Help Me Implement This Dual Boot Solution

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#1 Fri, 01/21/2011 - 12:19
mrwilder

Help Me Implement This Dual Boot Solution

Hi all,

I want to implement a machine which has three partitions on it.

I want all the partitions to run CentOS.

I want to be able to select which image will run at startup.

HOW do I get this CentOS 5.5 installer to let me do this? I can't even clearly understand how to partition the drive... and all the google results are about dual boot with windows, which I've actually gotten to work before.

SOOooo... three partitions, CentOs on all of them, grub loader. How?

Thanks

Tony

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 18:55
virtualmachine

Hi, even though, this is the wrong forum for things like that.. you could go this way:

  • I think you got the partitioning thing wrong * Partitions are separated parts on your hard drive-think of them as a cake divided into pieces. For Linux in general you need 2 Partitions minimum - 1 Partition for the main data-the root "/" and other.... and a swap partition which acts as an extender for your memory.

In your case, I would suggest you grab yourself a pencil and some paper and try to visualize how your hard drive will look afterwards..

You need one swap partition and three data partitions.. I dont know the CentOS installer, but you should be able to do this. Start the Installation three times and in every installation process mount the same swap partition and only create your data "/" Partition in each of them.

So you should end up with sda1, sda2, sda3 and one swap partition.

GRUB is aware of existing Installations, so no problem here... they get assimilated ;-)

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 03:38
Sat, 02/12/2011 - 17:46
mrwilder

I found a Promise SuperTrax SX 6000 raid card.

It's recognized by the bios, and it operates well enough ( I know, because it initializes and lets me set up an array before the normal post finishes).

BUT, none of the drivers at the promise web site seem to be correct for CentOS, and even if I install CentOS first without worrying about the raid card, Webmin won't see the card.

How can I make the raid card visible to linux?

Thanks

Sat, 02/12/2011 - 18:06
andreychek

Howdy,

I unfortunately don't have experience with that specific card -- maybe someone else has worked with it that can offer some details.

However, in order for it to work -- you'll need to find a driver for it that works with your version of CentOS. For some cards, drivers are included in the Linux kernel, and the card is autodetected upon bootup.

Others aren't quite so simple, and you'll have to dig up a driver from a vendors website.

You may want to make sure it's not actually working for you already... for example, poke through the output of the "dmesg" command, and see if you can find a reference to the card you have.

If you find it there already, it may just be a matter of partitioning and formatting the drive.

If it's not there, the key would be to dig up the correct driver for that card. If no one chimes in here, perhaps Googling for folks using CentOS 5 and that card may get you going in the right direction.

-Eric

Sat, 02/12/2011 - 19:59 (Reply to #5)
mrwilder

Whoops, it's a "SuperTrak SX6000"

I see nothing in /var/log/dmesg.

The Promise website has support for many RedHat versions, 9.0, 8.0, 7.3, and more... might one of them work with CentOS 5.5?

Well, thanks!

Sat, 02/12/2011 - 20:03
andreychek

You would need a driver for a current kernel version... RedHat 9 was released way back in 2003, so that's not going to work.

When you say there's nothing in /var/log/dmesg -- do you mean nothing at all, or nothing about that particular card?

If you type this command, do you get any output:

dmesg | grep -i raid

That should let you know if it's detecting any sort of RAID controller.

-Eric

Sat, 02/19/2011 - 15:24 (Reply to #7)
mrwilder

Well, it replies device-mapper: dm-raid45: initialized v0.2594l md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.

I know the hardware raid is visible to the bios, but I DONT know if thie "dm-raid45" is the supertrax, the motherboard raid, or something/nothing else entirely.

I heard a rumor that there may be a working driver for ubuntu. If I found the source and compiled it, might that work?

Thanks

Sat, 02/19/2011 - 15:50
andreychek

If I found the source and compiled it, might that work?

Maybe, you'd have to try it and see :-)

Being as the only driver they're offering on their website is almost a decade old, I'm not confident that it would work with a current kernel. But the only way to know for sure is to try :-)

Rather than using a card that old, you could always use software RAID. If you put two or more drives in your server, a number of Linux installers could configure them for you using software RAID.

Also, there's a lot of cheap RAID cards on sites such as Newegg that would work with current Linux kernels.

So, there may be some simpler ways of using RAID than trying to get that particular card working :-)

-Eric

Sat, 02/19/2011 - 18:03 (Reply to #9)
mrwilder

Understood. Thank you!

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