Triple-Booting [Archive] - OnMac.net Forums

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 01:08 AM

92GTA

8th April 2006, 01:23 AM

Go Whitewolf!!!!

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 02:01 AM

Well, I'm going out to party for the night, but here are some hints. You'll probably break your Mac a couple times, I know I did.

1. GPT cannot be used from the system you are working on.
2. fdisk CAN be used from the system you are working on, as can the diskutil resizeVolume command.
3. Once you've used the BootCamp helper, you'll have an fdisk MBR and a GPT GUID dual partition table disk.
4. You can create a copy of your fdisk style MBR using the following command:
fdisk -d /dev/rdisk0 > backup.MBR.partition.table
5. Once you've got a partition table backup, pull up you the gui Disk Utility. Reformat the new BootCamp partition as HFS+ Journaled.
6. Use the command line diskutil command to resize this partition. The command works as follows:

diskutil resizeVolume /Volume/<Put Name of Partition Here> <Size you want in Gigabytes>G

this command does not work properly. You have to resize things a little bit a time, and you will have to restart each time. You can eject/reinsert if you are working in Firewire Target Disk mode.
7. Once you've created free space, you have to use the gpt tool to add a partition. Check the man page, it is somewhat tricky.
8. Once you've used the GPT tool, you have to add a partition to your backup.MBR.partition.table file, with the same geometry as the partition created in step 7. You can leave the heads/cylinders/sectors as 0, it'll figure them out. Use the partition type number (in hex) from line 3 of the backup.MBR.partition.table file.
9. Alter line 3 of the aforemention file so it matches the new size you resized the volume to in step 6.
10. Restart again.

This will get you 3 bootable partitions, however, XP will not boot up correctly, it gives you a "cannot find <windows>/system32/hal.dll" error, even though the file is clearly there. I'll work more on this tomorrow.
Don't mess with this if you are afraid of loosing data, or don't know what you are doing. This is a work in progress. Furthermore, I've probably typed errors in my list of steps above, either typos or procedural errors. Tomorrow I'll work on the procedure, to get it finalized, then I'll write a shell script to do it automatically.

EDIT: Damn! Just got it working somehow! Try installing XP on both of the new partitions, and then try booting from both using the NTLDR screen.

Also, when I say 3 bootable partitions, I mean you still only get a choice between 2 on the initial booting screen, OS X and Windows. When you pick Windows, the NTLDR boot dialogue will give you two choices from boot.ini . Literally just this second one of those choices started to work from me (did stage 1 install on both partitions). I wish I had more time to work on it. I'm 99% of the way to a solution. Catch you all tomorrow. P.S. SuSE 10.1 boots up nicely as well, I think I can chain the NTLDR boot sequence to LILO or Grub (maybe Grldr).

Cheers,
WhiteWolf666

diamondsw

8th April 2006, 02:32 AM

I'm working on it.

The trick is that BootCamp actually creates TWO partition schemes on your disk. An old school MBR editable with FDISK, and a GUID partition table, using GPT.

No software will keep these insync automatically. Any Linux or Windows or OS X software for manipulating partitions will destroy one or the other. You need to edit the partition tables by hand, and you have to make sure you keep them in sync, and you have to not replace the EFI bootloader partition.

I'm almost there :) I'll post a solution soon. I'm tribooting XP/Linux/OS X

I've posted this elsewhere, but do note that diskutil now has support for resizing volumes (http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/cli/nondestructively_resizing_volumes). I'd just set up all of your volumes in one shot using this, and then proceed with installs.

sshjason

8th April 2006, 04:48 AM

EDIT: Damn! Just got it working somehow! Try installing XP on both of the new partitions, and then try booting from both using the NTLDR screen.

Also, when I say 3 bootable partitions, I mean you still only get a choice between 2 on the initial booting screen, OS X and Windows. When you pick Windows, the NTLDR boot dialogue will give you two choices from boot.ini . Literally just this second one of those choices started to work from me (did stage 1 install on both partitions). I wish I had more time to work on it. I'm 99% of the way to a solution. Catch you all tomorrow. P.S. SuSE 10.1 boots up nicely as well, I think I can chain the NTLDR boot sequence to LILO or Grub (maybe Grldr).

