Triple Boot: OS X/Ubuntu/XP

[B0rg]

There are lots of guides how to do this but I think this is a pretty decent tutorial for those interested. I've done this myself on my Macbook Pro so msg back if you have any issues. Please note that I did not write this but stumbled across it today. Original article: http://www.michaelvkim.net/?p=5

Operation Triple Boot = Success! OS X and XP and Linux, oh my! (http://www.michaelvkim.net/?p=5)

I’ve successfully installed three different operating systems on my Macbook Pro; Mac OS X, Windows XP SP2, and Ubuntu 6.10 Linux. I’ll show you how to do the same. There are many tutorials online to triple boot on a Macbook, but only a handful of good ones that focus on the Macbook Pro, and none of them do it like me. This was pretty complicated, so hopefully I can simplify it for you.
You’ll need:
Macbook Pro with Mac OS X installed
Windows XP SP2 (Home or Professional will work as long as it has SP2)
Bootable Ubuntu Linux CD [download] (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download)
USB drive
rEFIt Bootloader (mac os x and debian package) [OS X download] (http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?groupname=refit&filename=rEFIt-0.9.dmg&use_mirror=easynews) [debian download] (http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/download.pl?arch=i386&file=pool%2Fmain%2Fr%2Frefit%2Frefit_0.7-3_i386.deb&md5sum=3c024545a08c11c57290ee49725b8ab2&arch=i386&type=main)
Boot Camp 1.1 or laterStep 1

Download and install Boot Camp. Run the Boot Camp Assistant (Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Boot Camp Assistant) and create the Windows XP Driver cd. Do NOT partition the drives! Just make the CD and exit. Go ahead and install the OS X rEFIt as well. Here’s a tutorial on how to install rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html). Download the rEFIt package for Linux (http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/download.pl?arch=i386&file=pool%2Fmain%2Fr%2Frefit%2Frefit_0.7-3_i386.deb&md5sum=3c024545a08c11c57290ee49725b8ab2&arch=i386&type=main) and transfer it to a USB drive. In a nutshell, rEFIt is like Boot Camp without the 2-OS limit. Boot Camp only allows you to boot from 2 different partitions in the internal hard drive, Mac OS X and Windows. rEFIt will allow you to boot from several partitions on the internal hard drive, several partitions on any attached external drive, and even from a bootable CD-ROM. In summary, Boot Camp = Dual Boot; rEFIt = Triple Boot.

Step 2

In Mac OS X, open up a Terminal window (Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type in:
diskutil list
and you should see something like this:

/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *115.8 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 115.5 GB disk0s2

We’re going to re-partition the hard drive now. Right now, there’s only one partition: Apple_HFS (Mac OS X), which takes all of the space on the hard drive. We need to shrink this partition and add 2 others for Windows and Linux. To do so, type in:
diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 85.5G "Linux" "Linux" 15G "MS-DOS FAT32" "Windows" 15G
In English, this command resizes the current partition to 85.5 GB (disk0s2 85.5G), creates a 15 GB Linux-type partition labelled “Linux” (”Linux” “Linux” 15G), and creates another 15 GB FAT32-type partition labelled “Windows”(”MS-DOS FAT32″ “Windows” 15G). My 120GB hard drive has 115.8GB, so be sure to change the partition size to match your disk space. After resizing the partitions, it will ask you to reboot. Go ahead and reboot. Verify the partitions to make sure they’re correct. It should look a little something like this:

/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *115.8 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 85.5 GB disk0s2
3: Linux 15.0 GB disk0s3
4: NTFS/FAT32 15.0 GB disk0s4

Step 3

Time to install Windows! Note: the installation disc MUST have SP2 due to the special SATA drivers that come pre-installed. If your copy of Windows doesn’t have SP2, slipstream it in (http://www.nliteos.com/). Insert the Windows XP Installation CD and reboot. When it’s rebooting, press and hold the ‘C’ key. This will force the computer to boot from the CD. Follow the installation instructions. When prompted for the partition to install Windows, select drive C: (disk0s4).
Triple-booting will not work if Windows is on the 2nd or 3rd partition. This is because Mac OS X and Linux use Extensible Firmware Interface, or EFI, and Windows uses the older PC BIOS, which relies on the Master Boot Record, or MBR. I’m not really sure why this requires Windows to be installed on the 4th partition, but I’m pretty sure the reason is as confusing as the previous sentence.

