Dual booting Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 [same harddrive]

[gowtham-pro]

I want to install Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 on the same drive. I have already installed Ubuntu 12.04 and I have manually partitioned the drive.


300 MB boot; 20 GB root; 400 GB Home; 5GB Swap


500 GB is unpartitoned. (left for 14.04)


Now I want to install 14.04. How do i go about partitioning the remaining 500 GB for 14.04. I will create another Home and root partition, but do I also have to create another boot partition? I don't want to have any grub issues. I just want both the installation to be separate and neat.

[grahammechanical]

Me? I do not use a boot partition. I have one large partition where I keep my data. I also have several 25 GB partitions where I install different versions and flavours of Ubuntu. Each install creates a /boot folder and a /home folder in the partition. I can access my data partition whatever version of Ubuntu I am working from. And if I need to re-install, then my data is safe.

Your way, would indeed require separate / (root); /boot; /home partitions. The Something Else option of the installer will allow you to set up those partitions and the new install will work just find. There will be no confusion as to which partition is being use by which OS. The partitions are given a unique identification code.

But I would not use the same partition for /home for two installations. It can be done but there will be a mixing of folders and user configuration files.

Regards.

[gowtham-pro]

Me? I do not use a boot partition. I have one large partition where I keep my data. I also have several 25 GB partitions where I install different versions and flavours of Ubuntu. Each install creates a /boot folder and a /home folder in the partition. I can access my data partition whatever version of Ubuntu I am working from. And if I need to re-install, then my data is safe.

Your way, would indeed require separate / (root); /boot; /home partitions. The Something Else option of the installer will allow you to set up those partitions and the new install will work just find. There will be no confusion as to which partition is being use by which OS. The partitions are given a unique identification code.

But I would not use the same partition for /home for two installations. It can be done but there will be a mixing of folders and user configuration files.

Regards.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm just experimenting things. I think your method is more efficient and easy to access all the data from any installation. So this is what I understand. If I have 1TB storage, I can use 500 GB for Data and allocate a separate Swap partition for all the OSs to use and create small 50GB partitions for each and every OS I wish to install. In each and every small 50 GB partitions will have root, home, and boot for that particular OS. This wouldn't break Grub right? Appreciate your help.

[Dennis N]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm just experimenting things. I think your method is more efficient and easy to access all the data from any installation. So this is what I understand. If I have 1TB storage, I can use 500 GB for Data and allocate a separate Swap partition for all the OSs to use and create small 50GB partitions for each and every OS I wish to install. In each and every small 50 GB partitions will have root, home, and boot for that particular OS. This wouldn't break Grub right? Appreciate your help.

What is going to happen when you install grub to the MBR each time is that the grub from the most recent install is the one that is working in the end. So you need to know that. So, if you had a nice custom grub menu set up you will lose it when you install a second OS unless you take special steps to prevent its grub from taking over.

I don't use separate home partitions in the installations, but a separate data partition like grahammechanical does. I also do not use boot partitions.

All this assumes these are not being installed in UEFI mode on a GPT disk. Then you may have a problem getting two Ubuntus on there.

[gowtham-pro]

What is going to happen when you install grub to the MBR each time is that the grub from the most recent install is the one that is working in the end. So you need to know that. So, if you had a nice custom grub menu set up you will lose it when you install a second OS unless you take special steps to prevent its grub from taking over.

I don't use separate home partitions in the installations, but a separate data partition like grahammechanical does. I also do not use boot partitions.

All this assumes these are not being installed in UEFI mode on a GPT disk. Then you may have a problem getting two Ubuntus on there.

Then how do I go about achieving this? All I want is to install 2 Ubuntu installations. Or lets keep things simple. How about this?

ext4 - Ubuntu 14.04
ext4 - Ubuntu 12.04
Swap

I just don't want to deal with any grub issues.

Thanks

[Bashing-om]

gowtham-prol Hi !

Like many I too multi-boot on multiple hard drives .


