multiple installs for learning

tw3ak

I have some dedicated distros that I need to figure out before I try to use them I want to install them.

My question is this. If I divide the partitions have one swap , four different root partitions. one home partition? will this work?

fjgold

It should work fine, I don't know about the separate home partitions though as I don't use separate home partitions. I instead prefer a home directory for each distro. I have plenty of space but it seems I'm limited to no more than 10 partitions on my machine.
If I have more than 10 partitions my MS OS's get sluggish.
I don't know why, they just do.

What I have setup is this
sda1-Primary-NTFS- XP Pro SP3
sda2-Primary-NTFS-Shared program partition (between XP and Win 7)
sda3-Primary-Fat32-Shared (between Windows and Linux)
sda4-extended
sda5-Logical-Ubuntu 8.04.1LTS 64 bit (Ultimate Edition Hardy)
sda6-Logical-Linux swap (shared amongst all linux installs)
sda7-Logical-PCLinuxOS 2009 (KDE)
sda8-Logical-Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit (Intrepid)
sda9-Logical-PCLinuxOS 2009 (Gnome Edition)
sda10-Logical-Win 7 Release Candidate (build 7100)

I know that separate home partitions have some advantages, especially if you have to reinstall a damaged distro.

I get around that by using Partimage (on the System RescueCD)
to make images of my final stable installs with the home directory included in the image..

I keep these images on my Fat32 shared partition as well as "off disc" , in the event that I screw up an install (I do that a lot, LOL) I just fire up partimage and restore the damaged install.
Takes about 5 minutes and I'm back in business with home directory intact. I make a point of creating an image everytime I do a major update or do something that could damage my linux installs. With Partimage this only take about 10 minutes of my time and (using moderate compression) produces a 1.5 to 3.0 GB image file depending on the install size. My largest linux install is Hardy Ultimate Edition about (6 GB uncompressed).

As a precaution and before erasing any previous image I do a restore right after creating a new image to "prove" the new image.
This may be unnecessary as I've never had partimage fail but I do it anyway.
After "proving" the image I replace the old one with the new.

Then if whatever risky procedure I was planning on doing breaks
my linux install I can restore to a few minutes before I broke that install.

An example of a risky procedure: My machine uses an ATi Mobility Radeon X1400 video card. There are proprietary drivers plus a control panel available from ATi that permit full hardware
3-D acceleration, something the open source drivers don't do.

Every month ATi releases updated drivers and initial install and subsequent updates run the risk of breaking X, the GUI if done improperly, I know I've done it a few times. Up until recently installing or updating the ATi "fglrx" drivers involved compiling and installing a "fglrx kernel module" from the released installer using instructions from a FGLRX wiki. Unless these instructions are followed exactly you will break X.

The latest releases can be installed simply by running the installer from a terminal window, but there is still some risk involved because you are messing with X.

Having made an image just prior to installing/updating these drivers makes recovering from a disaster much easier.

I hope this lengthy reply answered your question.

BTW, since partimage works with my Windows installs as well I use the same scheme with them, of course my resulting images are somewhat bigger since the smallest Windows install I have is 11.8 GB.