Linux

48664 readers

513 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Dual-booting as an intermediate phase for fully switching OSs (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all,

I'm currently using Zorin OS, but I'd like to perhaps explore other Linux distributions. Is it possible to dual-boot another distro, and then if I'm satisfied and after having installed all the apps I need, to erase my Zorin OS partition and only use the other, new distro?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Assuming your disk is using gpt partition scheme. Dos is limited to 4

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

You can always slap LVM or btrfs or ZFS on top to get more. But even with something more basic like ext4 you can still install multiple distros as long as they're in their own folder, and when you pivot root you pivot to a folder of it, it doesn't have to be the root of any filesystem. If you have a BIOS system technically you don't even need a partition table as syslinux fits the ext4 header and can boot from ext4.

I'd probably just do btrfs subvolumes or ZFS datasets though, more reliable and more manageable. And you don't waste space with individual partitions either.