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Dual booting 32/64bit on a single thumbdrive

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Bobnova

Senior Member
Joined
May 10, 2009
I'd like to have a thumbdrive that can dual boot 32 and 64bit ubuntu, so that i can use it on anything i come across. I'm constantly having to redo mine, changing to 64 so i can do some SMP folding, and then changing to 32 so i can use it on netbooks.
It would be absolutely perfect to have a GRUB type loader with 32 and 64 selectable, is this possible?
 
i don't see why it wouldn't be possible, you'd have to have them in different partitions
 
cant you get the grub loader to display both kernals??

EDIT: maybe try accually installing it like on a HDD to get it to make the bootloader or somthing.. not sure here, but I amagine it is easily possible.
 
That's what i'm going to try to do, and just hope that it doesn't suffer a driver meltdown when it sees other computers.
Failing that, it seems like it'd be possible to get two cd images to work somehow, just not sure how.
 
That's what i'm going to try to do, and just hope that it doesn't suffer a driver meltdown when it sees other computers.
Failing that, it seems like it'd be possible to get two cd images to work somehow, just not sure how.

I would bet on grub though, i have done multiple kernal instalations wtih multiple desktop managers. Linux is nice like that though when it comes to booting on multiple computers and just using the drivers it needs. If I had a big enough usb drive I would be asking the same questions as you.
You might need an already working install to make a usb startup with one than add the other kernals.
 
It can be done with grub. You need two entirely separate partitions and installations. Install grub from the 32 bit partition - it's possible that some of the grub code won't execute on a 32 bit machine if it compiled on a 64 bit machine, but I'm not sure.

You can't share much between them. Data files are ok, but nothing else really.
 
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