Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Vinny -- No wonder the how-to's (mine included) may not always make sense for everyone. Maybe we should invent a stochastic version of GRUB, like GRUB S, where it will do a certain task T with probability G(T). A little humor. Based on some of the quirks I've seen, seems GRUB 2 wasn't tested much on multi-disk/multi-distro setups. I really can't imagine why it would matter, Vinny, but I got my Desktop download from Utah, just an fyi.

@aiiee Seems you were right about some stuff. Sorry I jumped to conclusions and glossed over some things you said. Glad you found the workaround for now.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Vinny -- No wonder the how-to's (mine included) may not always make sense for everyone. Maybe we should invent a stochastic version of GRUB, like GRUB S, where it will do a certain task T with probability G(T). A little humor. Based on some of the quirks I've seen, seems GRUB 2 wasn't tested much on multi-disk/multi-distro setups. I really can't imagine why it would matter, Vinny, but I got my Desktop download from Utah, just an fyi.

@aiiee Seems you were right about some stuff. Sorry I jumped to conclusions and glossed over some things you said. Glad you found the workaround for now.

All I knew was it shouldn't be that difficult, everything else was up to you all. Glad it came up.

[Mountain Man]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

This is for anyone, like I did last night, searching for a solution to the issues they are encountering trying to install the standard 9.10 into an existing dual boot set up. The solution is easy: YOU CANT.

From the Kubuntu Guide, the 'Karmic' page:

Installing Kubuntu

Warning: Kubuntu Desktop edition installer no longer allows a custom installation of GRUB, and it now uses GRUB2, which allows very little customization. DO NOT USE the Karmic Koala Desktop edition if you use a boot partition, use multiple OS (more than 2), or chainload bootloaders. The Kubuntu installer will overwrite your Master Boot Record and you will later be forced to recreate it. This is a serious flaw in Karmic Koala. Use the Ubuntu Server edition instead (and then later add the kubuntu-desktop).

The Kubuntu Server edition installer does not have this problem, and, in general, I recommend its use instead (adding a kubuntu-desktop to the server afterwards).

We'll see how well the server installs now. Wow. Why in the world switch to Grub2

I installed Kubuntu last night on an existing dual boot system without a problem. I have Windows on sda and repartitioned sdb for Kubuntu (previously held Gentoo). In order to make sure grub installed to the right drive I had to click "Advanced" on the last screen just before the install and select sda as my boot drive. The install went without a hitch, and grub 2 replaced my previous bootloader (grub). The only problem I've had is that grub 2 takes an inordinate amount of time to present me with the menu. Previously it was instantaneous but now it takes upwards of 10-seconds before I get the menu. However, the system does boot eventually so it's an annoyance rather than a deal breaker.

All that is to say that I'm not sure that entry is entirely correct.

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Welcome to the forum Mountain Man!
Yes, my experience is like yours wrt dual boot setups using GRUB 2 -- no problems.
As for your slow boot times, that's a known bug, it has been fixed, hopefully the fix will be in the updates soon (or now?):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...b2/+bug/420933
(the fix is announced toward the end)

[Mountain Man]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Welcome to the forum Mountain Man!

Thanks.

Also good to know the grub 2 problem has been resolved.

[vinnywright]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Sence I went thrugh the fun of making a new test box eney way I'v decided to take this the other way to.

this time Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic will go in first to /sda2 with grub2 in sda then add 2 more linux distroes to see how easey it is to add them to grub2!

