this question may seem a little 'noob taking the next logical step without thinking'

[Embio]

Quadruple boot? OK now bear with me... when I get my mac I will need to use OSX (obviously) as the primary OS, whilst keeping Vista/XP for gaming/using my sony walkmen, but then I also want to use linux because my uni uses it extensively and because I want to learn. I've installed Suse on a VM and really like it, but I'd also like to install Gentoo as a way of educating myself.

Is this even remotely possible? I know I could just use an external HDD and rEFIt, as was pointed out in a recent post regarding an OSX/Vista/XP/linux boot. But having just speant an obscene amount of money on a macbook, I wont be keen on spending another £50-80 on an external drive, also it would be annoying to keep getting it out my bag.

feel free to flame the noob :p

[bdj21ya]

I don't know much about triple or quadruple booting, but I would imagine it is possible with some of the same methods that people have used for triple.

One thing I will say though is that you are very unlikely to see much if any flaming here. I've noticed that this is one of the most polite and helpful forums around. Welcome!

[kirreip]

hello embio
Your idea is very interesting but I don't think this is going to work. I am not an expert, so I can't really tell you why but if your read the wiki, the triple booting section, they explain what problems are involved with diffetent OS's on your mac. And this sounds logic to me... read the part " Disk Partitions and their Limitations"

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp#Disk_Partitions_and_their _Limitations

There might be another way such as putting an OS to an external HD and booting from it but (just an idea) but obviusly you can not install more than three OS's on your internal HD. And there is another problem: The apple firmware expects to have Windows installed on c: and I don't believe it will allow XP on c: and vista on d:

I hope I was able to help you. Maybe not by solving your problem but explaining you what the difficulties are.

[Embio]

cheers guys, I suspected as much. not to worry, theres always parallels :D

[kirreip]

yes, and there will be the day, when there is no need for xp and bootcamp on the same computer anyway.

[epsonguy]

Not quad boot, but check out VMWare. It is kind of like parallels, but is capable of running linux, freebsd, xp, etc. Right now they only have a windows version of it, but a osx version has been announced and you can get on the beta list by going to their website.