Cheers,
WhiteWolf666

I don't have my MBP yet, but here is a thought: Could you use BootCamp to make the initial first two partitions, then (if, as you say, Suse is booting) use that to install Suse, and a boot loader partion (probably LILO or GRUB). Then, after installing Suse, you could install XP. After this, you could reinstall GRUB (I don't have experience with LILO) to find the XP partion, so that when you boot from the initial screen (XP/Mac), you choose XP, but it really boots into GRUB/LILO, then you choose to run Suse or XP.

Just a thought ....

~/Jason

Betamax

8th April 2006, 11:48 AM

I don't have my MBP yet, but here is a thought: Could you use BootCamp to make the initial first two partitions, then (if, as you say, Suse is booting) use that to install Suse, and a boot loader partion (probably LILO or GRUB). Then, after installing Suse, you could install XP. After this, you could reinstall GRUB (I don't have experience with LILO) to find the XP partion, so that when you boot from the initial screen (XP/Mac), you choose XP, but it really boots into GRUB/LILO, then you choose to run Suse or XP.

Just a thought ....

~/Jason

Sorry but that won't work for the reasons whitewolf explained above, ie boot camp macs have two completely different partitioning "systems", ie the GPT partitioning system and the old legacy PC (MBR) partitioning system. The reason for this is that OSX can only boot from computers using GPT partioning, whereas windows only supports the legacy scheme. Linux supports both.

The upshot of this is, if you attempt to use any legacy partitioning program, the changes won't show up in OSX, and buggers it up if you format the new partions. Likewise using a gpt partitioner will bugger up windows

thesman

8th April 2006, 04:35 PM

EDIT: Damn! Just got it working somehow! Try installing XP on both of the new partitions, and then try booting from both using the NTLDR screen.

Great work m8.

I didn't have to install windows any more than once. The real deal, as you said is to keep fdisk and gpt partitions in sync.

You can do the resizeVolume thing to create the 3 necessary volumes, or wipe your disk clean with a 3 part. scheme. fdisk will just know about a single big partition (well, it will know about the other partitions too, but everything will be zeroed, offsets, sizes, etc). From there, edit each part. and set the values we can get from gpt show and they'll be exactly in sync.

Tried to boot XP setup, second stage goes perfectly without hal.dll error.

Will try to setup Linux after and see if it works flawlessly too.

Last challenge will be the bootloading... I've heard that OSX bootloader will give us only two boot options, OSX or Windows, I guess we'll have to use XP's bootloader to boot Linux?

I'll post my findings.

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 04:57 PM

I've posted this elsewhere, but do note that diskutil now has support for resizing volumes (http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/cli/nondestructively_resizing_volumes). I'd just set up all of your volumes in one shot using this, and then proceed with installs.

Doesn't seem to work properly. The first resize has to be done using boot camp. Boot camp created 128Mb of empty space between the end of your primary HFS+ partition and the start of the new MS-DOS partition.

If you notice, I used diskutil to resize the new partition after formating it to HFS+. It's tricky, but I think that 128Mb is important for Apple's boot selector.

thesman

8th April 2006, 05:03 PM

i can confirm that. Without that 128M "spacer" XP didn't work, and I always got the hal.dll error

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 05:03 PM

Great work m8.

I didn't have to install windows any more than once. The real deal, as you said is to keep fdisk and gpt partitions in sync.

You can do the resizeVolume thing to create the 3 necessary volumes, or wipe your disk clean with a 3 part. scheme. fdisk will just know about a single big partition (well, it will know about the other partitions too, but everything will be zeroed, offsets, sizes, etc). From there, edit each part. and set the values we can get from gpt show and they'll be exactly in sync.

Tried to boot XP setup, second stage goes perfectly without hal.dll error.

Will try to setup Linux after and see if it works flawlessly too.

Last challenge will be the bootloading... I've heard that OSX bootloader will give us only two boot options, OSX or Windows, I guess we'll have to use XP's bootloader to boot Linux?

I'll post my findings.

Dunno. I'm back on the tinkering trail :) I'm guessing that as long as you don't partition with a Linux partition manager, and then force Lilo (or Grub for that matter, or extlinux, or whatever) to install on the MBR, you should be okay.

Remember that XP installs NTLDR on the MBR, not in a partition. I suspect BootCamp is built with this in mind, so as long as you don't mess up the partitioning scheme you should be okay.

