For those that multi-boot Linux distros......why?

Lounge
83

At the time, nobody was interested so I never wrote up the tutorial.

84

Understandably it would take some time to write it up, but if you were ever so motivated, I for one would appreciate itā€¦Iā€™m sure others would enjoy it too.

1 Like
85

Maybe they do it because they want to have another option in case 1 might tank down?

87

Thereā€™s a small change in the new ISO files, so the previously shown boot menu entry must be modified slightly:

menuentry 'Boot endeavouros-2020.09.20-x86_64.iso' {
    set isofile=/endeavouros-2020.09.20-x86_64.iso
    search --no-floppy --set=root --file $isofile
    probe -u $root --set=uuid
    loopback loop $isofile
    linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz-linux img_dev=/dev/disk/by-uuid/$uuid img_loop=$isofile
    initrd  (loop)/arch/boot/intel-ucode.img (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
}
88

I donā€™t multi-boot, but I do admin another Linux system running a different distribution to one on my desktop at home. For me, the only reason to multiboot Linux would be software compatibility. The system I admin currently runs Ubuntu LTS (although I did trial running Manjaro on it). The reason for this is that itā€™s needed in order to run neuroimaging software. While it is possible to run this on Arch/EndeavourOS/Manjaro via an AUR package, it would have required a lot of maintenance. Plus, not ā€˜allā€™ of it works. That, & there are several add-ons that have only been released as pre-compiled deb/rpm binaries. Hence, unless I want to spend my life making/maintaining PKGBUILDs for the neuroimaging software add-ons, Ubuntu/CentOS is very much the way to go. That being said, I have no desire to use Ubuntu/CentOS for my personal desktop. Hence, dual booting EndeavourOS/Ubuntu LTS could be a viable approach in this case.

89

I have recently switched from deb distributions to arch based, as such I have settled on EOS, but, I had to install Arch just once, so now I have both, despite no need to do it. :roll_eyes:

90

been using MX linux for years and it is wonderful

fancied a change (mainly because i wanted a look at plasma 5.21) and settled on Endeavour as my arch-based system ā€¦ dual booting both on several machines

best of both worlds for me and feels like i have a safety net while i learn how not to bork endeavour

also the communities ā€¦ both have excellent, helpful communities that are not too big to handle but not too small that you canā€™t find any help at all or wait 10 days for a responseā€¦ they hit my sweet spot

91

Where do you spend most time, I get confused with apt and yay so switched entirely :laughing:

92

yes ā€¦ i do that also :slight_smile:

i actually have mx set as default on one laptop and endeavour as default on another two ā€¦ i have been spending much more time with endeavour because it is all new and fancy and i like messing with new stuff

with the size of hard drives these days and the ease of installation, I see no reason not to dual boot or multi boot (if you like more than one system enough)

1 Like
93

sometimes when running non-systemd arch based distros, my controllers fail to pair connect through bluetooth so i can go into endeavour or arch and pair them and connect and then they are fine. i dont like systemd but everything is designed to use it as default and sometimes i need to look and see if the problem iā€™m having is init related or upstream related. i need a fully installed system for thatā€¦

94

I multi boot because i can! Itā€™s my choice. Freedom! As in Free! :rofl:

2 Likes
95

Itā€™s not only a question of the freedom.
Itā€™s perfectly fine to multi-boot on several paritions but when all of them are Arch maybe itā€™s time to do a quick sanity check. :laughing:
But I am not here to judge. :innocent:

96

I multi boot on separate drives just because i have them in there and Iā€™m not using them for any other purpose. I even have a 4TB HD that is not utilized as of yet. Mine are all Arch based. Actually they are all EndeavourOS desktops on this computer. Because i have other computers and other distros also on them. But, this one is for messing around on. Iā€™m not a big saver of stuff so if i destroy it then it doesnā€™t matter. I was just making a Stallman joke on the post above. ā€œFreedom as in Freeā€

1 Like
97

I was more interested in multi-boot when I first started exploring linux. But keeping all of them up to date wore thin. Now I run one linux (updated) and a non-updated windows on each system. I donā€™t run windows enough to have a high security risk.

An installed backup distro concept has merit, but liveUSB ISOs can accomplish most of the same things. The exception is hardware wonā€™t run well with an unmodified ISO. Thatā€™s where a persistent liveUSB is helpful.

98

I donā€™t multi-boot, I see no reason to do so, and even if I did, I couldnā€™t be bothered toā€¦ One OS per machine is quite enough for me.

In the extremely rare situations that I need something different than EndeavourOS, I either boot up a live image, or use a virtual machine. Or I use one of a dozen old, rubbish computers lying around, that I canā€™t bring myself to condemn to electronic waste, because the damn things still work.

1 Like
99

Reasons to multi-boot:

  1. Because I can - lotsa room, and data on a separate drive
  2. Allows testing of things Iā€™m pretty sure I donā€™t want on my daily driver - including troubleshooting for others.
  3. Always have a ā€˜backupā€™ system ready to go if trouble comes. I canā€™t update them all at the same time!
  4. Allows ā€˜seeing for myselfā€™ as to whether something else (another distro or DE) is amazing.
  5. Allows staging ā€˜improvementsā€™ through use - while deciding if they become part of the daily driver setup. This goes right down to AUR helpers and aliases to see if they really are an improvement (for MY use case)
  6. Keep up with improvements made on newer releases - they donā€™t ALL propagate seamlessly!
  7. And again - why not? itā€™s another way of testing to see if Iā€™ve learned anything since the last time!

Iā€™ll admit that the hopping part of things has died down a lot since EnOS and Arch entered the picture - now the differences are in whether compiz is enabled, and what tools are includedā€¦

Of course - some I just have to try out - like Ubuntu (Xubuntu) Rolling release just to KNOW what itā€™s like :grin:

3 Likes
100

I use multi boot because sometimes I feel like trying out new distributions.

101

Playing devilā€™s advocate ā€¦ can this experimentation not be done easier in VMs, rather than bare metal installs?

You have to reboot to use another bare metal OS, and with VMs you can have many virtual systems running concurrently, only really limited by available memory.

Snapshot management in VBox is great for experimentation systems too, takes seconds to restore a snapshot and boot into it if you break it.

One point in time I had about 40 VMs, I was installing and trying everything, but I finally reached the conclusion that nothing ever came close to Arch and AUR.

2 Likes
102

I have tried VMs, and they have their advantages (as you mention) but I have had poor luck with VBox (except with playing card games on Windows - all itā€™s good for), and insufficient time to familiarise myself with qemu properly. On top of that, there are distros out there that do not work the same way in VMā€™s as they do on metal - Garuda comes to mind. In addition, I work with rEFInd (and other) booting solutions which of course are not testable in VM environments.

I also found that the reboot is not that much slower than starting up a VM - and has the advantage that updates are properly applied (like new kernels etc) almost in passingā€¦if you are rebooting anyway, why not choose somewhere else to go? :grin:

Thatā€™s most of the reasons, I think. It could just be a bad habit, of course! With 2 multi-boot systems on a KVM switch, it leaves me with something to do when I havenā€™t anything pressingā€¦

103

You should be able to test refind in a VM.

1 Like