Lenovo Thinkpad X60 with Fedora 10, openSuse 11, Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows XP

I’ve been using Ubuntu dual booted with windows for quite a while now, but due to driver compatibility issues and lack of knowledge used windows for the most part. Since Ubuntu 8.10, I’ve completely switched over to Ubuntu and love it. Mostly because it’s FREE! Windows is still hanging around in case I might need it for some program in the future. I use Thunderbird as my email client and Opera as my web browser. One of my main concerns was sharing the profiles for these programs, but NTFS-3G has made life easier.

After feeling comfortable with Ubuntu, I decided I needed to expand my knowledge by learning to use KDE; different package managers like yum and yast; and the possibility of having multiple Linux Oses on single partitions. After doing some research, I decided I should either go with openSuse or Fedora. Then, I figured: “Why not both?” and leave Ubuntu and Windows intact. I downloaded the Live CD’s for both Oses. The Live CD installation has less programs and tools installed compared to the DVD installation.

I opened Gparted on Ubuntu to make extra partitions for Fedora and openSuse, but I realized I can’t have more than 4 primary partitions without hacking the MBR. I deleted the Linux Swap partition because I already have 2GB of RAM. I resized my Windows and Storage partitions and made one extra partition on which I would install both Fedora and openSuse. I split the partition into 2 logical partitions of about 5GB each.

Since my Lenovo does not have an optical drive, I had to use an external USB drive and allow the BIOS to boot from it

Popped in the Fedora Live CD and installed Fedora. I selected the first logical partition and set this location as “/” (root) and opted not to use a swap space. When it asks to install GRUB, you can choose not to or to install it at the beginning of the Root partition and not at the beginning of the whole hard drive because Ubuntu has already installed GRUB there and you might not want to write over it. I chose not to install GRUB. It was a painless install. Restarted and booted into Fedora to make sure it worked.

Next, I popped in the openSuse Live CD and installed it to the second logical partition also without swap space. Again, chose not to install GRUB. Install was again pretty simple. Booted into openSuse to make sure it worked.

Now, I had to update my GRUB to include the other Oses. I could have done it manually, but I chose to upgrade my 8.10 Intrepid to 9.04 Jaunty by hitting “Alt+F2” and typing “upgrade-manager -d”, which updated the entries in GRUB automatically.

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Still one more issue: How to install Opera and Thunderbird and share the profiles between Windows, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSuse. This call for a new blog entry.

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