[vox-tech] multiple OS's on one computer

[Jonathan Stickel]

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm planning a system that has a few different Linux distros that I want
> to try, in addition to Debian.  Seems like a good thing to have separate
> partitions to share between them.  First order approximation was:
> 
>    /home
>    /usr/local
>    /boot
> 
> so all distros can share things like kernels.  But then I realized /home
> wouldn't do since different distros have different versions of this and
> that, and therefore have different dot files.  

Not sure why this would be a problem.  Newer versions of programs are 
often backwards compatible with the config files that reside in /home. 
If not, usually the file changes names.  Personally, I would want to 
share /home most of all.

So that leaves:
> 
>    /usr/local
>    /boot
> 
> to share between distros.  I *was* thinking of making /usr/local FAT32
> so it can be accessible under MS Windows if necessary.  But then I found
> that there's an ext2 filesystem driver for MS Windows (wow!).  [1]

Also, FAT32 does NOT seem support symlinks, so this can be a major 
problem for some program functionality.  It does store data just fine, 
so I often make a separate FAT32 partition to share between Windows and 
Linux on my dual boot computers.  I haven't checked out reading ext2/3 
in windows yet, but I have heard of it.

> 
> Lastly, I was toying around with the idea of installing bona-fide DOS
> onto a partition to do some debugging of DOSEMU.
> 
> I was just wondering if anyone has done this kind of thing before, and
> if so, had any helpful tips.
> 
> Pete
> 
> 
> [1] At work, I have to use Outlook, and I'm absolutely miserable.  So
> miserable that sometimes I'll open up gvim, compose my message, and cut
> and paste into Outlook.
> 
> As an act of desperation, I did a Google search for "vim Outlook" and
> found there's some kind of plugin for Outlook that gives you a vimish
> editor to work with.  Definitely on my list of things to do.
>