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I just installed Ubuntu on my second hard drive. I am in an Intro to Unix/Linux course and would like to install another version of linux on my second hard drive as well. Can I just make a partition and install it there? Will GRUB be updated as to the third OS?

4 Answers 4

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This fairly depends on the os your installing , if you go for windows you would need to install grub again . Most linux distros will recognise the already installed os and give you an option to install grub again or not to do so . Either way grub will later on scan for available os's .

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  • I have Windows 7 on the first Hard Drive. I installed Ubuntu on the second hard drive. I would like to partition the second hard drive and add either Fedora, Mint, or Minix. I just want a little exposure to other distros as I am new to Linux. Would I have to create a 2nd Swap partition as well?
    – Andrew
    Jun 1, 2015 at 2:08
  • When you install fedora or mint (not sure about minix) you will be presented with several comprehensive options for instance to chose the second hard drive and have a new partition created , this will be done automatically. For the 2. Question No , you don't need a swap partition at all , swap is used like very slow memory that sort of adds up to your ram memory to better acces current applications but its optional. Jun 1, 2015 at 2:26
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I use a system with Windows 8, Ubuntu, and Elementary OS. It works great.

My computer came loaded with Windows 8. After a while, I decided I wanted to put Linux on that machine. After installing Linux once, I decided I wanted to install another distro (Elementary OS). I just shrunk some space on one of my two OS partitions that I currently had, then installed it there. GRUB works well. As long as both of the two OS's you are installing are not Windows, you should be fine. In which case you just re-install GRUB, like so: sudo grub-install /dev/sda and then sudo grub-update. I think :)

So yes, you can. In terms of swap, don't worry. You only need one of those.

Hope this helps!

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As yohan esteves already said this depends on the Linux distro you want to install. Most Linux distributions install their own version GRUB that will include your windows installation and your two other Linux installations. Furthermore most distros have the option not to overwrite the existing bootloader. So you will be fine. However if you have costumized your old GRUB (e.g. custom colors) and installed a new GRUB via the new Linux installation or if your old GRUB for some reason doesn't update automatically then you can always execute these two commands:

To update the grub configuration manually enter this into a terminal in your Ubuntu system:

sudo update-grub

To completely reinstall GRUB enter the following:

sudo grub-install /dev/sdX

Where sdX is the hard drive you are booting from.

If the Linux distribution you want to install on your PC installs GRUB with a bad configuration then you may end up in a state where you cannot boot any OS. (This happened to me with OpenSuse several times).

In this case boot the live system from your installation CD and open a terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

Where sdXY is your Ubuntu partition. Type the command in the next line only if you are using UEFI boot!

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot/efi

Now go on:

sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc
sudo cp /proc/mounts /mnt/etc/mtab
sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Now you can execute commands in your Ubuntu installation:

grub-install /dev/sdX

Where sdX is your boot hard drive.

update-grub

Furthermore there isn't anything you have to consider except that you make sure that you don't overwrite anything when installing a new OS. Just shrink your old Ubuntu partition and create a new one. You have to make sure that the swap of Ubuntu is also mounted in your new OS if you want that. There should be something like 'use as swap' when you change the mount point of the swap partition.

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How about installing the third and even fourth and fifth in a vm? That way you can install as many as you want and know that it will not affect your main os.

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  • Not every student has a machine capable of running another operating system in a VM.
    – Marc
    Jun 1, 2015 at 4:06
  • That is very true. With reference to the original question, if one has a second hard drive, the assumption is that their machine will have the capability to run another os in a vm. I have not long started using this and fine it a useful way to have more than one os running, without having to mess with the boot order. A machine within a machine, which seems to be working OK for me at the moment.
    – Phil UK
    Jun 3, 2015 at 0:51

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