[lug] Using Loopback for /boot?

[Davide Del Vento]

Why do you want to *share* boot?
If I were you in your shoes I'd just make another *separate* boot partition
(mounted as /boot in F19 and something like /f19boot in F16) and use that
instead. Or even do not make a /boot partition at all, of course this has
pros and cons as you probably know
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/256/is-it-good-to-make-a-separate-partition-for-boot


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:15 PM, <stimits at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have an older machine with hardware issues on SATA ports which means the
> two disks I have now are the only disks I can attach. I'm interested in
> installing a newer version of fedora 19 (it has an existing fedora 16
> install) to a spare 300 GB partition. The trick is that I have only one
> /boot, and I do not want to harm the older install until I'm sure
> everything is up and running on the newer install. The /boot/grub2/ is what
> worries me.
>
> Current layout is no lvm used (just ordinary partitions). Drives: first
> SATA drive contains windows 7 and linux swap (sda), while the second hard
> drive contains fedora 16 and /boot (sdb). Second drive also contains the
> spare 300 GB partition (sdb), currently formatted ext4. My desire is to
> install fedora 19 to the spare sdb, share the /boot and swap, and either
> edit the existing grub boot from old fedora 16, or replace it with the new
> fedora 19 grub boot, with windows 7 and all linux installs remaining
> bootable with no down time. FYI, without everything remaining on the
> existing drive, I cannot add a new drive without replacing the motherboard.
>
> I suspect I can simply install fedora 19 and tell it to not format /boot,
> then tell it to install on MBR of sda, or possibly even tell it to not even
> install boot to MBR, but instead edit the grub boot menu. Kernels
> themselves would not be overwritten due to version naming, but I still
> worry about grub issues. Can anyone give me advice on how dangerous this
> scheme is to damaging any of the existing operating systems? Or insights on
> using a single /boot for two fedora installs? I'm trying to avoid putting
> /boot on the same partition as / for the new install, but perhaps this
> would be the only way.
>
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