Dual boot Linux Lite 3.4 and openSUSE-Leap-42.2

[TMG1961]

Recently i installed Linux Lite 3.4 64bit on a friends laptop. Now she asked me to create a dual boot with OpenSuse Leap 42.2
She has a SSD which i can split into 2 partitions, one for Linux Lite and one for OPenSuse. At the moment the drive is one large partition, no home partition or swap partition.

Now the question is how to make sure that both systems do boot after OPenSuse is installed.

[gold_finger]

Now the question is how to make sure that both systems do boot after OPenSuse is installed.

Don't think you have anything to worry about as long as you install OpenSuse in same boot mode as LL (which would be Legacy mode).  Only bring that up just in case computer is relatively new with UEFI firmware.  Live OpenSuse may have ability to boot in either mode.  Whatever mode it boots in is the mode it will try to install in.  Make sure it boots in Legacy mode if she's got a UEFI based computer (likely if it's newer than 2011-12).


Typically you'll need to press a certain key immediately after powering on computer to invoke a Boot Menu that lists devices to boot from where you then choose the USB stick.  If it's a UEFI based computer, you should see two choices for the USB -- one referring to UEFI, the other without any reference to UEFI.  Pick the non-UEFI option.


Haven't installed OpenSuse myself in a few years so don't remember steps in its installer, but it likely gives you option for where to install grub boot loader.  If you want OpenSuse to control booting, have it install to MBR of drive (eg. /dev/sda).  If you want LL to remain in control, have OpenSuse's grub installed to it's root partition (eg. /dev/sda2), or not at all if that's an option.  If you choose the latter you'll need to update grub in LL before the choice to boot OpenSuse appears on the grub menu.  Just run sudo update-grub in an LL terminal to do that and next reboot will have it listed.


Food for thought:
You may want to consider making two 20-25GB Root partitions (one for each distro), one Swap partition, and one large data partition to be used by both.  That way any documents, music, videos, etc. that she has can be accessed more easily from whatever one she's booted into.  I posted general procedure for doing just that for someone else here earlier today.  Have a look here.

[TMG1961]

Thanks for your answer gold_finger. The laptops bios supports both Uefi and Legacy boot. What i did so far was to boot with LL live cd and use gparted to create a 45GB partition, not formatted yet for OpenSuse. She does not have a seperate home partition.

[gold_finger]

Just to clarify:  in my last paragraph I was talking about a shared partition for data only -- not a shared home partition, which is something you don't want to do.  See this if not sure what I mean.

[TMG1961]

Thanks for the xtra info, will take a look at it. 

[TMG1961]

Now the question is how to make sure that both systems do boot after OPenSuse is installed.

Haven't installed OpenSuse myself in a few years so don't remember steps in its installer, but it likely gives you option for where to install grub boot loader.  If you want OpenSuse to control booting, have it install to MBR of drive (eg. /dev/sda).  If you want LL to remain in control, have OpenSuse's grub installed to it's root partition (eg. /dev/sda2), or not at all if that's an option.  If you choose the latter you'll need to update grub in LL before the choice to boot OpenSuse appears on the grub menu.  Just run sudo update-grub in an LL terminal to do that and next reboot will have it listed.

Installed Opensuse, when i start laptop it goes straight to linux lite without a menu. I ran sudo update-grub but still no menu to choose Linux Lite or Opensuse

[gold_finger]

Well that's a surprise.


Boot into LL on the computer and post back with output of following commands:

Code:

sudo os-prober
lsblk
sudo parted --list

Was the install of OpenSuse fairly straightforward?  Nothing about it requiring you to guess at a setting or option?

[TMG1961]

Intallation was straight forward, only needed to change the installation of grub to no install

Code:

theo@Lenovo-B50-30:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 111,8G  0 disk
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part
├─sda7   8:7    0  25,4G  0 part
├─sda5   8:5    0     2G  0 part
├─sda1   8:1    0  66,8G  0 part /
└─sda6   8:6    0  17,6G  0 part
theo@Lenovo-B50-30:~$ sudo parted --list
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 850 (scsi)
Schijf /dev/sda: 120GB
Sectorgrootte (logisch/fysiek): 512B/512B
Partitietabel: msdos
Schijfvlaggen:

Nummer  Begin   Einde   Grootte  Type      Bestandssysteem  Vlaggen
1      1049kB  71,7GB  71,7GB   primary   ext4             opstart
2      71,7GB  120GB   48,3GB   extended                   lba
5      71,7GB  73,9GB  2155MB   logical   linux-swap(v1)
6      73,9GB  92,8GB  18,9GB   logical   btrfs
7      92,8GB  120GB   27,2GB   logical   xfs

[TMG1961]

After a lot of trial and error i finally got linux lite to boot. Installed grub customizer in opensuse and editted the linux lite entry. Took me some finetuning before it finally worked. Laptop is back and she is happy it works.

[gold_finger]

Just got home from work to see your last two posts.  Glad to here you were able to sort it out.  Good job!


Latest output shows that OpenSuse installed using btrfs and xfs instead of ext4.  I have zero experience with those and am not sure how to get LL to recognize them -- so glad you figured something out yourself.  My only immediate thoughts were either to re-install OpenSuse again and put its grub boot loader in the MBR hoping that it would be able to boot LL; or re-install it and direct it to use ext4 partitions instead, which presumably LL's grub would deal with properly when trying to add menu entry in grub.


P.s.
Just realized that your last post said "i finally got linux lite to boot".  I thought problem was that computer was booting straight into LL and not giving you option to boot OpenSuse.  Did you end up re-installing OpenSuse and letting it take over booting, only then to end up not being able to boot LL?  Or was problem not being able to boot LL all along?  I'm just curious.