mosslack Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 A quick look around the forum and I didn't find this being discussed all that much, so here is my story: Hardware: Gigabyte GA-945GCMX-S2 motherboard with Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz Intel processor and 1 Gb RAM Software: Boot It NG Details: Along with the motherboard and processor, I installed a Combox 3 drive selector in my case which allows me to boot from one of three HD's. Presently I have installed a (1) 320 Gb IDE drive, an (2) 80 Gb SATA drive and an (3) IDE HD tray which allows me even further switch HD's without having to open the case. The (1) drive has Boot It NG installed as the boot manager and presently I can run the following operating systems: OSx86 Leopard (10 Gb) Windows XP Pro SP2 (40 Gb) Mandriva 8 (10 Gb) Absolute Linux (10 Gb) PC Linux OS (10 Gb) Simply Mepis (10 Gb) Fedora 8 (10 Gb) Open SUSE 10.3 (10 Gb) Along with these I made a 40 Gb data partition which can be accessed by each of the above OSes and of course a common Linux swap partition which is used by all of the different Linux distros. I still have about 150 Gb left on the drive to install new OSes. So far I have not had any luck installing a BSD distro as they don't play well with my boot manager. I've written to the authors of Boot It NG to see if they plan a version for the actual Mac hardware and they said they are looking into it, but it won't be available any time soon. At least we know that it will work with the OS. I'm also looking for a traditional email list on this topic (I don't really like web forums) so if you have a suggestion please let me know. Just a message from Doug... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anomaly Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Can anyone point me to a range of acceptable hardware for vanilla install? I ran through the post real quick but didn't see anything about HCLs for a perfect/flawless, vanilla-kernel install. Does this allow one you use boot camp and have a native OSX and win/linux multi-boot system? I also saw a few ppl OC'n there hardware, once upon a time in 10.4.x that would make things behave strangely (like the clock). If I could build and OC a flawless 10.5 computer that'd be hot; I've been looking at some new hardware. Is there a range of nV vid cards that all work equally as well? If someone could point me to a HCL or write a list of perfect mobos, processors, and video cards that'd be awesome. Thanks. Edit: looks like the HCL does include info about EFI and vanilla kernel compatibility Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plympton Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 What did you format your drive as - MBR or GUID (or does it even matter?). I'm in the process of trying to make a triple or quad-boot setup - 10.4.11 stable, 10.5 un-stable, 10.5 test, and XP, and I'd like to find the easiest way to do this. I've been using Acronis Boot Selector, but a) it's finicky, pain in the ass when it doesn't recognize your partition (you can't force it to try), and c) errors out when it sees a GUID partition ANYWHERE, so I can't seamslessly reboot-and-retry remotely (I've been doing a bunch of copies remotely, and need to reboot frequently) Thanks for any tips! -Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mosslack Posted December 20, 2007 Author Share Posted December 20, 2007 Can anyone point me to a range of acceptable hardware for vanilla install? I ran through the post real quick but didn't see anything about HCLs for a perfect/flawless, vanilla-kernel install. Does this allow one you use boot camp and have a native OSX and win/linux multi-boot system? I also saw a few ppl OC'n there hardware, once upon a time in 10.4.x that would make things behave strangely (like the clock). If I could build and OC a flawless 10.5 computer that'd be hot; I've been looking at some new hardware. Is there a range of nV vid cards that all work equally as well? If someone could point me to a HCL or write a list of perfect mobos, processors, and video cards that'd be awesome. Thanks.Browse the Homebrew Macs (Home of OSx86)/Hardware forum for answers to your questions.HTHJust a message from Doug...What did you format your drive as - MBR or GUID (or does it even matter?). I'm in the process of trying to make a triple or quad-boot setup - 10.4.11 stable, 10.5 un-stable, 10.5 test, and XP, and I'd like to find the easiest way to do this. I've been using Acronis Boot Selector, but a) it's finicky, pain in the ass when it doesn't recognize your partition (you can't force it to try), and c) errors out when it sees a GUID partition ANYWHERE, so I can't seamslessly reboot-and-retry remotely (I've been doing a bunch of copies remotely, and need to reboot frequently)Thanks for any tips!-DanBoot It NG allows you to set up the partitions for many different OSes, but OSx86 isn't one of them. What I did was to set up the partition I wanted for OSx86 as fat32, which was recognized by Disk Utility once I booted the install DVD. Then just erase the volume and set it up as Mac Extended (Journaled). If you use the kalyway install & make bootable utility it overwrites the MBR of the HD, so you have to reboot with the Boot It NG CD and choose reactivate from the menu. This happens when installing Windows XP also and the cure is the same. Most of the Linux distros will allow you to install Grub or Lilo to the root partition instead of the MBR which works well with alternate boot managers such as Boot It NG. You can check out Boot It NG at http://bootitng.com/ for more info. It is shareware so you can try before you buy. HTHJust a message from Doug...What did you format your drive as - MBR or GUID (or does it even matter?). I'm in the process of trying to make a triple or quad-boot setup - 10.4.11 stable, 10.5 un-stable, 10.5 test, and XP, and I'd like to find the easiest way to do this. I've been using Acronis Boot Selector, but a) it's finicky, pain in the ass when it doesn't recognize your partition (you can't force it to try), and c) errors out when it sees a GUID partition ANYWHERE, so I can't seamslessly reboot-and-retry remotely (I've been doing a bunch of copies remotely, and need to reboot frequently)Thanks for any tips!-DanBoot It NG allows you to set up the partitions for many different OSes, but OSx86 isn't one of them. What I did was to set up the partition I wanted for OSx86 as fat32, which was recognized by Disk Utility once I booted the install DVD. Then just erase the volume and set it up as Mac Extended (Journaled). If you use the kalyway install & make bootable utility it overwrites the MBR of the HD, so you have to reboot with the Boot It NG CD and choose reactivate from the menu. This happens when installing Windows XP also and the cure is the same. Most of the Linux distros will allow you to install Grub or Lilo to the root partition instead of the MBR which works well with alternate boot managers such as Boot It NG. You can check out Boot It NG at http://bootitng.com/ for more info. It is shareware so you can try before you buy. HTHJust a message from Doug... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plympton Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Hmm.. so you're stuck with an MBR setup if you go bootit NG, sounds like. It would be nice to have a multi-booter that works with GUID - I like the ability to add and drop partitions easily (and grow & shrink) that GUID has - I would like to make one drive an "OS" drive, with 5-6 partitions. I think MBR can only have 3 (?) primary, bootable partitions. Also, I think every time you boot, it sets flags, etc... I worry that every time you change OS's, you run the risk - small risk - that those changes won't work right, etc... Hmm... anyone know if you can Boot Camp with GUID and EFI? I did a few searches, and came up dry... lots of talk about boot camp on MBR, however. There was the other thing that you can't do EFI + WinXP 32-bit, and needed a 64-bit OS to use the new EFI stuff. Hmm.. I might just end up with a Windows HD and a Mac HD and call it good... :-P. <Blech> -Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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