Step 4

When the installation is finished, insert and install the XP Drivers CD you created with the Boot Camp Assistant. Click yes to everything and you’ll soon be asked to reboot. When you do, you’ll have a fully functional dual-booting machine.

Step 5

Insert the Ubuntu Installation Disc in the computer and reboot. As with before, press and hold ‘C’ to boot from the CD. You’ll end up booting into a Linux environment from the CD. Linux won’t actually install until you double-click “Install”, but don’t do that just yet. Remember the rEFIt package you transferred to the USB drive? Transfer it to the desktop in Linux and install it.
When it’s finished, open up a Terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type in (but DON’T hit Enter):
sudo gptsync /dev/sda && sudo sfdisk -c /dev/sda 3 83
Just leave this sitting in the Terminal window for now. Go ahead and start installing Linux. When you come to the partitioning part, make sure you install Linux to the 3rd partition (disk0s3). Some flavors of Linux ask you to mount a Swap drive to a different partition, but that’s not necessary. Just install “/” to disk0s3. Pretty soon, the installer will say it “GRUB will be installed to (hd0)”, with (hd0) being a clickable button. This caused me 3 days of headaches! Click on the button and delete the (hd0), then click OK. You’ll notice the (hd0) has been replaced with “/dev/”. Go ahead and click on that again, and add “sda3″ at the end. It should say “GRUB will be installed to /dev/sda3″ with “/dev/sda3″ being a clickable button. This will install grub (GRand Unified Bootloader) onto just the Linux partition instead of the entire hard drive.
When the installation progress bar comes up, pay attention to the percentage. From 0% to 15%, the installer will rewrite the partition tables. If you pushed Enter earlier at the Terminal, that command would’ve been overwritten by this part of the installation. Wait for the installer to reach 22%, where it will copy setup files to the hard drive. Go back to the Terminal and press Enter now. Otherwise, the installation will crash when Linux tries to install grub at the 91% mark. When finished, it will ask you to reboot. Go ahead and reboot.

Conclusion

Grab a cold one and pat yourself on the back because you now have 3 operating systems on one hard drive! I didn’t find any information in Step 5 online, so I had to wrestle with that one for a few days. I hope this tutorial was easy to understand. If you need clarification on any part, let me know.

[MacSolidWorks]

B0rg you are the man! Your tips caused me to think of doing a triple boot in a different way. Your creative thinking led me to an entirely new way to triple boot that is MUCH easier to do than your method.

I was able to get ubuntu 64bit and XP 64bit on my MacPro as triple boot, as far as I know, this is the first all 64bit OS triple boot Macintosh computer.

See my post on the Apple forums if interested.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=963685

P.S. I shamelessly stole some of your above text for my post, hope that's okay.

-MSW

[Jim]

Thanks for this!

I came across rEFIt on iusethis.com the other day and have totally been itching to try it out.

Thanks for the motivation.

[B0rg]

B0rg you are the man! Your tips caused me to think of doing a triple boot in a different way. Your creative thinking led me to an entirely new way to triple boot that is MUCH easier to do than your method.

It's not my tutorial, I just brought it here as it worked seemlessly for me. I quoted the source at the top there.

Glad you people also found it useful :biggrin:

[J@ck1nth3b0x]

All of this sounds really simple and all, and i thank you so much for writing this post about how to do it on a MacBook Pro. My g/f has a macbook and she wants windows on a seperate partition on her laptop so she can use it for programming and stuff. So boot camp gave her shit about her hard drive not being formattable, and i had read that boot camp can be quite finicky about that. I was wondering if the technique you used to obtained to get a triple boot could also be used for a dual boot(just not create a partition for linux and all)?



Also, i have another question, totally off subject though... I was recently caught and warned about downloading by my local ISP. So since i was dumb before and have since stopped downloading from bittorents, i had heard about news groups and was wondering if they were a safe, more low key, way of downloading. Also, am i being watched now that i was warned?



Thanks in advance for all of your advice.

[methos]

All of this sounds really simple and all, and i thank you so much for writing this post about how to do it on a MacBook Pro. My g/f has a macbook and she wants windows on a seperate partition on her laptop so she can use it for programming and stuff. So boot camp gave her shit about her hard drive not being formattable, and i had read that boot camp can be quite finicky about that. I was wondering if the technique you used to obtained to get a triple boot could also be used for a dual boot(just not create a partition for linux and all)?

Thanks in advance for all of your advice.


What issues did your g/f encounter with boot camp? I was able to install vista on my macbook pro. The only issue I encountered was that OS X complained that it wouldn't be able to read the NTFS file system.

