Tri-Boot w/ XP + MacOSx86 + Mandriva Linux?

[guitarbrian]

I've got a Dell e1505 craptop that takes the install Kalyway Leopard 10.5.1 just fine (with a couple of minor caveats mentioned in other threads here, i'll address those later). I've also previously had it dual boot between XP & Mandriva Linux. In that case the GRUB on the linux install handled the boot options.

 

I want to try a triple boot scenario, just to see if i can. Any suggestions on the sequence of OS installations? I realize there's only 6 possibilities, but each possibility entails 3 installations, and I'd rather not do a bunch of trial and error if it's already been done. My main concern is being able to boot to any of the OS's with just one consistent OS selection menu, and no external boot devices.

 

I'm relatively a noob at linux, although I'm able to configure its GRUB options using the gui there. And I'm very noobish with OSX, I just completed my first install a couple of days ago, and haven't had a chance to really dig around in it. Yes, I'm a Win-duhs guy.

 

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

p.s. I'm working with a fresh hard drive, with no data I need to worry about, so deleting/recreating partitions won't be a problem in this case.

[aao_pink]

There are as many answers to this question as there are linux distros.

Multiply that by the number of OSX86 distros and you can have real fun

And, just like the questions and answers here on some ppl's hardware

don't work for others, ... you get the picture?

 

I have installed vanilla Leopard on a guid formatted disk, then used DiskUtility

to reduce the size of the OSX partition, create 2 more FAT32, install XP and Ubuntu,

taking care with each to use fdisk to make that partition bootable before install.

I also took care with Ubuntu that grub is installed on the linux partition, not on mbr,

else it will write an MBR and stop OSX from booting. I installed Chameleon bootloader

for OSX, with a timeout of 3 seconds to give me default OSX or choose XP or Linux.

 

I have also let XP create its own partition on a fresh disk, install, then with a Linux Live-CD

create another partion (+ swap) and install Fedora, leaving free space sufficient for OSX.

I had a bootable backup of OSX on an external drive and used that to format the free space

JHFS+ and "restore" the external install onto this partition.

 

I use the Chameleon bootloader 'cos I want OSX default. There are ppl who want Linux default

and eat and sleep GRUB. You will find ppl who like the Vista bootloader. My experience of Vista

is that it is an unhappy citizen in a multiboot environment, with criminally pathologic tendencies.

 

And on my Mac at the day job I use VirtualBox because I got tired of having to shutdown

one OS to reboot another... This is the internet, YMMV

[guitarbrian]

Good info, thanks!