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shiztivr

Member

Registered: 2020-03-22

Posts: 14  

How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

I have a 120GB SSD and I want to make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan and I want all of my OS's to be encrypted. I prefer to install Devuan with the Expert Install option from the installer-iso so I have more control over it (i.e. init software and non-free blobs).

I know that, in GParted, I can make an extended partition with as many logical partitions inside as I like.
But how do I do that in Devuan's installer (Again, in Expert Install) and make sure all the logical partitions are encrypted?

Thanks.

HevyDevy

Member

Registered: 2019-09-06

Posts: 358  

Re: How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

Do you want all 3 to be Devuan installations?

Why do you want a triple boot system?

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,172  

Re: How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

There are several threads in this forum about encryption. And several approaches. Search and give it a read.

The 120G SSD isn't very big. We are talking about a non UEFI computer, don't we? Instead of MBR partitioning, read about GPT and the advantages. Maybe not required on that SSD, but I would call it an option, nowadays I prefer GPT whenever possible.

My approach for an encrypted setup: separate /boot unencrypted, separate /home drive encrypted, with the installer generate a volume for encryption, inside that a physical volume for LVM, split that into swap and root. Works great since I think Etch/Lenny, when I started to learn about Linux.

rolfie

Last edited by rolfie (2020-03-31 18:31:27)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,172  

Re: How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

Thought I'd seen a reply, must have been deleted.

Consider how to partition the SSD for your 3 distros. Less is more. And if you want to have control you may use the manual partitioning. But you need to know or learn what you are doing.

rolfie

czeekaj

Member

Registered: 2019-06-12

Posts: 154  

Re: How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

I haven't managed to have more then one encrypted r0ot partition booting from a single grub install.
I imagine, sharing a single encrypted home between 3 different OS is very possible.

Honestly, logical partitions can be useful. You might be able to pull it off, using efi.

I can't seem to get a grub-pc / bios install to boot efi. I read lots on cfdisk and gdisk, can't seem to do it on GPT partitioning with encryption. I run into mdama errors and such.  I have empty space at start of disk. Manage to get grub booting MBR style. Had a bios grub partition as well, but grub would error out because it was ext2 o.o. Only to get dumped into initframs / busybox. Might be my firmware limitations, but MBR always seems to work on DOS partitioning when dealing with encryption. I prefer gpt, however I guess I haven't figured out how to get a minimal iso booting on a gpt disk yet.

How I always found is to use the grub-efi-amd64 package. With a efi partition (Fat32) and the boot, esp flag. You can have multiple boots on multiple hard drives pointing to the one efi partition. With a single grub finding all the efi boot parameters. However, I have only ever done this with one encrypted system. The encrypted system will see all the others but the others will not see the encrypted system.

You can also end up with the encrypted system boot option disappearing if you accidentally install grub on anouther system and you must chroot in, use efibootmgr, or your bios to point it back at the encrypted systems efi.

To run 3 would be cool. I imagine, again sharing a single home would be a bit easier to manage then 3 fully encrypted systems all on one boot manager. If all one boot loader would also be pretty impressive.

Last edited by czeekaj (2020-04-04 17:07:12)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: How do I make a triple-boot system, starting with Devuan?

To deal with the problem of grub not finding the other encrypted systems, you can manually create boot entries in /etc/grub.d/40_custom, and they will be added to the boot menu when you run update-grub.

If you accidentally lose it by installing grub from another system, it's possible to boot from grub command line. Use the /dev/mapper name for the root partition on the linux line. Then you can either run grub-install or run efibootmgr and remove the offending bootloader. (Or maybe re-order the bootloaders - mine won't do that.)