##My primary OS##
sysop@1404mini:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 4.7G 1.8G 2.8G 39% /
none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs 2.0G 12K 2.0G 1% /tmp
tmpfs 396M 744K 395M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 2.0G 20M 2.0G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 16K 100M 1% /run/user
/dev/sda2 9.5G 1.3G 7.8G 14% /home
/dev/sda8 4.7G 1.6G 2.9G 36% /var
sysop@1404mini:~$

##All my disks/partitions##
sysop@1404mini:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
[sudo] password for sysop:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00065f5e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 10242047 5120000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 10244096 30724095 10240000 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 34207742 976771071 471281665 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 443795688 443811689 8001 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 443811753 597409154 76798701 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 597409792 976771071 189680640 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 34207744 44447743 5120000 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002ea65

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2048 102402438 51200195+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 * 102404096 204804095 51200000 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x502a9772

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 976768064 488384001 83 Linux
sysop@1404mini:~$
##and how I am doing it##
sysop@1404mini:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="1404mroot" UUID="3a47f1f1-ed1f-4134-b6aa-be101a7d97b4" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="1404mhome" UUID="29a6fc4f-ff12-4cac-8eb1-e98e50f1107f" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="192a4783-56fa-4fd0-a62f-c45a14c08482" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda6: LABEL="DATA" UUID="3ad091a1-5036-463b-ba4e-88e98e41b07a" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="LUBU1404" UUID="4e6cd96d-49bd-47f0-9dfe-8eeebad4cf9d" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda8: LABEL="1404mvar" UUID="136af805-5758-4880-acc4-0e1d35e2c266" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="1404std" UUID="345cab2e-22e7-4f89-8781-05cc0f7628a2" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc2: LABEL="ubie1204" UUID="7dd23297-30ea-417a-8f69-3e2df76f3192" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="my_stuff" UUID="6a24777c-8191-4230-81f1-376f31b321e5" TYPE="ext4"
sysop@1404mini:~$

Dual booting 'sda' and 'sdc' with grub installed to MBR on each.
Once you learn how, managing grub - and fixing it when it breaks - is no big deal .



just food for thought



for what works

[yancek]

It is much simpler to just create one partition for the filesystem, maybe a swap and then create a separate partition for data. You can then put whatever data you have such as documents, pictures, videos or what ever on this partition and have it mounted and accessible from either operating system, in your case 12.04 and 14.04. Since both systems will be on the same drive, install Grub from the new 14.04 to the master boot record as part of the installation and it will detect 12.04 and create an entry for it in the boot menu.

I have both systems installed as well as about 10 other operating systems and find this a much simpler method.

[Dennis N]

Then how do I go about achieving this? All I want is to install 2 Ubuntu installations. Or lets keep things simple. How about this?

ext4 - Ubuntu 14.04
ext4 - Ubuntu 12.04
Swap

I just don't want to deal with any grub issues.

Thanks

That is really all you need. A root partition for each OS, and a swap partition that either will use. Whichever you install second will control the grub, but it is probably not going to make any difference to you which that is - either will pick up the other and list it in the grub menu*. If you are undecided about the data partition idea, you can easily create one later out of unallocated space. As it is, either OS can access files in the other one.

* possibly better to do 14.04 last, as it MAY give a cleaner grub menu.

If this is an MSDos Partition table, and the ones you show are primary partitions, remember the next partition should be an extended partition using the rest of the disk (to be then carved up into logical partitions). A data partition would be one if these.

Possible Partitions:

sda1 Ubuntu 12.04
sda2 Ubuntu 14.04
sda3 swap
sda4 Extended (using remaining disk space)
--sda5 (logical) Data
--unallocated in sda4


I would leave unallocated space for future expansion. Once you see how easy this is, you may want to add additional OS installs, for example. Good luck.

[yancek]

I think it is a lot simpler to create just one partition for the entire filesystem of each distribution you install. 15-25GB should be more than enough but if you have a large drive or multiple drives, you can make the partitions larger. Then create an Extended partition as suggested above and you can create various partitions for different types of data.