partition ext3 or ext4 for new install

[vbdanl]

hi. first off, i want to thank all the great people that work on the fedora releases and the folks that monitor and answer countless questions in this forum.
I have read numerous posts regarding partitioning with F13, but end up not knowing for sure if what I am wanting to do will work..
i have pc's setup with multiple linux os's and some with xp or vista.
i typically install the linux os in one partition (so far has always been ext3) and use a swap partition. i choose to use a data partition to share data between the linux os's.
i downloaded the F13 live cd and burned it to a dvd. I had problems after installing F12 several months ago and ended up having to restore the mbr with a Windows cd, so was hoping i could avoid those problems this time around..
my questions are:
Will i be able to install F13 to one (root) partition (with home inside that partition) ?
Does the partition need to be ext3 or ext4 or does it matter ?
Will i be able to boot ubuntu 10.04, mepis 8.5, mandriva 2010, XP, and Vista from the fedora bootloader once it installs ?
thanks for your help.

---------- Post added at 01:21 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 AM CDT ----------

i thought this was going to be easy.. must be harder than i thought.
have another question on using a live cd..
Can you create a bootable DVD instead of a bootable CD using the live cd iso image? i did, and it boots on one pc, but not on another. the one it does not boot up on just goes to the grub menu after a few seconds of trying to read the dvd. i have to check when i get home, but i think the pc that won't read the dvd has nvidea graphics. how can i make the live dvd boot using acpi=off or other bootable options ?

[stoat]

Originally Posted by vbdanl

Will i be able to install F13 to one (root) partition (with home inside that partition) ?

Yes.

Originally Posted by vbdanl

Does the partition need to be ext3 or ext4 or does it matter ?

That's your choice. Fedora 13 ships with a version of legacy GRUB that has ext4 support.

Originally Posted by vbdanl

Will i be able to boot ubuntu 10.04, mepis 8.5, mandriva 2010, XP, and Vista from the fedora bootloader once it installs ?

Yes, but...

Any Linux using legacy GRUB can be booted by Fedora 13's legacy GRUB boot loader by any of the usual methods: 1) the chainloader command if the other Linux has its GRUB installed in the first sector of its boot partition, 2) the configfile command, and 3) directly booting the kernel and initial ramdisk by copying and pasting the other Linux's menu.lst entry into Fedora's grub.conf. But if the other Linux is using GRUB 2, then 1) the configfile command cannot be used, and 2) the direct method requires some adjustment of the command syntax when copying from a GRUB 2 grub.cfg file to Fedora's legacy grub.conf file. Vista is well-known to be bootable by Fedora's GRUB with the chainloader command. And finally, nearly all of the above will need to be done manually by you. Anaconda (the Fedora installer) generally will find existing Windows systems and create menu entries for them (sometimes needs manual adjustment), but it nearly always ignores existing Linux systems.

With all those systems already in place and working, I recommend that you not let Fedora take over your current boot loader arrangement. If you end up not liking Fedora 13, you will have fix the old boot loader. It's very easy to choose the Anaconda boot loader option to install Fedora's boot loader in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition (watch for and click the "Change device" button). Installing GRUB that way in Fedora 13 will not disturb the existing boot loader, and you can add a menu entry to your existing boot loader for Fedora 13. But it's all up to you, of course.

[vbdanl]

Originally Posted by stoat

Yes.

That's your choice. Fedora 13 ships with a version of legacy GRUB that has ext4 support.

Yes, but...

Any Linux using legacy GRUB can be booted by Fedora 13's legacy GRUB boot loader by any of the usual methods: 1) the chainloader command if the other Linux has its GRUB installed in the first sector of its boot partition, 2) the configfile command, and 3) directly booting the kernel and initial ramdisk by copying and pasting the other Linux's menu.lst entry into Fedora's grub.conf. But if the other Linux is using GRUB 2, then 1) the configfile command cannot be used, and 2) the direct method requires some adjustment of the command syntax when copying from a GRUB 2 grub.cfg file to Fedora's legacy grub.conf file. Vista is well-known to be bootable by Fedora's GRUB with the chainloader command. And finally, nearly all of the above will need to be done manually by you. Anaconda (the Fedora installer) generally will find existing Windows systems and create menu entries for them (sometimes needs manual adjustment), but it nearly always ignores existing Linux systems.

With all those systems already in place and working, I recommend that you not let Fedora take over your current boot loader arrangement. If you end up not liking Fedora 13, you will have fix the old boot loader. It's very easy to choose the Anaconda boot loader option to install Fedora's boot loader in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition (watch for and click the "Change device" button). Installing GRUB that way in Fedora 13 will not disturb the existing boot loader, and you can add a menu entry to your existing boot loader for Fedora 13. But it's all up to you, of course.

thanks stoat. i will attempt your last suggestion and let the existing boot loader handle the grub duties. sounds like i should be able to use the existing grub 2 and it should create an entry for Fedora by doing the update-grub command in Ub10.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by vbdanl

sounds like i should be able to use the existing grub 2 and it should create an entry for Fedora by doing the update-grub command in Ub10.

Maybe so. It's supposed to happen like that anyway. I converted Ubuntu 8.10 to GRUB 2, and update-grub did find Fedora and created a menu entry for it. But the Fedora entry in /boot/grub/grub.cfg didn't have an initrd line, so it wouldn't work. I created an entry for Fedora in /etc/grub.d/40_custom using chainloader. Maybe the scripts in your version of GRUB2 will be better at dealing with Fedora.

[vbdanl]

install went smooth other than i had to use ext4 instead of ext3. maybe the livecd install doesn't allow you to format the root partition as ext3? anyway, i don't think it really matters.. install went fine, and the ubuntu grub2 found fedora and created an entry just fine. only problem i am having now is getting rpmfusion updates. seems it has been down for several days, and maybe still is. i get this error:
[dan@T2895 ~]$ su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm'
Password:
Retrieving http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: download1.rpmfusion.org; Cannot allocate memory
error: skipping http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm - transfer failed
i had to set the network.dns.disable.ipv6 to true to get into this forum and most websites.
Package Manager gives messages about cannot contact rpmfusion so it will be disabled.
i was wondering if i need to add something to /etc/hosts or /etc/resolv.conf or something else ? i have tried using the same settings as another pc on my network uses with fc11, but still get the above errors..

Originally Posted by vbdanl

install went smooth other than i had to use ext4 instead of ext3. maybe the livecd install doesn't allow you to format the root partition as ext3? anyway, i don't think it really matters..

yeah, live CD is limited in many ways.
I rather use the DVD for every release.

I have been using ext3 and won't upgrade my partitions until a year from now... i have read enough complaints on data corruption using ext4 to keep away from it.
very few cases, but enough to make me paranoid.

[vbdanl]

i found some of my pc's would not boot from a live cd created on a DVD, but they would boot if created on a CD, even though the pc's will read DVD's.

Originally Posted by vbdanl

i found some of my pc's would not boot from a live cd created on a DVD, but they would boot if created on a CD, even though the pc's will read DVD's.

why don't you just download the dvd image and install it from that? many more configuration options