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I know this sounds crazy, but I want to:

  • Install PloP Linux on my current Lubuntu 14.04 system
  • Create a new 450 GB Ext4 partition on my external drive and put my home folder there
  • Create another Ext4 Partition (50 GB) and put a 45 GB Virtual Hard Drive for Ubuntu 14.04 and Zorin OS 8, followed by a 5GB Virtual Hard Drive for PloP Linux.
  • Dual boot my Lubuntu install with Zorin OS and Vanilla (Unity) Ubuntu
  • And have my home folder auto-mount when booting into any of the OS's.

That's alot to do, but the result should make the perfect desktop out of an old junkyard computer that I have upgraded over the years.

So, in the process: How do I get GRUB to give me two seconds to select any of the OS's on the Virtual Hard Disks or my main Hard Disk before booting into Lubuntu?

And if Zorin OS doesn't ask if you want to upgrade like Ubuntu does, how can I upgrade it?

No Time
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user245115
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  • I think you are making this harder then it has to be by using vitrual disks. As you are not using KVM or VBOX, just partition your hard drive, 3 /root partitions (one for each distro) , one for /home, which you can mount with any distro, one /boot, and one shared swap. I can see no advantage of using "virtual disks" in this user case. – Panther Jun 17 '14 at 20:53
  • @bodhi.zarzen Wait, it's safe to use more than 4 partitions on a really old PC with only 80 GB HDD? – user245115 Jun 17 '14 at 23:09
  • yes, of course. Use extended partitions. – Panther Jun 17 '14 at 23:32

2 Answers2

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You can change GRUB settings manually through the config file, or a GUI program (Both are described in answer linked directly below).

There is a community post here How do I change the GRUB boot order? , which points to the direction I believe you are looking for (and a little more).

ZorinOS is Debian/Ubuntu based, so if using apt you could probably use apt-get upgrade, for the packages on your system but I cannot be sure. For the OS the ZorinOS website has this as a ReadMe.

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No Time
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  • The PC has no internet and a floppy, the PC next to it does. – user245115 Jun 17 '14 at 23:01
  • @user245115 You can also edit the GRUB config file using the terminal (it is lower on the answer I linked). The answer doesn't specifically say how to change the timeout, but tells you how to open the config file (from there you can change the timeout). If this is in regards to updating, it seems ZorinOS is a OS you have to recompile every time there is an update (because it is smaller) vs rolling release vs fixed release vs a distro with other release patterns. I am unsure otherwise what your comment means. – No Time Jun 18 '14 at 01:48
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Virtual disks do not need to be separate partitions, and would be much better if they are not. A Virtual Disk is mainly just one big file that can be attached to any VM on any computer.

For your home directory, I would suggest not mounting it directly as ~/home; what I do in this case is to create a data partition that gets mounted, and that contains directories such as "Pictures", "Music", "Documents", "Downloads", etc. I then create sybolic links in any home directory that I have available, and they act just like the standard ones.

By using this method you don't mix up configuration files for various distros, although you will probably need to duplicate some personal settings. Mostly, this is not a big deal, although you can use links for some of the ones that change a lot, such as browser folders.

As far as Zorin OS goes, I would be pretty surprised if it didn't ask about upgrades like Ubuntu.

Marty Fried
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