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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.

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Tips on running multiple distros together on my laptop? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello all, sorry for such a newbish question, as I should probably know how to properly partition a hard drive, but I really don't know where to start. So what I'm looking to do is install a Debian distro, RHEL, and Arch. Want to go with Mint LMDE, Manjaro, and Fedora. I do not need very much storage, so I don't think space is an issue. I have like a 500+ something GB ssd and the few things that I do need to store are in a cloud. I pretty much use my laptop for browsing, researching, maybe streaming videos, and hopefully more programming and tinkering as I learn more; that's about all... no gaming or no data hoarding.

Do I basically just start off installing one distro on the full hard drive and then when I go to install the others, just choose the "run alongside" option? or would I have to manually partition things out? Any thing to worry about with conflicts between different types of distros, etc.? hoping you kind folks can offer me some simple advice on how to go about this without messing up my system. It SEEMS simple enough and it might be so, but I just don't personally know how to go about it lol. Thanks alot!!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Do I basically just start off installing one distro on the full hard drive and then when I go to install the others, just choose the “run alongside” option? or would I have to manually partition things out?

If you install one distro on full hard drive you won't have room anymore for the rest, if you want multiple operating systems on your machine you need to partition manually with some planning ahead on how to allocate the space.

Any thing to worry about with conflicts between different types of distros

They don't interfere with each other, they don't even "see" each other once you booted into one, they only share the boot manager.

That being said, what you intend to do was the only way to learn many years ago when computers weren't as powerful as they are today (I did learn that way), but today ANY PC can manage virtual machines, they are much more practical and can save you a lot of time when you mess things up, because whatever you do is confined within the VM and doesn't affect your PC as a whole.

Install Virtualbox, have a look at how it works and use that to do all experiments you want, you can even learn to multiboot inside a single VM, without the risk of messing up your system.