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Triple Boot?


nroose
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Acronis (commercial)

 

Grub (free, works great)

 

Lilo... haven´t tried that but I wouldn´t be surprised if it works

 

Anyway, if you plan to use linux at some point, GO for GRUB!

 

Well, if we're talking Apple hardware, I'd be surprised if any of those would work. AFAIK all three still require a standard BIOS, and the XoM solution seems to be very specific for XP's needs. Maybe BAMBIOS will handle those loaders once it's released.

 

For now, you can use elilo to load Linux. To choose the operating system on boot, you could use the built-in chooser (and a separate HFS+ partition for elilo), or install rEFIt. BTW, rEFIt is getting a graphical menu right now. :2cents:

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The XOM solution could help... if they made an installer out of it - for the mac. Every time you want to install another/different OS you could open the program on your Mac, and then add or delete the bootloader for the OS - maybe even be able to make a picture, or change a picture for every OS...

 

Hmm, I guess I always thought that's what would happen to this patch....

 

It would make life easier for dual booters... the only problem with the solution is that it's OSX dependent - you need OSX installed...

 

*XOM isn't the solution yet - but it could be. XOM is opensource...

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  • 3 weeks later...

The solution for booting Triple booting on Linux/Windows/OS X is quit simple. Althow, I have not tried it, so I'm probably 100% wrong. Here goes:

 

After setting up Boot Camp, and installing XP, (say on a 40 GB partition), boot into XP, setup all your drivers, and install acronis partition manager. Resize your XP partition to 20 GB, leaving the rest as free space.

 

Next boot off your faavorite linux distro, and install usining grub as the boot managar for linux.

 

VERY IMPORTANT:

DO NOT INSTALL GRUB TO THE MASTER BOOT RECORD, BUT INSTALL IT TO YOUR LINUX BOOT PARTITION.

 

After the install is finished, reboot off the linux install CD or any live linux cd, and mount your / partition, and your /boot partition in read/write mode.

 

type dd of=/dev/sda6 if=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1

 

(/dev/sda6 will be your /boot partition of a your extended partition map)

 

Reboot into Windows XP and use a program like extfs explorer to mount and read your linux partitions.

 

Extract the file bootsect.lnx to the root ov your drive C:\

 

edit your boot.ini and

 

C:\bootsect.lnx="My Linux Distro"

 

Make sure you have set the boot time out to a seficiant time to choose between OS'es or you can hit the F8 key befor XP boot's.

 

This will alow you to chose Linux, and boot to grub, and then load Linux.

 

Like I said, I haven't tried this, but I will this evening. But after installing XP on my iMax, and now installing it on my Macbook, I'm pretty damn sure it will work.

 

Of course driver support will be a pain in the ass.

 

Good Luck!

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  • 2 weeks later...

@neosublime, have you thought about the implications when the linux install doesn't see any other bootable partition and doesn't offer you the chance to install on any other partition? Linux (Debian and (k)ubuntu) usually dumps grub on the mbr (hd0) without giving you a choice, Fedora 5 will ask you where to place it, and so will SUSE 10.1 RC. I cant confirm about other distros.

 

There is a chance if you enable the EFI option on linux's current kernel that might be able to see Mac's small FAT partition. Once enabled, you can install XP amd add XP's bootable partition in grub. Of course you'll prolly have to tinker with gpart or the like to get what you want from the partitions.

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