Interestingly enough, I think you can mess with the FDISK MBR; just make sure you keep a backup. Also, I don't think we can have more than 4 partitions; the OS X fdisk utility seems to have no concept of logical partitions, and logical partitions don't make any sense to GPT, either. Maybe if you created the 4th MBR partition as "rest of disk, EFI boot" or something, and created GPT partitions in there, and used a GPT aware boot loader in linux.

I plan on usnig 4 partitions,and creating a swapfile, not swapspace. I'll post my results when it is working, and then I'll post a shell script to automate it.

Anyone know how to make an OS X live CD?

thesman

8th April 2006, 05:05 PM

Well, OSX Install Disk is "almost" a LiveCD, you have a terminal, disk utility, good enough for most tasks... were you looking for anything else?

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 05:07 PM

i can confirm that. Without that 128M "spacer" XP didn't work, and I always got the hal.dll error

My system is in a weird sort of non-working state right now.

[Partition 1] EFI
[Partition 2] HFS+
128 Mb spacer, I think
[Partition 3] XP
[Partition 4] XP

XP on Part 4 works. XP on Part 3 gives the hal.dll error. I'm going to play with it and see if I can figure out just what it is about the 128 Mb spacer that makes it special. If its just empty space then we should be able to put together a script that replaces BootCamp's helper entirely for power users.

Well, OSX Install Disk is "almost" a LiveCD, you have a terminal, disk utility, good enough for most tasks... were you looking for anything else?

Yeah, diskutil with resize support :)

thesman

8th April 2006, 05:10 PM

My system is in a weird sort of non-working state right now.

[Partition 1] EFI
[Partition 2] HFS+
128 Mb spacer, I think
[Partition 3] XP
[Partition 4] XP

XP on Part 4 works. XP on Part 3 gives the hal.dll error. I'm going to play with it and see if I can figure out just what it is about the 128 Mb spacer that makes it special. If its just empty space then we should be able to put together a script that replaces BootCamp's helper entirely for power users.

My setup is exactly the same, small diffs:

[Partition 1] EFI
[Partition 2] HFS+
128 Mb spacer
[Partition 3] Linux
[Partition 4] XP

Have you compared the offsets and sizes from fdisk -e /your/disk and then "p" with gpt show /your/disk ? When they were wrong I couldn't even execute gpt show without getting an error so I just used fdisk to erase everyhthing and recreate cloning gpt show offsets and sizes.

Yeah, diskutil with resize support :)
I didn't try this this but... you have networking during that "live" session... and a terminal, could it be that you also have scp and could copy that file (the updated 10.4.6 version) from some place else? It could work, but alot of ifs I know...

Cheers.

thesman

8th April 2006, 05:30 PM

WhiteWolf666

8th April 2006, 05:50 PM

No success with latest mactel Ubuntu LiveCD, after it boots, there are no partitions.

dmesg reports "sda: unknown partition table"

:/

For now I have OSX and Windows XP all setup and working and an extra partition to be raped by Linux.

Try SuSE. I've gotten it to install, the only problem was the bootloader. Don't use its built-in partitioner, it wipes the MBR.

Betamax

8th April 2006, 07:58 PM

mind if I chip in for a bit :p

I've been trying to triple my macbook based on the discussion you guys have been having. Currently I've partitioned the drive as follows

[Partition 1] EFI
[Partition 2] HFS+
128 Mb spacer
[Partition 3] XP
[Partition 4] Linux

I used diskutil volumeresize. I'm getting the hall.dll error ATM.

Anyways if I was to hazzard a guess after comparing the three, I'd say that bootcamp is probably hard coded to expect the windows partiton to be the last primary partition present on the drive. (ie in my case it's trying to load from my linux partition and failing, similarly for wolf until he added the missing files to drive f:).

Also I'd recommend using the x86 gentoo live cd. In my case everything seems to work straight off the bat (except audio, but that's hardly an issue at this point).

Anyways, I'll off to repartition my drive again in order to verify my theory. I'll report back later.

thesman

8th April 2006, 08:11 PM

SuSE reported the same problem. no partitions...
This time I've tried to use "fdisk -l" to check what the problem could be and it seems my defaults for cyl/head/sec could be the problem.

fdisk sees 4 partitions but after each one it prints "Partition x does not ent on cylinder boundary".

Checking this right now

pesos

8th April 2006, 09:56 PM

whitewolf, when you get a chance can you go into more detail re: editing the partition tables and the GPT tool?

