[lug] Using Loopback for /boot?

[David L. Anselmi]

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.

(I asked why you'd want to share /boot (which is what you're implying) a long time ago.  The answer 
is here http://linuxgazette.net/issue77/lg_mail.html#mailbag/1 though I think in that day compiling 
your own kernels and managing /boot yourself was more common.)

Seems to me that the way to avoid the pain you're describing is with VMs.  I'd expect you can use 
your 300GB partition as the storage for a VM in such a way that you could boot off it too.  Sorry I 
don't have more details (the last time I did that was with a free version of VMWare with a Windows 
guest).

But I think that trying to share /boot between different package managers (i.e., F16 and F19) is not 
a good idea.  Use a different /boot for each install you have.  That means either chopping up your 
300GB (little value IMO) or putting /boot inside it with everything else.

Then the only thing you're sharing is your MBR.  I'd say it's best not to share that either--only 
use one install to update/install grub2.  You could get away with F16 using sda and F19 using sdb, 
if you're the careful type.  One grub config can be set up to boot all your installs, maybe even 
automatically.

Dave