[clue-tech] same partition, multiple distros questions

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Sun, 2010-10-03 at 21:36 -0600, Mike Bean wrote:
> 
> So, I have a question for the group.  I've been thinking about
> partitioning, and experimenting on a desktop that doesn't have
> anything I'd consider valuable on it.  I got to trying this idea of
> sharing partitions, for example, mount a different logical part
> for /home, /root, etc...etc...  At first I even tried having both
> distros use the same boot.  (In retrospect, not my brightest moment.)
> But I seriously came to wonder, Why couldn't they use the same swap?
> System wouldn't run them both at the same time, so they wouldn't need
> to share!

There have been some simple problems in the past that scared many of us
away from trying one hard drive and multiple distributions (or similar
setups).  A common problem I remember is distribution A booting up and
looking for a filesystem labeled /home to use as home, finding the wrong
one or multiple and having problems.

For those of us with real reasons to use multiple distributions, the
simplest route is virtual machines.  This way you get an easy to setup,
predictable sandbox with a complete environment that doesn't have many
surprises.

If you try to do this and get it working, please report back your
results.  I'd imagine with the right recipe it's possible and reliable
but without it, just not worth the effort in many cases.

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
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