I had a 45 gig windows partition, and then used a bartPE boot cd to go in and use paragon HD manager to split that into a 30 gig hidden drive and 15 gig visible drive, then i installed XP to the 15 gig. however upon reboot I get the "problem with your disk" error message, even after i unhide and reformat the 30 gig to fat32.

i'm not necessarily looking to triple boot, mainly to have a common partition for storage for both OS's...

any tips would be great!
thanks,
Wes

Betamax

8th April 2006, 11:44 PM

if I was to hazzard a guess after comparing the three, I'd say that bootcamp is probably hard coded to expect the windows partiton to be the last primary partition present on the drive. (ie in my case it's trying to load from my linux partition and failing, similarly for wolf until he added the missing files to drive f:).

Anyways, I'll off to repartition my drive again in order to verify my theory. I'll report back later.

Ok that's confirmed. In order for bootcamp to work properly, the windows partition MUST be the LAST partition on the disk. In addition, you MUST NOT have any more than 4 partitions present (MBR limitation). Therefore the only partitioning scheme that will work for triple booting is the one described by thesman.

Ok That's me got OSX & XP happily coexisting with an ext2 partiton.... now onto gentoo ;)

pesos

8th April 2006, 11:47 PM

so even though my XP partition is the last, i still get that error - is that because my partition tables are out of whack?

thesman

8th April 2006, 11:56 PM

Just to add to my research, which method did you use to create and format the 3 partitions?

Cheers.

justajoker182

9th April 2006, 12:04 AM

When I made three partitions w/ diskutil on the mac disc and then went to install XP, the XP installer said that my disk only supoorts 2 partitions. I'm using a 100GB 5400rpm HDD.

pesos

9th April 2006, 12:07 AM

you're probably asking betamax, but this is what i did:

1) installed OS X to a 20 gig partition, with 35 gigs free space
2) ran boot camp and resized os X to 10 gigs, which then makes a 45 gig partition for windows
3) booted off my bartPE cd and ran hard disk manager, and split that 45 gig parition into a 30 gig hidden partition and a 17 gig NTFS partition
4) booted xpsp2 and installed to the 17 gig (partition 4)
5) after reboot get the error about "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the windows documentation blah blah blah..."
6) went back in with bartPE/HDM and unhid the 30 gig partition and formatted it to fat32
7) still get same error from #5

my boot.ini looks correct (0-0-0-4) so i imagine my fdisk table and/or gpt table is screwy?
-Wes

WhiteWolf666

9th April 2006, 01:57 AM

Hmm.... The linux kernel module that handles serial ATA barfs when it finds two partition tables. I'm going to clear the FAT partition table (scary!) and install linux with the GPT partition table, then reinstall the FAT table, and manually install the boot loader.

Lets see how it works ;)

pesos

9th April 2006, 04:32 AM

i am probably so late to the table in realizing this, but I just noticed that the rom update makes it so you can just boot windows natively without any need for OS X at all - when i get my MBP i'll want to dual boot, but for now I'm happy booting just XP and Win2003 on my mini...

so linux/xp/w2003 is easy, it's OS X that is the pain! lol

sshjason

9th April 2006, 08:02 AM

In Suse is there a util called "parted"? If so, you can use that to create partition tables that conform to Intel EFI/GPT partition tables. If there is not, I think that porting it would be rather simple to OS X. I'm currently working on porting it to Cygwin (X server/bash shell for Windows) in Windows (I'm waiting for the 12' Intel before I buy a new Mac), but with OS X, as it's a BSD Unix port, it ought to compile much more easier than Cygwin. Check out: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/ You may need to download and install additional libs, but it should compile rather easily. I'll let you know if I can get it to compile in Cygwin. One thing I do know is that you will need to, in the configure file, change the conditional statement: “case "$host_os" in” to:

case "$host_os" in
linux*) OS=linux ;;
gnu*) OS=gnu ;;
*) {
{
echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: Unknown or unsupported OS \"$host_os\". Only linux
and gnu are supported.
" >&5
echo "$as_me: error: Unknown or unsupported OS \"$host_os\". Only linux and gnu
are supported.
" >&2;
}
#{
#(exit 1);
#exit 1;
#};
}
;;
esac

Basically just comment the lines for "exit" if it does not like OS X as an OS to compile on.

