GRUB Dual Boot Guide Needed

[Swad]

Are you dual booting with GRUB? We need definitive guide for dual booting with GRUB - if you think you can write one, PM me. It'd be worth about 10 bucks to someone who can write a solid guide for everyone here. We need it by the end of the week or so.

 

Let me know if you're interested!

[DrJägermeister]

Are you dual booting with GRUB? We need definitive guide for dual booting with GRUB - if you think you can write one, PM me. It'd be worth about 10 bucks to someone who can write a solid guide for everyone here. We need it by the end of the week or so.

 

Let me know if you're interested!

I haven't written this, but if you read this you are able to use Grub:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/

[yossicl]

Are you dual booting with GRUB? We need definitive guide for dual booting with GRUB - if you think you can write one, PM me. It'd be worth about 10 bucks to someone who can write a solid guide for everyone here. We need it by the end of the week or so.

 

Let me know if you're interested!

 

GRUB installer for windows

http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/

[Swad]

Well, thanks guys, but we're needing an actual step by step guide for someone who already has OS X installed to install Windows. We're going to publish this guide - that's why we need it.

 

Who's interested? :censored2:

[nelissen]

i use the lilo bootloader. works like a charm. plenty of guides around that show how to make such a bootloader.

[Swad]

Well, thanks. Macgirl has actually written the guide for us and it'll be up soon! Thanks!

[carac86]

This is not a "step by step" guide, just a few ideas about multibooting with GRUB!

 

- if you consider multibooting you should also plan very careful your partitions - for instance it might be VERY important to have a FAT32 partition on that disk with NTFS, HFS+ and EXT3 - since FAT32 is the ONLY type of usable partition where Windows, OSX and Linux will ALL be able to write without any problems;

 

- on instalation avoid doing any partitioning from OSX Disk Utility - start instead a terminal and use fdisk; DEFINITELY DO NOT use the partitioning part of OSX Disk Utility if you have some other existing partition(s) that you want to keep!

 

- if you plan to install Vista Beta at this point that should be the first installed (the installer/partitioner is in a rather early stage and might not work as expected, but that should improve in time);

 

- booting is usually a multi-stage process - first boot code is loaded from the "partition table" (together with the partition table itself) , then usually there is a second code in the start of the partition itself and eventually yet another code with the "full features";

 

- normally the first boot code only checks which is the FIRST ACTIVE partition and then loads the boot code from there; GRUB is somehow an exception since it can load the rest of itself even from a non-active partition;

 

- for instance you can have first primary partition FAT32 (you can even place a Win98SE somewhere on that), then you can install Vista in a second primary partition with NTFS and you can 3rd install OSX (you will need to boot OSX from installation DVD and in the installation process start a terminal, use fdisk to create a HFS+ partition, then format it with Disk Utility and only after that the installer will be able to find it as a target for installation); if you also want Linux and some other stuff you can create extended partitions;

 

- the key in using GRUB to boot OSX is using 2 GRUB commands:

rootnoverify (hd0,2)

chainloader +1

(first command will "select" the OSX partition - ON YOUR SYSTEM REPLACE (hd0,2) with the partition where your OSX is located - and the second will load the boot code from there; in interactive mode you will also have to type a "boot" comand);

 

- the full step-by-step guide will probably describe in detail how to install GRUB but here are a few quick ideas...

 

- you can install GRUB from an existing Linux installation that has it with a command like "grub-install /dev/hda1" ; (you should be root or first run something like "sudo bash");

 

- you can also use a similar command after booting from a "live boot CD" linux distribution - Damn Small Linux (http://damnsmalllinux.org/) is only about 50 MB but the full KNOPPIX CD/DVD distribution (http://www.knoppix.net/) has a newer kernel with more drivers;

 

- a funny but sometimes very effective way of setting GRUB is from another GRUB - if you have another device that will boot using GRUB (http://cool-stuff-or-not.blogspot.com/) you can get to the GRUB command prompt and do something like

 

geometry (hd0)

help install

install (hd0,1)/boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0,1)/boot/grub/stage2

 

