I am still fairly new to linux and have been running Ubuntu for about 6 months. Does anyone know if it is possible to run multiple versions of linux on the same machine with the same partition or does each version need its own partition?

IE. Have both Ubuntu and Mandrake on the same partition and select which to use in grub?

Thanks.
K

I've had bad experiences experimenting with such a setup because the two distros tend to overwrite config files of the other distro. Additionally, files in linux tend to be assigned to a particular UID and GID, which can be different from distro to distro. Using the same username and UID helped some, but some of the builtin UID's caused some grief.

Usually, it's been best for me to just create a new partition (sometimes I have to shrink an existing partition), and then install the new distro to the new partition. If you install grub to the / partition of the new distro, then it can be chainloaded from grub.

Your mileage may vary, and maybe things are different than the last time I tried it. But generally it didn't work very well for me and was easier to just make a new partition.

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One more question...

I have a machine that is running Ubuntu 11.04 (soon to update) on a 1tb drive with Windows XP on a 500gb drive that have grub boot loader. I was thinking of installing another 500gb with Mandrake. If I were to disconnect the Ubuntu and Windows drives to install Mandrake on a 3rd drive, will it automatically show up in the boot loader?

Maybe, but it should be easy to add if it doesn't. When you install Mandrake, be sure to install grub to the / partition. Then reboot into Ubuntu and add an entry to grub2.