~/Jason

diamondsw

9th April 2006, 09:55 AM

People really should keep the following post from WhiteWolf in mind:

"The trick is that BootCamp actually creates TWO partition schemes on your disk. An old school MBR editable with FDISK, and a GUID partition table, using GPT.

No software will keep these insync automatically. Any Linux or Windows or OS X software for manipulating partitions will destroy one or the other."

In a nutshell, if you use parted, Windows Setup, BartPE, Paragon, or any other partition editor, you will screw up the disk. Confine all of your partition editing to OS X and the included utilities.

Given what I've read of the "diskutil resizeVolume" command and its goofy usage, it sounds like you should be able to set up all necessary partitions in one command. Is this the case? I see lots of comments of editing the partition maps by hand, and I'll admit I don't follow it, when diskutil looks like it will do all the dirty work of keeping partition maps in sync.

As for the 4 partition MBR limit, is it possible to create extended partitions inside the final primary partition? Since I don't know how that particular bit of magic is implemented, I have no idea if it will mess up anything in the "real" partition tables (GPT/MBR) or if it is entirely contained within the primary partition. I also have no idea how OS X will interpret such a setup.

Betamax

9th April 2006, 09:55 AM

Just to add to my research, which method did you use to create and format the 3 partitions?

Cheers.

Basically yours :)

BTW I think I've found another limitation: The windows partition must be fat32, and therefore < 32GB.

Procedure (to date) is as follows.

1. Get an intel mac (:p)
2. Install OSX as normal onto the drive with 1 single partition. For speed purposes in case it goes wrong only install the base system.
3. Once setup, goto http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx1046comboforintel.html and get the 10.4.6 intel update. Install it then burn it to cd just in case ;). You could also use software update, but given the amount of time I spent repartitioning I though it best to have a local copy ;)
4. Goto http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/ and download the firmware update for your mac, as well as bootcamp itself. Install both as per normal.
5. Run the bootcamp assistant. Create the XP driver cd. DO NOT PARTITION USING BOOTCAMP. Alternatively you can find the use that dmg package hidden inside boot camp to make this disk manually. To access it ctrl-clicking on bootcamp assistant and select show contents.
6. open up a terminal window and type the following in order to repartition the drive. Nb// I have a 100Gb Hdd. You can change the volume names/sizes but not the order.

sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 60G Linux Gentoo 17G "MS-DOS FAT32" WinXp 15G

7. Insert your winXp cd and restart. When you hear the chime hold down c.
8. Windows install fires up. Now select the c:. Quick partition it as fat32.
9. After the first restart, hold down the option/alt key and select the windows HDD from the bootloader in order to continue onto stage 2/3 of the xp install.
10. Once Xp loads install the driver cd. We now have 2 Os present
11. Insert the 2006.0 x86 gentoo live cd.
12. Once gnome starts, open up a terminal window.
13. Set the live cds root password by typing

sudo passwd root

14. su to root, then format the linux partition, it should be /dev/sda3, but check first!

su
mke2fs -j /dev/sda3
15. Mount the ext3 partition you created, create a swapfile. I made a 2gb swap, however feel free to adjust that.

mount -t ext3 /dev/sda3 /mnt/gentoo
dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/gentoo/swap bytes=1024 count=2097152
mkswap /mnt/gentoo/swap
swapon /mnt/gentoo/swap

16. Ok from here you need to bootstrap your distro du jour by hand. Gentoo's website has great manual for theirs on their website.

ATM I'm about to build a kernel. I'll approach the boot problem once I hit it (I'll probably chainload it via the windows partition )

Betamax

9th April 2006, 10:07 AM

As for the 4 partition MBR limit, is it possible to create extended partitions inside the final primary partition? Since I don't know how that particular bit of magic is implemented, I have no idea if it will mess up anything in the "real" partition tables (GPT/MBR) or if it is entirely contained within the primary partition. I also have no idea how OS X will interpret such a setup.

No. GPT does not support extended partitions. There's was no need to as the GPT spec allows up to 99 primary partitions on 1 disk. If you create an extended partition at the end, OSX will still see the old primary winxp partition there. That could lead to some serious disk screwage.

thesman

9th April 2006, 03:12 PM

sudo diskutil repartitionVolume disk0s2 60G Linux Gentoo 17G "MS-DOS FAT32" WinXp 15G

I'm sure you mean "diskutil resizeVolume". Im using ubuntu dapper livecds and deboostraping too, lets see how it goes.

installing everything is fine, everything is cool until i get to the bootloader part, but I guess I'll try it as you... chainloading from NTLDR.

