Hi, I decided I should again test setting up 'multi boot linux installations' on a single PC with multiple disk drives, to verify my previous failures at doing this.
The result of this test? It seems that Grub does a great job of booting from multiple linux installations. For testing I created a KVM VM using Virt-Manager. I added up to five virtual disk drives to the VM (later I hope to add more). So far I have installed three separate Debian Bookworm installations, each with a different Desktop Environment (Gnome, XFCE, KDE). In each case (e.g. installation) I installed grub to the installation's own virtual disk drive (i.e. if I was installing to vdc then I installed grub to vdc. This means I can take out the drive and put it into another computer (e.g. in my test case a different VM). When I put a drive into its own computer, Grub will complain that the other drives are not available, but grub config can be edited to remove the non existent drives. While installing each of the installations, each installation discovered the previous installations and configure grub to boot from them. Hence only the last installed Linux installation's grub contained all other installations. To get the earlier installations to discover the later installed installations, I ran grub-mkconfig as per the below web site's instructions. This worked very well. Later on I want to try this on a physical PC that I wanted to use the ability of grub. # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg https://averagelinuxuser.com/dual-boot-arch-linux-with-linux/ Thanks to all who replied to this query, you encouraged me to do a bit more research, and all I can say is I am embarrassed how easy it was to set up. George. On Thursday, 26-09-2024 at 07:19 George at Clug wrote: > My experiences - George. > > On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote: > > On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote: > > > An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and Debian > > > Mate, Debian XFCE. > > > > What issues you have faced trying to install multiple desktop > > environment to the same Debian installation? > > Grub did not find other existing Linux distributions. Found Windows, but not > other linux distributions. > > I did not try hard to determine the reason. I decided if it did not work, > don't pursue the issue. > > > Display managers allow to > > select session type before login (but some can not remember per-user > > preferences). > > Using a different display manager is not the same as using a different > installation. > > > > > I do not expect serious issues with multiple Linux flavors. Perhaps > > installer should be switched to expert mode to adjust some defaults. > > I do use expert mode when installing Debian. > > > > > If you still prefer to have independent Debian installations then in the > > case of UEFI and shim-signed+grub-efi-amd64 (for Secure Boot) on the > > same ESP partition see > > <https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/vc31n1$ahn$1...@ciao.gmane.io> > > [SUMMARY] Re: UEFI multiboot. Sat, 14 Sep 2024 10:59:29 +0700 > > When ever possible, I do not use Secure Boot. Though in my attempt to have > multiple Linux installations, I did try (once). > > > > > You need grub 2.12 from bookworm-backports and custom GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR > > in /etc/default/grub. > > > > Despite in that thread I was trying to concentrate on selecting OS from > > UEFI firmware menu, Felix Miata repeatedly insisted on using grub menu > > for this purpose. In your case grub menu may be easier to maintain. > > Perhaps Felix may provide more details now to do it conveniently. > > > > > >
