[SOLVED] Hardy plus something?

[sayakb]

Hello all
I have tried various distros, but never dual booted Linux with Linux.
I have a laptop with this setup:

glade@Mean-Machine:~$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             9.5G  3.5G  5.6G  39% /
varrun                499M   88K  499M   1% /var/run
varlock               499M     0  499M   0% /var/lock
udev                  499M   44K  499M   1% /dev
devshm                499M   12K  499M   1% /dev/shm
lrm                   499M   43M  457M   9% /lib/modules/2.6.24-18-generic/volatile
/dev/sda3             146G   29G  115G  20% /home
gvfs-fuse-daemon      9.5G  3.5G  5.6G  39% /home/glade/.gvfs
glade@Mean-Machine:~$

So I could naturally shrink my /home by 10GB or something.
Now the question is, which distro should I install on that 10GB space, keeping in mind:
1. It shouldn't be based on Ubuntu (Since I can install DEs and WMs and use them as different sessions, so I see no reason to install a whole new OS ). Like for example, rather than installing fluxbuntu, I'll install fluxbox WM.
2. It should not screw up my Hardy installation (Ive spent loads of time on Hardy, and I don't want to lose it )

Which distro will recognize Hardy and add it to GRUB/LILO or whatever? Please suggest something that is 100% sure to follow these two criteria.

Thanks in advance
Regards
Dave
(Sayak Banerjee)

[JoshuaRL]

Try Gentoo, and talk to ajmorris for help. He's really good at Gentoo.

[sayakb]

Ok.. guess I don't have an ISO.. I'll download it
Is it 100% certain that I won't lose Hardy?
Thanks

[JoshuaRL]

Well, I'm not 100% certain from personal experience. I've only booted up the live CD. But I know that ajmorris here on the forums dual boots it, and is really knowledgable about Gentoo. I'm sure he'd love to help if you needed it.

Just a little FYI about Gentoo. Don't look for help from their forums. There's a big knowledgebase there, but not very nice.

[sayakb]

Thanks I'll contact ajmorris after I download the ISO.

[sayakb]

I was also thinking of Suse10.3
Has anyone done Suse10.3 install on a system having Hardy and the result has been positive?

[dje]

i've had two installs of ubuntu on the same computer and during installation it detects the other and adds it to the new menu.lst before installing grub onto the new install so you can choose which at boot up

hope that helps,
dje

[Oldsoldier2003]

I was also thinking of Suse10.3
Has anyone done Suse10.3 install on a system having Hardy and the result has been positive?

I havent used suse in a long time but there should be no issues. lately (within the last month I have mutlibooted these oses with hardy as my main OS. Some of them required some grub magic but nothing a semi advanced new user couldn't handle...


PCLinuxOS- cant remember
Fedora-Recognized Ubuntu
Debian (Lenny and also Etch)- always recognizes ubuntu and other oses
Gentoo- i think i had to grub this one
Arch- had to grub
Mint- recognized ubuntu
CentOS- IIRC i had to configure grub
Slackware- had to grub
Slax- cant remember
puppy linux- pretty sure it recognized ubuntu
damn small linux- pretty sure it recognized ubuntu

I tried several other distributions as well but these are the most memorable ones.

[meborc]

i would try fedora 9... and/or arch... in arch you would need to configure grub yourself i believe

and btw - you can't lose hardy unless you format the partition hardy is on... otherwise, even if grub does not recognize hardy, it is really easy to fix grub

[sayakb]

i would try fedora 9... and/or arch... in arch you would need to configure grub yourself i believe

and btw - you can't lose hardy unless you format the partition hardy is on... otherwise, even if grub does not recognize hardy, it is really easy to fix grub

Yes right. Ofcourse !!