12.04 dual boot with lubuntu

[bbb13]

i have already installed kubuntu 12.04 on my sony vaio laptop.i want to install also lubuntu 12.04. i have these partitions now: /boot , / , /home. first of all can i use the same /boot and /home partition for lubuntu? and if i do does /boot needs formating when installing lubuntu? i had a couple of failed attempts with these symptoms: grub never recognised my kubuntu partition and i had to fix it with boot repair CD and aftet that i get a mess with a dozen ubuntu grub entries. another thing is tha after i fixed grub and boot kubuntu,in the login screen writes " the disk drive for /boot is not ready yet" i tried couple of things but nothing worked.so probably i'm doing something wrong.

please any ideas will be much appreciated, thnx.

[wilee-nilee]

You can install lubuntu in kubuntu and just choose it at the login.


sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktopYOU don't need a boot partition unless you have a lvm setup, just for future reference.

This is what I would do, it is your choice. :)

[bbb13]

yeah i already know about the installing desktop but i dont wanna do that, wanna keep my OSs clean.i want lubuntu for better battery management when my laptop is not on cable. i thought keeping a boot partition would guarantee that if the system screws at least you keep your boot options intact. ok so lets assume i don't need the boot partition, how do i proceed in order to have my 2 Ubuntu's ?

[cortman]

First make sure you have some unallocated space on your HDD for the Lubuntu installation. If you don't, boot from a live CD and use GParted to resize the partitions.
Then when you go to install Lubuntu, just make sure you choose to manually install, and create new / and /home partitions from the empty space. That should be all that's involved.
As far as sharing /home, some people do it with success, some not- I think if it's two *buntu systems it'd stand a better chance of working. I would'nt recommend it but I can obviously see its advantages, if you're planning to switch between the two frequently.

[oldfred]

You cannot share /boot as that will lead to conflicts. Most desktops do not even need a separate /boot partition.

Some say you can share /home but use different user names. But I think that defeats the purpose. With multi-booting I reverse the idea of a separate /home and include /home inside the install. But I create a data partition and put all user data into the data partition and link (others suggest bind) all the folders from the data partition back into the /home.

I used to use XP a fair amount and put Firefox & Thunderbird profiles in a shared NTFS partition, so I had the same emails & bookmarks in all my systems. I still have those profiles in the NTFS partition even though I rarely boot XP. Just have not reorganized yet.

Herman on advantages/disadvantages of separate system partitions post#3
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1410392

I prefer a separate /data partition. Then you can easily share your data without having the conflict of the user settings in hidden files & folders. Works best if all installed systems are Debian based, see UID issues below.

The actual user settings are small. My /home is 1GB with about 3/4 of that as .wine with Picasa which I have not yet moved to my /data. Because /home is small I now keep it as part of / (root).
Then I can have a fully functioning system on one drive but have data linked in from other partitions on other drives.

Data can be shared without the possible conflicts of user settings being different in different versions. I only copy some settings from one install to the next, normally. But I have to separately back up /home and the /data partition. Also saves the error of reformating a /home partition accidentally. I never reformat my /data and just configure / for install.

Splitting home directory discussion:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1811198
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1901437
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1734233&highlight=%2Fdata

[bbb13]

i installed first lubuntu 12.04 and then kubuntu 12.04 and everything in grub menu worked fine.

thnx
cheers

PS. with no /home partitions no /boot. every partition has only the /
and i kept all my data in another shared ext4 partition.