[toadM]

:confused: I installed grub on the entire hard drive like a dummy. What should I do to undo this and install grub on the third partition?


any help is much appreciated
Toad

[JAM]

i have only tried the following on a MacBook Pro (santa rosa generation)
i am writing this tutorial because there is no actual tutorial out there that will completely work and allow you to use all three operating systems....
i have come up with these steps through trial and error and a combination of various tutorials i found on the topic...

1. i started with a clean install of OS X Leopard on my hard disk drive (i had not yet partitioned my hard drive)

2. after installing leopard, install rEFIt (a boot loader) and make sure it is working by restarting your MBP and pressing the option button (the first time) etc...

3. inside OS X leopard go to the applications folder > utilities > boot camp assistant
using the assistant partition your hard drive according to the desired capacity you want available for your windows partition....and when you reach the insert an XP disc to start installation.....do NOT proceed.....choose the "install later" option...
Note: it is important that you do not install XP at this stage, or else you will have to re-install it after adding an extra partition for ubuntu since partitioning will destroy proper booting from the windows partition

4. pop in the OS X Leopard install disc and boot from the disc.....once inside chose disk utility from the menu bar.....
in disk utility click on the hard drive disk name (not on any of the partition names)....the hard disk name that includes the 2 partitions created so far...
when selected, you can see a "partition" tab in the available tools on the right part of disk utility
click on the partition tab, and then click on the graphic of macintosh hd (the OS X partition whatever you've named it) and click on the little "+" button
this will allow you to add an extra partition that you can resize either using the graphic or by typing in the desired capacity....
this will create a new partition which we will format for now using Mac OS Extended (Journaled)....

Note: you will now have three partitions and YES the XP partition will be the last partition (disk0s4) according to your partition map thus allowing you to install XP and allowing XP to boot properly

4. after partitioning, it's time for installation....
pop in the windows xp disc and boot from the disc.....after all files are loaded...install xp on the partition created via boot camp in step # 3.....YES it will show up in the list of partitions with the name C:\ something <boot camp> blablabla......you can even format it along the process before the windows installation actually begins......
do not forget after installing windows (first part through booting from the disc and then the MBP will automatically reboot after which you have to chose to boot to the XP partition to complete the installation) pop in the os x leopard disc in windows to install boot camp drivers

5. with windows installed, pop in the ubuntu (i used 7.10) disc and boot from the disc.....and start the installation....when you reach the step of choosing which parition to install on or size or something......choose manual and click next....wait for the partition tool to load....locate the partition created (using disk utility earlier) for ubuntu and click on it then click on 'edit partition'....set the mount point as "/" and chose "ext3" as the format....(the partition will be automatically formatted when you begin installation)....when clicking next, it will warn you of the swap partition but you can safely ignore that.....continue with the installation steps until you reach the last step.....BEFORE CLICKING ON INSTALL.....in the last step, click on the "advanced" button and MAKE SURE to install the boot loader to the partition allocated for ubuntu in our case it will probably be the third partition (i.e. instead of hd(0,0) os something like that just type "/dev/sda3")
then click next and finish installation......
by now when you boot your MBP, you should have 3 options available using rEFIt, and all of the bootable and fully functional

the three most important things that you should carefully do and NOT ignore are:
a. partition the way i did it cause if you don't use boot camp for creating the first partition you might have problems when installing windows (when booted from the disc)...the partition would not show or you can't format it....or you have to format or delete first blablabla...all sorts of issues

b. after partitioning and before installing...use terminal and type in "diskutil list" and make sure the EFI system is on partition 1, OS X on 2, Ubuntu on 3, and XP on 4......it is CRUCIAL that the xp partition be the last one or it would not boot

c. you must change the boot loader setting in the last step of the ubuntu installation to the appropriate partition or else you would either render ubuntu unbootable or XP unbootable or even both and you'll have to repeat everything all over again

and ofcourse do not blame me for any mis-happenings that occur with you so make sure to BACK UP all your date before you attempt any of this if it means anything to you

[Kelly]

Nice write up. I've been using rEfit for a while to dual boot Linux and Leopard and it works amazingly. The only problems I have ran into from time to time is issues with Grub, some distros run older / modified versions of Grub, so it doesn't always work 100% with out some configuring, but it's no big deal!

[Automatic]

nice post. Im in post/digital media and though parallels is great for VM I really need to have complete access to all resources when operating in another OS. Im gonna try this out.. Thanks B0rg

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