(but that will require to already have the folder /boot/grub with the GRUB files inside; first two commands are only helpers to show you some info that might be needed to build the correct parameters for install);

 

- GRUB usually gets a menu from /boot/grub/menu.lst (but you might sometimes need to specify that in the install command);

 

- you can "chain" multiple bootloaders each one with another menu - actually the rootnoverify () chainloader +1 will do just that and then you might see the next bootloader menu from OSX or Windows;

 

- the OSX bootloader itself has a number of options but keep in mind that it will check which partition is active and also the configuration file /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

- NT/2000/XP/Vista bootloader will check boot.ini; Vista might add extra stuff;

 

- each operating system has a way to "repair" booting - usually that means it will write its own code into the partition table and select itself as the active partition - that can be done for Windows by booting from CD and going to recovery console, then fixmbr and/or fixboot, from OSX also by booting from CD and selecting the corresponding system boot utility, and with GRUB by simply reinstalling.

[i1sam]

hi... any update on the macgirl grub dual booting guide???

[macgirl]

What do yo need?

[i1sam]

What do yo need?

hi macgirl... mashugly in the earlier threard that you will be writing a guide for GRUB dual booting and i been interested.... i been using acronis bootloader and it slow my booting time because it has a GUI.... can you help me on this... im dual boot osx86 and xp in 1hdd ... thanks in advance and more power!!!

[bkmarks]

My system: Dell Inspiron 1100 with 2 GHz Celeron, 256 RAM, Intel Excelerated Graphics, 20 GB HD

Have 10.4.3 DVD install with JaS and Maxxuss patch - see install guides

 

I used spfdisk to wipe out previous partitions. Upgraded the bios to latest version to get better graphics.

Used the MacOSx installer to partition the drive into two - first was MacOsx (journaled) second was FAT 32

Installed Osx on first partition.

Used spfdisk to set second partition as active. Installed XP.

 

Downloaded WinGrub and read documentation. Installed WinGrub on windows partition. When in WinGrub GUI, right click on menu list and select the edit option. Your menu list should appear as follows:

 

title Windows at hd(0,1)

root hd(0,1)

chainloader +1

boot

 

title OSx at hd(0,0)

root hd(0,0)

makeactive

chainloader +1

boot

 

Then go to file save. Close WinGrub and restart. You should see an OS selector window with options to boot OSx or XP. This method worked for me. I hope this helps

 

-b

[sektor]

There is a pretty good grub guide here http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=4119&hl=

 

But I will see if I can write one later.

[BillyB]

Mashugly / Macgirl - did you ever post the step-by-step dual boot guide as I can't find it??

 

It would be very much appreciated.

[Swad]

Well, we did, and it was going to go up for the new Intel Macs when they came out (we actually had several different version ready!)

 

However, since Apple moved to EFI, all our tests didn't matter much. I guess we should go ahead and post what we had!

[jackt283]

Any news on this?

[Christoph Pfisterer]

jackt283, as you can read above, the guide was aimed at the Developer Transition systems, which used a standard BIOS to boot. It effectively had to be scrapped when the real hardware came out.

 

With the release of Boot Camp, it would theoretically be possible to use GRUB in a triple-boot scenario to choose between Windows and Linux. GRUB cannot boot the shipping Mac OS X because it doesn't know about EFI. Also, current release versions of GRUB hang on Intel Macs because they try to access the keyboard hardware directly. (See this OpenSolaris forum thread for a patch.)

[jackt283]

I was kinda after a GRUB guide dealing with hackintosh computers. No mind there must be tons out there...

[Vosster]

Hi

 

I have xp and ubuntu studio 7.10 on partitions of my first harddrive and osx on my second harddrive.

 

In Ubuntu I edited the menu.lst:

 

Terminal:

 

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

 

After the "end default options" tag I added in front of the unbuntu entries:

 

title XP

root (hd0,0)

savedefault

makeactive

chainloader +1

 

title OSX

root (hd1,0)

savedefault

makeactive

chainloader +1

 

I saved and rebooted and it worked well for me.

 

Hope this will maybe help someone.