Re: Dual Boot Two Debian Versions
Stephen P. Molnar wrote:
> My Debian platform has four drives:
>
> NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
> sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
> ??????sda1 8:1 0 457.9G 0 part /
> ??????sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
> ??????sda5 8:5 0 7.9G 0 part [SWAP]
> sdb 8:16 0 1.8T 0 disk
> ??????sdb1 8:17 0 1.8T 0 part /sdb1
> ??????sdb2 8:18 0 1K 0 part
> ??????sdb5 8:21 0 7.9G 0 part
> sdc 8:32 0 465.8G 0 disk
> ??????sdc1 8:33 0 465.8G 0 part /sdc1
> sr0 11:0 1 2K 0 rom
>
> sda is a 500 GB SSD, currently the boot drive, running Stretch
> sdb is a 2 TB mechanical hard drive, used for storage and
> sbc is a 500 GD SSD, containg a number of computational chemistry
> applications that I use for my research.
>
> I am planning on adding a 1 TB SSD to the system to be dedicated to
> Buster (currently Testing).
>
> I know that if I select the new drive (for the purpose of this note,
> sdd) for Buster during the installation process from the iso DVD, that
> Buster will be installed on sdd and grub will show that as the boot
> drive. There would also be an entry in grub for Stretch on sda.
>
> Herein lies the problem, sda is the boot drive, but Buster would not be
> a grub entry. Whenever I reboot the system, Buster will be hidden. A
> workaround would be to hit the appropriate key during the initial stages
> of the boot process to open the Bios and then manually select Buster to
> boot.
>
> Couple of questions:
>
> Will installing Buster on sdd do anything to make Stretch unbootable?
> Is there a way that I can add Buster to the Stretch Grub Boot Screen?
> Perhaps grub-customizer?
>
> I know this is rather convoluted, but it is essential, for non technical
> reasons to keep Stretch available while I am using Buster.
>
> Thanks in advance.
read through this whole thing since some of my
comments are questionable, but perhaps others will
be more sure. :)
which do you want to be your default boot (when you
start up your machine what do you want to come up if
you do nothing at the grub menu (testing or stable)?
because of the requirement to keep stable available
i would always keep a spare USB stick with stable on
it aside from the stable install on that machine. once
in a while i update it, but not too often (two or three
times a year).
the netinst images can also be used as backup boot
and rescue tools but i prefer having my favorite
editors, web browser and desktop already set up to
go if needed (i need bigger fonts to see well enough
from the distance i am at from my screen).
my own suggestion to avoid complications during an
install is to shut down the machine, unplug the
devices you won't want to install or be messed with
(keep track of where they were plugged in) and then
plug in the new device and do your testing install.
what i'm not sure of is if you need to bother with
putting the grub bootloader on it so at the end
where it asks you perhaps you can skip that step.
shut down the system and then plug the other
devices in and see if the system will then boot
back to your stable setup. it should since you've
not messed with the boot loader.
once you are root you can run os-prober and
update-grub in stable and see if it picks up
your testing partition.
if it does then you might be done, but the default
grub menu boot entry might need to be fixed (reboot
and see if it is what you want). if it needs to be
adjusted you can do that in /etc/defaults/ and edit
the file grub and change the entry in there for
the default.
since i'm not sure if those last steps will work
or not (i haven't done a testing install since last
spring) and i don't run grub any more.
just remember that when you run update-grub you
want to do it in stable.
i've not liked how grub has behaved at times with
chain loading and such so i gave up on it. with my
new machine i use UEFI and refind which make sense
to me and they do what i'd like. if needed i can
boot this machine using the legacy bios and grub
but i rarely bother.
songbird
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