I still had to use the 9.10 alpha cd as none of the 3 relece cd's I DL'ed from 3 diferent merror's wouldent let me do eneything with sda..........I'm starting to think it's a hardware problem with this box......XP will not compleat it's install on this box at all.........but the 9.10 alpha cd will let me play with eney partition I want ...............so on with it.
the box is as so

sda
sda1=swap |
sda2=ext3 }= Kubuntu-9.10-alpha cd
sda3=ext3 |

sdb |
sdb1=ext3 }= Ultimalinux-8.4 (a modifyied slackware hack) by martin Multima
sdb2=ext3 |

sdc |
sdc1=ext3 }= Xubuntu-8.04
sdc2=ext3 |

grub2 is in sda

first Kubuntu 9.10 installed to sda1 and checked to see it booted ok and it runs ok.

then Ultimalinux is instaled in sdb1 and no bootloader is checked in the installer (modifyied wolvix control panel installer barowed from wolvin and the guy's at wolvix)
Boot back to Kubuntu open a console and

sudo update-grub

and all 3 of the Kernels are picked up and added to the boot menu (an SCSI kernel an ultima Kernel and an USB Kernel )

Next Xubuntu-8.04 is installed to sdc and agin no bootloader is checked in the install prosess.

reboot to Kubuntu and do the

sudo update-grub

and it was panlesley added to the boot menu to 8)

the onley glitch......the Ultimalinux detecs the drives as hdx and grub has on it's boot line root=/dev/sdb1 so it must edited to read root=/dev/hdb1 but that is as easey as Highlighting the line and presing E then you can edit the line as if in a text editor and press ctrl>x to boot your edit. 8)

so in some wayes grub2 seams to add extra OS's prity easy..........on a side note that's what I forgot when riting the report on my adventurs doing this with XP first ........I had to add XP to grub with the ubuve comand.

O and each of the installes had thare own /home partition !!

VINNY

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Thanks again Vinny for doing these experiments. All good news.

However, I and another experienced user here have been unable to get
sudo update-grub
to recognize our sidux OS (where GRUB 2 is in sda and sidux is on another drive, like sdb3). We both had to add sidux as a custom entry (like a file 41_Custom_etc in /etc/grub.d). Even then, my sidux booted OK using the custom entry; but my friend's sidux would not boot using a custom boot entry.

One more thing along these experiments. Of course, you can install GRUB 2 to a Master Boot Record. But word has it around the forums that you should not install GRUB 2 to a partition--that you should do so at your own risk; there is even a warning that may pop up to that effect if you do it. Well ... geez ... I do it all the time and with no problems! (Once, I did get that warning message from GRUB 2.) After doing it, I can test it by chainloading that partition, like this:
grub>set root=(hdx,y)
grub>chainloader +1
grub>boot
(And, of course, it works every time.)

There ya go. Instead of reading an informative official Manual (which doesn't exist), here we are experimenting, drawing inductive conclusions, and inconsistently at that!

Btw, I know you believe me (right pal? ), I actually do possess a Final 9.10 Live Desktop download that has a fully working Advanced button in the Summary Step of the Manual partitioning method. After all, I DO believe YOU that you don't have such a CD.

Wonder what luck you'd have with booting sidux on sdbx or sdcy?

Thanks, again, Vinny.

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

@ Vinny, Just an fyi:
grub-setup: warn: Attempting to install GRUB to a partition instead of the MBR. This is a BAD idea.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...b2/+bug/445416
(aka mikeXYZ @Launchpad, btw)

[vinnywright]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

There ya go. Instead of reading an informative official Manual (which doesn't exist), here we are experimenting, drawing inductive conclusions, and inconsistently at that!

Btw, I know you believe me (right pal? ), I actually do possess a Final 9.10 Live Desktop download that has a fully working Advanced button in the Summary Step of the Manual partitioning method. After all, I DO believe YOU that you don't have such a CD.

Wonder what luck you'd have with booting sidux on sdbx or sdcy?

Thanks, again, Vinny.

O but of corse I beleve you Mr.Qqmike my linux frend

thats why I'm now thinking that it's a hardware thing with the box it's self that is Keeping me from doing eneything with sda through the installer...........

