Dual boot B1000 10.2 and 11.x

[Andrew Cunningham]

I am currently have a B1000 running 10.2. I want to install 11.x onto an new external disk so that I can boot into either 10.2 or 11.0 'at will'. We have to support and develop software for both 10.2 and 11.0 , but cannot justify two workstations.
Does anyone have any insights into any "gotchas"

[Patrick Wallek]

Having one disk with 10.20 and one with 11.x should work fine. When installing, just make sure you know for sure which disk you are installing to so you don't overwrite the other one.

To boot from the second disk you will have to interrupt the boot process and manually boot from the other disk. Or you could set your machine so that autoboot (I think) is off, so that it forces you each time to manually boot the machine. I would set one disk as the primary and the other as the alternate boot path and so you can do a bo pri or bo alt depending on which version you want to boot.

Once you are booted into the appropriate OS I would make sure you refrain from attempting to create an VGs on the other disk. That would really put a kink in things. You could have the 10.20 disk mounted when you are working in the 11 environment, but I'm not sure that would be wise. I'd avoid any interaction between the two environments. I think you'd be safer that way.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Thanks for the useful information.
and sorry to take so long to reply..
I would really need to be able to 'see" the 10.2 disk when booted into the 11.0 environment as that is where all the source code is installed. I get a bit nervous when you talked about VG's.Under 10.2 I have one VG, 2 physical disks and 10 LV's. What happens to those when I boot into 11?

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
I agree with Patrick..., on dual boot box I prepare I always install ONLY OS on one disk=> 2 OS: 2disks, AND the additional soft and data on other disk so that you have 2 vg00 (on 2 separate disks) and then the other vgXX so that you can vgexport/vgimport etc... and use ignite-ux safely for both OS, so my recommendation would be to add another disk for your source code. then you will be fine...
Have also a look at the command setboot!

Good luck
All the best
Victor

[John Bolene]

We did this for awhile when upgrading our DEV environment and still wanted to test under the old level. We had 2 disks, one with 9.05 and one with 10.20. Each disk was its own separate environment.
It is best to get a test machine from EBAY, 715's and C110's are fairly inexpensive.

What you can do is have a 2nd machine on the new OS and NFS mount the source from the 10.20 machine.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Unfrortunately, a second machine is an expensive option as we really need to be testing our app under UX 11 with OpenGL fx level 3d graphics, so that means the second machine would have to be at least a B1000 like our current machine. UX is not our primary development platform so the budget is not there for that.

So in summary, it seems like as long as we install UX 11 on a second (external) disk , then I can boot into UX 11 and 'see' the 10.2 filesystem and its various LV's intact inside the existing 10.2 VG.

[John Bolene]

I am not sure this would work to be able to "see" the other drive and not corrupt volume groups.
I would still go with my other suggestion to put the source files on another machine and NFS the files from the 10.20 or 11 UNIX boot. This machine does not have to be a B1000 since it is only a file server. I am not sure what you meant by lack of dollars to spend, but C110's have been running around $500 on Ebay.
Or if space is available both on the 10 and 11 disk, and you don't want to hear this suggestion cause it is a bit ugly, backup the source to tape and reload it on the 11 disk. This will keep both disks separate but will force you to update the source on each disk since only one or the other is available at a time.

[Andrew Cunningham]

OK, so the smart thing is to stick the development source on a NFS mounted disk. No problem, we have an SGI so we can stick it on the SGI.

Assume It is risky to let UX11 see the existing 10.2 disks. If I install UX11 on an external drive, hwo do I stop it trying to access the existing 10.2 internal. I assume that at some point when I am installing 11 I will be given the option of mounting these disks to which I should obviously say no?

[Patrick Wallek]

The 11.0 installation will ask you what disk you want to install on, you will specify your external. Assuming the external is large enough, everything will fit on that disk. The OS install will then do its thing.

Once the OS installation is complete and you boot from that disk nothing will try to access the 10.20 disk unless you tell it to. The thing that you COULD do, but probably don't want to do, is create a map file with vgexport of the 10.20 disk, and then vgimport that on 11.0.

But, if you don't do anything, the 10.20 disk will sit out there and nothing will access it and everything should be fine.

The same holds true for the disk that 11.0 installed on it when you boot up from the 10.20 disk.