Betamax

9th April 2006, 03:41 PM

Thanks for the correction.

The bootloading via ntldr worked. Full triple boot goodness:). However you'll need to use lilo instead of grub (it can't load beyond stage 1.5). I've put instructions on how I did that onto the wiki (easier to follow).

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

sshjason

9th April 2006, 05:58 PM

thesman

9th April 2006, 10:30 PM

Betamax: have you had success with X11? which settings? What about the kernel, want to share any specifics?

justajoker182

10th April 2006, 02:50 AM

I have already partitioned using bootcamp. However, would it be possible to do a resizeVolume on the hfs+ space I have left?

thnx

diamondsw

10th April 2006, 03:02 AM

I have already partitioned using bootcamp. However, would it be possible to do a resizeVolume on the hfs+ space I have left?

thnx

I had the exact same question. Also, has anyone tried other distro's? I love Gentoo as much as the next person, but I get more done in Ubuntu.

I've also very curious if I could restore my backup of Ubuntu from my Dell server (changing things like fstab and such appropriately). Obviously I'll probably need to customize my kernel and such, but would such an attempt be valid? I'd love to be able to keep my various software installations and customizations.

diamondsw

10th April 2006, 03:29 AM

BetaMax, I didn't really see anything in the instructions that require either destroying data (resizeVolume is safe), and the Linux install instructions didn't seem to differ from standard Gentoo install procedure.

The only thing I noticed was the bootloader installation at the end (I favor grub, so I'm not familiar with lilo or ntldr).

thesman

10th April 2006, 12:52 PM

I had the exact same question. Also, has anyone tried other distro's? I love Gentoo as much as the next person, but I get more done in Ubuntu.

You could see from my previous posts that i've used Ubuntu. I ended up deboostrapping dapper, but I guess you could try to rsync everything from another box.

Betamax

10th April 2006, 03:10 PM

I'll admit I placed those instructions up pretty hasily, 'cos I still had X11/kde to install. Plus I'm not used to wiki's. Anyways, there shouldn't be any reason why any distro won't work. I'll make them more generic.

I have already partitioned using bootcamp. However, would it be possible to do a resizeVolume on the hfs+ space I have left?

I'd guess that should work, as that should give the correct partition layout. But I haven't tried it so I can't really say for sure.

BetaMax, I didn't really see anything in the instructions that require either destroying data (resizeVolume is safe), and the Linux install instructions didn't seem to differ from standard Gentoo install procedu

My bad. I meant it could potentially wipe all your data :D (aka your standard disclaimer). As for being a pretty standard install you're correct, the only difference is the partitioning and the chainloading. The main reason for me being so verbose was in order to keep it as self contained as possible ( As a user, I really hate being forced to piece together solutions from 4-5 different webstes ;) ).

Betamax: have you had success with X11? which settings? What about the kernel, want to share any specifics?

Xorg is working using the crappy vesa driver, as is the trackpad. Keyboards a bit off, but that's 'cos I haven't yet setup it for a mac layout yet. Kde 3.4.3 works too. The kernel I used is the standard 2.6.15r1 gentoo-sources based one. No extra patches. I compilied with bare minium in order to try and minimise feckups. Only unusual part of the setup is that I have support for both GPT and MBR partion schemes compilied in. Also, on a few occasions (usually after rebooting from OSX) I've noticed a kernel panics (ACPI related).

thesman

10th April 2006, 05:13 PM

Im using the vesa driver too, but im only getting 1152x864 and not the native 1440x900 i'd like. You have any clock settings for the display to share?

cheers.

Betamax

10th April 2006, 05:33 PM

Same here. I've seen this kind of thing before with the apple cinema hd screen under linux. AFAIK it's a limitation of the vesa driver.

WhiteWolf666

10th April 2006, 05:43 PM

No. GPT does not support extended partitions. There's was no need to as the GPT spec allows up to 99 primary partitions on 1 disk. If you create an extended partition at the end, OSX will still see the old primary winxp partition there. That could lead to some serious disk screwage.

I suspect you could set up an extended partition, create logical partitions, and then use the physical sector numbers to define the logical partitions as GPT partitions. Basically, just ignore the existance of the extended partition.