I'm going to find sidux now to see what we see when we see it.............LOL

back with more on that later ............. 8)

VINNY

[vinnywright]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

I have now this

sidux-2009-03-momos-xfce-i386-200911110039.iso

the KDE full .ISO is duel arc. and over 2Gig and the test box onley has cd so........think I have a old DVD drive some ware in the junk room.........Humm

and the first snag is that the installer wont let me NOT install grub.........so it's going in sdc with sidux in sdc1 and /home in sdc2.
the install is in progress ..........back with more in a few

VINNY

[vinnywright]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

OK so first boot after sidux install and I get the dreded ( fsck: last check in the future ) error when trying to boot Karmic and get droped to a shell ware I run sudo fdisk -l to make shure what's what and then do a sudo e2fsck /dev/sda2 .....(Karmic's root) ctrl>alt>delete to reboot and this time I get in.

now a console and the sudo update-grub thing and it finds squeeze/sid on /dev/sdc1 ok good

reboot and yup thar it is in the grub menu and it boot's just fine...........

so thar we go 2 totaley different resaults on different boxes just for the FYI of it hears some stuff from sidux to shoe base install sizes for root.

test@siduxbox:~$
free shared buffers cached
Mem: 384964 202868 182096 0 39472 108592
-/+ buffers/cache: 54804 330160
Swap: 2570360 0 2570360


test@siduxbox:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 9.1G 1.6G 7.1G 19% /
tmpfs 10M 124K 9.9M 2% /dev
tmpfs 188M 4.0K 188M 1% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs 188M 4.0K 188M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 9.7G 2.2G 7.1G 24% /media/disk1part2
/dev/sda3 62G 181M 59G 1% /media/disk1part3
/dev/sdb1 9.7G 3.4G 5.9G 37% /media/disk2part1
/dev/sdb2 29G 174M 27G 1% /media/disk2part2
/dev/sdc2 28G 177M 27G 1% /home
test@siduxbox:~$

sda2= bace install of Karmic's /
sdb1= bace install os Ultimalinux's /
sdc1= bace install of sidux's /

and the free = sidux's use of memrey at start.

8)

VINNY

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

Hummm. Nice, Vinny. Interesting.
So 3 different results:
> one guy had to make a custom boot entry for sidux, and yet it didn't work;
> one guy (me) had to make a custom boot entry for sidux, and it DID work;
> one guy (you) did not have to make any custom boot entry for sidux (update-grub worked OK), and it did also work fine to boot sidux.

There ya go. No pattern! Like rolling dice, except as you say, the variable might be hardware setup.

Many thanks for running that for us, Vinny.

--Mike

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

fwiw, in trying to find out why I could not install 9.10 over my Mandriva install, I did notice I am getting some i/o errors when booting on my hdc, which was my boot drive. It wasn't enough to stop the system from booting existing systems, but perhaps the installer won't install on a drive unless it is error free? It didn't stop Ubuntu Server 8.04 fro installing, but maybe newer versions do care? I just noticed this and thought I'd pass it along, as it wasn't mentioned before.

[kevinc]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

I've been running Sidux alongside Kubuntu since 2009.1, now 2009.3 and I'm using GRUB on MBR installed by Sidux, after MBR was messed up by a couple of installs of different distros.
The good news is that Kubuntu CD's have a rescue mode and that allows you to use grub-install to fix problems like that, especially caused by GRUB2.

I've just added Debian Squeeze and it ONLY allows GRUB2 (even with the expert mode), so I wrote to the / partition and manually edited my /boot/grub/menu.lst in Sidux. Everything works nicely.

[Mountain Man]

Re: Installing Kubuntu Over Another Linux Distribution

The only problem I've had is that grub 2 takes an inordinate amount of time to present me with the menu.

Just a follow-up: I solved this problem by installing grub2 to the same drive as the boot directory. Previously I had it installed on hd0 and the boot directory on hd1, but I installed it to hd1 and changed the boot order in my BIOS so now it comes up instantly like it should.

Seems to me it's still a bug, but it's easy to work around.