# How to go about building a tri-boot system?



## panchoman (Jan 26, 2008)

Alright guys... i just went out and grabbed mac os x leopard.. and im patching with a 32-bit Amd sse3 kernal which should let me use all of the programs in leo.. so yeah... and my dad's friend is getting my xp pro 64 bit and im gonna install sp3.. and i also want to put some sort of easy to use and low maintaince linux.. such as ubuntu gusty gibbon tribe 4.. but i was told that fedora core 8 is great as well. 

i've got a fast 30 gig hdd and a slow 10 gig hdd. was thinking i could partition the 30 gig into 2 bits.. one being xp and the other being mac and then leave the 10 gig for linux? also considering installing the linux on my flash drive though... so thats also something im thinking about. 

so my questions: 

1. keep 32 bit xp and upgrade to sp3 or go 64 bit and sp3?
2. suggest a linux
3. which  bootloader should i use? i dont think LILO works for this right? was told to use GRUB? 
4. how should i get all 3 installations onto the bootloader.. and in what order should i install. 
5. where to install which?


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## Wile E (Jan 27, 2008)

Your best bet is to install Windows and Linux on the 30gig. Then remove it, and install OS X on the 10gig. Use the BIOS to boot to the different disks.

As far as Windows, I liked X64 the best. Fast, stable and secure. Built off of the 2003 kernel.

For linux, I'm a Fedora man, but you can't really go wrong wit Ubuntu/Kubuntu either.

Install Windows first, then Linux. Remove the drive, then Install OS X on the other drive. I don't know how well Leopard plays with a hacked install on a drive shared with Windows, but Tiger and Windows didn't always play nice when I did a hacked install.


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## panchoman (Jan 27, 2008)

the guides say that the mac partition should have 15 gigs min. or something like that and since i want mac to be my primary os, i want it to be on the faster drive, the 30 gig.. i'm thinking about partitioning it so that mac gets 20 gigs and windows gets 10 gigs or something like that.. and then thinking about putting linux on my ocz rally 2 2gb flash drive as it can do a respectable 25 mb/s read with 1804 mb/s burst compared to the 11 mb/s read and 16 mb/s burst of the 10 gig drive and im thinking i can just use the 10 gig drive to store some photos and stuff like that which would be fine on a slow drive. gonna format all of the drives as fat 32 so that they can all work on the same base.. thought if ntfs really does offer a good benefit over fat 32.. i might format the windows partition as ntfs.. as i know linux should be able to mount ntfs with no probs and that os x can read but not write to ntfs so yeah. what do you think? oh and hows the support on xp 64? and i really dont want to use multiple bootloaders.. i think i might use GRUB if i find a good guide on it. i know that people can EASILY use the vista bootloader and mount all kinds of oses and it works great.. so thinking about trying to obtain vista bootloader...


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## Wile E (Jan 28, 2008)

panchoman said:


> the guides say that the mac partition should have 15 gigs min. or something like that and since i want mac to be my primary os, i want it to be on the faster drive, the 30 gig.. i'm thinking about partitioning it so that mac gets 20 gigs and windows gets 10 gigs or something like that.. and then thinking about putting linux on my ocz rally 2 2gb flash drive as it can do a respectable 25 mb/s read with 1804 mb/s burst compared to the 11 mb/s read and 16 mb/s burst of the 10 gig drive and im thinking i can just use the 10 gig drive to store some photos and stuff like that which would be fine on a slow drive. gonna format all of the drives as fat 32 so that they can all work on the same base.. thought if ntfs really does offer a good benefit over fat 32.. i might format the windows partition as ntfs.. as i know linux should be able to mount ntfs with no probs and that os x can read but not write to ntfs so yeah. what do you think? oh and hows the support on xp 64? and i really dont want to use multiple bootloaders.. i think i might use GRUB if i find a good guide on it. i know that people can EASILY use the vista bootloader and mount all kinds of oses and it works great.. so thinking about trying to obtain vista bootloader...


If you're dead set on using one boatloader, give this a read. http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/grub/grub.htm

xp64 has great support. Just double check for drivers for your hardware. As for FAT32, it reads/writes by default in all 3, but you also have to remember that no single file can go over 4GB.

For trying to create a Vista Bootloader, you can give VistaBootPro a shot. It's a free tool, but I'm not entirely certain how to get the Vista loader to recognize alternate OSes.


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## panchoman (Jan 31, 2008)

Grub was actually very kind to me.. and very easy to use.. i installed in the following order: 

mac os x
xp 64
ubuntu 7.10 

and the nt bootloader from xp actually picked up the mac os x and added it to the boot loader as "foreign os on drive C:" so that was good.. and then after i installed ubuntu.. which natively uses grub, it automatically picked up xp 64 and added it to the list.. and adding mac to grub was so ridiciously easy that i thought it was a joke at first.. but it wasn't... i've attached my config file for grub.. which can be accessed and edited by typing:


```
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
```

in the terminal and then entering your account password when it asks you to. 

so alls well. project tri-boots going well.. everthings installed properly except for mac.. which is installed.. using the wrong patch i used a os x 10.4.10 tiger kernal/patch instead of a os x 10.5 leopard patch and so everything went screwy and so when mac boots.. half way through the boot process it throws me a kernal panic


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## Wile E (Jan 31, 2008)

panchoman said:


> Grub was actually very kind to me.. and very easy to use.. i installed in the following order:
> 
> mac os x
> xp 64
> ...


lol. It happens. At least they're fresh installs, so you're not losing much, just a little time.


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## Dandel (Feb 1, 2008)

i dual boot all the time, and going in to tri boot is easy.

step 1) partition the drive in to 3 partitions ( leaving 1 empty for the linux installer. )
step 2) install windows on the first 2 partitions.
step 3) install linux, and let it auto partition the remaining space. ( i recommend at least 30gb of space for linux, because it will make things a lot easier. )

step 4) enjoy.


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## Wile E (Feb 1, 2008)

Dandel said:


> i dual boot all the time, and going in to tri boot is easy.
> 
> step 1) partition the drive in to 3 partitions ( leaving 1 empty for the linux installer. )
> step 2) install windows on the first 2 partitions.
> ...


Yeah, but he's throwing OS X in there. Not quite as easy to do, but not all that hard. Manual configuration of GRUB is necessary.


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