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Operating Systems Linux Slackware Install more than one OS in a single partition... Post 302160582 by niterobin on Tuesday 22nd of January 2008 06:41:02 AM
Old 01-22-2008
My thought is that it depends on the file system. If both operating systems use the same file system and one of them has dual boot capabilties, then it's possible. The only example I know of this was OS/2 and MS-DOS/Windows, if the partition was formatted as FAT16.

I'm not sure it would be possible with Unixes, as I don't know very much about the file systems concerned. I personally run Slackware, which is formatted as EXT2, and also WINXP, which uses NTFS formatting for its partition. Because the formatting of the file systems are different, it isn't possible, as far as I know, to install both of the operating systems on the same partition. And, even if it was, then you'd need a boot loader to switch between each of the operating systems. If one doesn't exist, then you'd have to write it yourself - and I *really* don't have a clue as to how to go about doing that.

If you're trying to install a second operating system without losing data from the first one, then maybe Gparted would be useful to you. It runs from a bootable CD, and enables you to resize a partition to free up disk space and to create new partitions outside the existing one. The homepage for it is here: GParted -- LiveCD

Some caveats: back up your existing partition before you use Gparted. I used it with no problems, but it's always best to err on the safe side. And, if you're installing a form of Linux, you'll need *two* partitions, a bigger one for the Linux installation, and a smaller one to use as the swap partition.

HTH.
 

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FDISK(8)						      System Manager's Manual							  FDISK(8)

NAME
fdisk - partition a hard disk [IBM] SYNOPSIS
fdisk [-hm] [-sn] [file] OPTIONS
-h Number of disk heads is m -s Number of sectors per track is n EXAMPLES
fdisk /dev/hd0 # Examine disk partitions fdisk -h9 /dev/hd0 # Examine disk with 9 heads DESCRIPTION
When fdisk starts up, it reads in the partition table and displays it. It then presents a menu to allow the user to modify partitions, store the partition table on a file, or load it from a file. Partitions can be marked as MINIX, DOS or other, as well as active or not. Using fdisk is self-explanatory. However, be aware that repartitioning a disk will cause information on it to be lost. Rebooting the sys- tem immediately is mandatory after changing partition sizes and parameters. MINIX, XENIX, PC-IX, and MS-DOS all have different partition numbering schemes. Thus when using multiple systems on the same disk, be careful. Note that MINIX, unlike MS-DOS , cannot access the last sector in a partition with an odd number of sectors. The reason that odd partition sizes do not cause a problem with MS-DOS is that MS-DOS allocates disk space in units of 512-byte sectors, whereas MINIX uses 1K blocks. Fdisk has a variety of other features that can be seen by typing h. Fdisk normally knows the geometry of the device by asking the driver. You can use the -h and -s options to override the numbers found. SEE ALSO
part(8). FDISK(8)
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