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tri-boot?

O

oOo sam lee oOo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2004
Messages
297
I got my macbook about two months ago, and lately, ive been thinking about starting to use boot camp to get windows and such. i've also been wanting try out linux (just wanna play around with it, nothing serious yet) so i was wondering if this was possible. (i know windows is, but is mac-windows-linux?)

and if it is possible:
i have an external hard drive that i wanted to transfer all my movies and extra files to (takes up too much space), so waht file format would i need to use so that it can be accessed by all three OS's?
 
Why not just get a copy of VMWare Fusion and VM everything? See if you like linux before you start carving away HDD space. Fusion can even virtualize your Boot Camp partition so you can work in windows while in OSX.

Also, it doesn't really matter what format you use for videos; you can install VLC on any OS and it will play practically everything.
 
Look up refit for tri booting. It's very possible, although you might want to consider a larger hard drive first.
 
Boot Camp makes windows easy enough. Both parallells and Vmware can run that partition/system on leopard. You CAN do a tripple boot, but it requires a little/some work. I'd probably just run it virtualized if I were you.

For an extern drive that would be readable/writable by all OSes: FAT32, but that comes with a file limit of 4gb, which can create problems. OS X can read ntfs, but can't write to it. Well, it CAN if you do some magic with macfuse, but I don't know anything about it. I wouldn't take any chances.
 
Come on people, be [H]ard. OSX, Windows, and Linux is a great combination. Also I believe ext2 is easy to read/write on the nix platforms, and there's a Windows driver too. Might be good for the external drive. Macfuse isn't too hard to get working either.
 
as for VMware, i think i'd rather try out something free first :p (well, i guess i could try the trial)

i downloaded rEFIt, and as it says on the site, im gonna try to boot it from a cd (it said something about trying this if i didnt want to mess with my actual drive just yet)

and in anticipation of at least mac/windows dual-boot, i tried formatting the extra space on my hard drive (160gb is set apart for time machine....i dont really know if this too little or too much but...i guess its working so far...) so the rest of the 300 some gigs into ext2, but i only get options to format with Mac OS extended, MS-DOS (FAT), and Free Space. :confused:

one more thing. i moved up for school in august, and left all my installation cd's (including windows xp) at home, so would it be possible to use someone else's windows xp cd (if i can find one up here), and use my own cd key? or would i be better off asking my parents to mail the cd to me?

thank you
 
Virtual Box by Sun is free to download.

The problem that you are gonna run into if you borrow someone's CD is that you need to find the same match as what you have at home. If you have a really old Windows cd, (before any service packs installed), your key will only work w/ those. It's probably best to have them send you the CD so that if you need it a second time, it's available. That's what I would do.
 
oO i think ill try that out too...thanks :)

i also booted from cd for rEFIt, and even though i only had one option of "Mac HD," it seems alright. (probably doesnt mean anything :p)

also, as i googled about it more, i actually found http://geofas.com/2008/05/20/triple-boot-on-my-macbook-mac-os-x-ubuntu-linux-windows-xpvista/, which seems to run through it pretty easily. i was just wondering if this seems like a legit way to do it.

ill probably have to get it mailed, since i left my mac cds tehre too -_-

thanks again.
 
Yes, you can tri-boot. Keep in mind that:

Linux wants GRUB, and will probably blow away anything on there to install GRUB without telling you.
Although it claims GPT support, I've never gotten Linux to work with it.
The Atheros cards that Macbooks use have varied success in Linux. SUSE in particular is a pain in the ass with Atheros cards. Mandriva and Ubuntu are a little nicer.

Since we're talking GNU/Linux, I'll throw in my two cents:
  • Ubuntu is a terrible champion for the GNU/Linux name, avoid it. You won't learn real Linux with Ubuntu, you'll learn their bastardized version of pseudo-GNU.
  • Mandriva is the best, openSUSE is a close second.
  • Don't listen to the haters - RPMs are still better than DEBs.
  • If you do a lot of digging in your Mac's underpinnings, you may find FreeBSD to be more comfortable than GNU/Linux.
 
so i just got my leopard cd in the mail from home, and got windows xp w/sp3, and went through the steps, but when i select the right partition to install it on, i dont get an option to format the hard drive. In the bootcamp setup instructions, it says i have to format with windows installer, because otherwise, it wont be bootable. i go through a loop of installing files into the windows folder, rebooting, selecting the partition, getting "there is an existing windows installation, press whatever to overwrite files, etc." and when i do, if i try booting from windows, i get disc error, and when i try booting from a cd it starts over again.

so i figured i would get my xp cd from home (w/sp1) and try out the entire slipstream thing to get it up to sp2 (i dont even know if this will work) so for the time being, i tried virtualbox recommended by disuse_nc, using the sp3 cd, and when i install on the virtual hard drive, i do get a formatting option. so i figure its not becuase of a difference in whats on the cds.

any ideas on why i cant format after bootcamp?
 
I had this problem as well, when I installed XP earlier. There's a very simple fix, and you know about it (formatting). You don't seem to have actually formated in the installation process, just overwriting the previous install, and that won't work.

1. Install and create a Bootcamp partition.
2. Reboot and run the windows installer
3. When you choose the bootcamp partition to install on: select format as NTFS. Do NOT chose convert to NTFS or you'll get a boot error.

(4) As far as I can remember you can delete the bootcamp partition in the windows installer and then create a new one as NTFS if you don't get the option to format when just picking it normally.
 
for 3., i dont get anything that has to do with formatting

4. i actually considered that, but bootcamp instructions specifically said not to:) but i mean...i guess its worth a shot, right? :p
 
Ok, I'll try to remember and explain a litle more clearly.

So, you got your newly created Bootcamp. You reboot the machine with the windows install disc in the drive. You start the installation process, press F8 to accept the eula and what not. You are presented with a list of partitions, one of which is your boot camp in a FAT32 filesystem. You select that partition and hit enter and are presented with a few options (something like this):

Do nothing, keep FAT32
Format as FAT32
Quick format as FAT32
Convert to NTFS
Quick format as NTFS
Format as NTFS

The default I think is convert, which you don't want to choose, since it ends up with a broken install (the disk error). What you want to choose is either Quick format, or format as NTFS. That should give you a functional windows system.
 
:/ yea, i thought it was weird i didnt get hte EULA thing. sorry for not clarifying earlier, but could it be because its a volume license from school? i dunno, cuz its technically still windows xp w/sp3, no?
 
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