On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 12:33:37PM -0700, Dino Vliet wrote:
>
> currently I have installed FreeBSD 6 and Ubuntu Breezy on my AMD 64
> system. Everything worked fine, but I decided to upgrade my Ubuntu
> partition. Due to EOL of Breezy, the difficult upgrade method of
> Ubuntu amd-64, the fact that I am curious about Debian and I can't
> loose anything on my FreeBSD partition, I decided to install Debian
> Etch in stead of the Ubuntu partition.
>
> 1) I'm using grub on Ubuntu to choose which OS to boot (I've edited
> some grub configuration files under /etc to let it recognize freebsd)
> 2) I already backed up most important files on my FreeBSD partition,
> but the be honest I hope the installation of debian goes so smooth
> that I won't need the hassle of restoring everything by hand.
>
> The questions I have are: 1) Will I need to reinstall grub and edit it
> again to let it recognize FreeBSD? Or can I choose not to insall grub
> and will the old one from ubuntu just kick in and let me boot debian
> instead (I don't think it would be as easy as it sounds) 2) What are
> the chances of everything going smooth? I want to know if there are
> risks because I really like the FreeBSD partition and I invested a lot
> of time to get it the way I want it.
>
Welcome to Debian.
0. Wrap your lines at 72 chars (I did this for this email).
1. You will want/need to use Debian's grub. Debian has a system
whereby kernel upgrades automatically update grub. That said,
since its grub, you can just add the stanzas you need after the
debian install. Note that due to update-grub, what appear to be
single-# comments are really directives to update-grub whereas
real comments are ##. You would put the FreeBSD stanzas before
or after the AUTOMATIC KERNELS LIST section. Note that in
Debian, grub's config file is /boot/grub/menu.lst.
For all I know, never having dual-booted, Etch intaller will do
create a stanza for FreeBSD for you.
2. There are always risks. You may have invested time to get
FreeBSD set up but where all do those changes occur? You should
have a backup of /etc (either full or just what you've changed)
plus any of your data. If all goes well....
I haven't used FreeBSD. Do you have a way to boot it if grub
messes up? Or, do you have a grub-disk (e.g. floppy or USB that
presents a grub boot menu)?
Before you install, read the full installation manual, especially as it
relates to the partitioner. The partitioner is very flexible and
setting up partitions is what takes most of the interactive time during
an install.
Good luck,
Doug.
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