Richard Owlett wrote: > On 05/14/2017 06:46 AM, David Wright wrote: >> On Sun 14 May 2017 at 04:57:07 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote: >>> On 05/14/2017 02:40 AM, Joe wrote: >>>> On Sat, 13 May 2017 20:54:04 -0400 >>>> RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 05/13/2017 12:40 PM, Richard Owlett wrote: >>>>>> I have a partition whose label is "common". >>>>> >>>>> I could almost smack myself in the head. I had done that when I used >>>>> to dual-boot Windows / Linux (now you can see why I'm not a fan of >>>>> dual-boot, I guess! LOL!). I also used to dual boot SolydX and SolydK >>>>> distributions. >>>>> >>>>> In my VMs, I do use the guest additions and have a shared directory >>>>> (necessity for what I need to do as well). >>>>> >>>>> But that was one way I had shared data. >>>>> >>>>> However, I still balk at dual-booting (like you balk at VMs :) ) >>>>> >>>> >>>> Another option I've used for some years: a pocket-sized USB hard drive >>>> with an i386 all-modules installation, which boots on practically >>>> anything that isn't an ARM. >>>> >>> >>> Can you clarify what you mean by the phrase "i386 all-modules >>> installation"? >> >> Recall this d-i screen? > > I do now ;) > Actually initrd and initramfs and were on my "google today" list. > That may that may explain something I've recently noticed. > As I experiment with many Debian versions and configurations I routinely > can multi-boot among a a half dozen (or more) choices. > > As I've had some spectacularly failed installs, my practice is to > install Grub *ONLY* with the *FIRST* install. That way the default > action is to boot a known good system and the questionable one will > generally be last on the list (Grub insists on listing /dev/sda10 before > /dev/sda2). > > What I'm investigating is an apparent anomaly: > 1. My primary machine had Jessie installed first with Squeeze > and Stretch later. It happily will boot all. > 2. I've set up a designated EXPERIMENTAL machine. Squeeze was > installed first and thus Grub is associated with it. > Wheezy and Jessie were installed without Grub. > Squeeze runs fine and will browse the web. > However, update-grub does not recognize either Wheezy or Jessie. > Also, a netinst of Stretch failed at the network setup step - > haven't done any trouble shooting yet. > > Two questions: > 1. Can I retroactively choose "include all available drivers" and > if so, how? > 2. How much free space would be required? As I was already planning > on some Grub experiments, I had left 10 MB un-partitioned before > /dev/sda1. That can easily be expanded. > > TIA
If you like hacking the initrd mkdir test && cd test && zcat /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r` | cpio -Hnewc -i ... find . ! -name *~ | cpio -H newc --create | gzip -9 > /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r` I foundthisvery useful over the years, especially for testing things out 10MB would be enough for 1 kernel+initrd & co I wouldn't use dedicated boot partition in your case. For testing you can leave all on one partition. If you use dedicated boot partition and want to share it among different installs - watch out to not format it ... and you must keep all your kernels+initrd there. regards
