.6.9 kernel on > > Gentoo, and i just copy the binary kernel to Debian system > and boot from > > the kernel on Debian. Actually, this question is not > important. I am just > > interested on this topic. > > > > > > I am not a linux guru and sorry for my poor English, > if i can't > > explain something clear, please think free to point it out. > > Thank you very much for any suggestion. > > > hi, > i have a box with debian and gentoo dual boot. > they share swap partition only. > but i play a little trick, i make the admin user on the > diferent system have > the > same uid number, then i can share files. > > i think you can install only one grub to boot the two system > with editing > menu.lst. > ps: two grub is ok. > > / directory is not suitable to share. > > > poor english, too. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
