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Is it possible to safely run multiple instances of Linux on one hard drive/partition?

A

Arkitech

Diamond Member
I'm working on obtaining a few Linux certs and I'm curious if anyone has attempted to run more than one flavor of Linux on the same hard drive. Also I'm looking to buy a cheap PC to practice with and I'm curious about how hardware intensive Linux can be (Redhat, etc...). I'm hoping to find a sub 400 dollar computer to run any version of Linux on without any performance inssues.

Thanks for any info
 
I don't know that I've ever tried this, but it shouldn't be a problem at all. Do you know where you are going to get a Redhat install disc from? Redhat does not provide binary install ISOs, but CentOS uses the provided Redhat sources, compiles them, and packages them up in nice installable ISOs. I use CentOS extensively for servers at work and a home server, and I've never had a problem following instructions or using RPMs for Redhat on CentOS. Anything you learn on CentOS should correspond directly to the Redhat certs.

As far as hardware requirements, any 400 PC should run any flavor of linux just fine. Dell's cheapest desktop or any computer you can build with modern components for 400 dollars will be more than enough. I've personally tested CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu with a graphical desktop on P4 1.6Ghz computers and I hear people have used 1Ghz machines for modern linux distrobutions with no problems.
 
I've run two distros before on the same hard disk. I set them up to share a swap partition and /tmp.

Cheap PCs typically skimp on RAM, you should get at least 512MB for best performance (if you want to run X and a desktop environment). Other then that, any cheap PC should do fine.

I'm running a year old PC that cost me $179 + ram from Frys with apache, mailman, etc.
 
No problems. Just keep each system on it's own partition and you'll be fine. They can share swap partition fine.
 
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