I'm 100% no partition utility will do this properly by itself, so you'll have to do it by hand. And if there is anything is OS X that recreates the MBR from the GUID table, you'll be in a world of hurt.

chrisp

10th April 2006, 05:47 PM

Im using the vesa driver too, but im only getting 1152x864 and not the native 1440x900 i'd like. You have any clock settings for the display to share?
Since there are no Linux drivers for ATI X1600 cards yet (neither X.org nor console), "clock settings" won't help. So far the only way to get the native resolution is to boot via elilo and use the patches from mactel-linux (http://www.mactel-linux.org/) to re-use the framebuffer set up by the EFI driver. You can then get unaccellerated but native-resolution X11 through the fbdev driver.

WhiteWolf666

10th April 2006, 05:48 PM

Same here. I've seen this kind of thing before with the apple cinema hd screen under linux. AFAIK it's a limitation of the vesa driver.

It's neither, or both, as you choose to see it ;-)

1440x960 is not a standard VESA mode. However, graphics manufacturers are permited to define additional VESA modes in their firmware; a large part of the mode space is left for that purpose.

ATI, however, didn't bother. Not really necessary when drivers don't exist. People have worked around this on the i810 Intel integrated graphics (Extreme Graphics or whatever) by using a boot-time program that hacks in a mode on the startup RAM shadow of the VGA bios.

This stuff is way beyond me, don't expect me to post a patch ;-)

Anyways, fglrx should support the X1600 very soon, and that'll solve most of our problems. Well, except for ATI's poor linux support, but that's another issue entirely....

Betamax: Why did you compile in support for GPT and MBR? Why not just use MBR alone? My thinking with this triple booting setup is that Apple designed the current BootCamp for XP, and therefore every other operating system we use should be as "dumb" as XP, at least in terms of partitioning. Can you safely use the Linux GPT tools on your OS X drive? Everytime I try to do anything I end up having to restore the OS X partition tables by hand, and even THAT doesn't work sometimes.

Betamax

10th April 2006, 06:48 PM

Betamax: Why did you compile in support for GPT and MBR? Why not just use MBR alone? My thinking with this triple booting setup is that Apple designed the current BootCamp for XP, and therefore every other operating system we use should be as "dumb" as XP, at least in terms of partitioning. Can you safely use the Linux GPT tools on your OS X drive? Everytime I try to do anything I end up having to restore the OS X partition tables by hand, and even THAT doesn't work sometimes.

Well to be perfectly honest:

a) I didn't want to take the risk of it not being able to read the disk ;).
b) Future proofing. I suspect that parted will eventually work.

thesman

10th April 2006, 07:13 PM

I don't have support for EFI nor GPT even and it boots perfectly.

If I use the mactel patches I get panics with ACPI and the only way to boot is to add noapic (but that is well known).

Oh well, I'll have to live with 1152x864 until ATI decides to release linux drivers.

Or until chris has a nice solution to use rEFIt and a mactel kernel with the fb.

Happy triple-booting all!

WhiteWolf666

10th April 2006, 08:20 PM

There's a patch posted here (http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/parted-devel/2006-March/000028.html)] which claims to make parted operate correctly upon GPT HFS+ partitions. I have no idea if it borks (or correctly works on) the FDISK MBR partition table.

The documentation says something about it, but isn't clear.

WhiteWolf666

10th April 2006, 09:26 PM

rEFIt seems to work nicely with SuSE. I'm currently recompiling the SuSE kernel with the iMac patch, so that I get a nice 1440x900 framebuffer. We'll see how it works.

I think, but am not sure, that if you hold option on boot, you get the default menu, where you can select between rEFIt and Windows. Select rEFIt, and you can choose between OS X and Linux.

Default is to go from system menu->rEFIt->OS X.

Seems pretty good. 1440x900 looks nice, btw :)

WhiteWolf666

13th April 2006, 04:48 PM

ATI driver released!

Installing now!

Sonic McTails

14th April 2006, 12:17 AM

ATI driver released!

Installing now!

Wow, when, and where?! I was about to suggest using NDISWRapper to use the Windows ATi Driver, but maybe we don't need it.

blargity

14th April 2006, 09:17 AM

chrisp

18th April 2006, 04:19 PM

Has anyone had any sucess using rEFIt to triple boot instead of the currently posted OS X vs Windows choice then Linux vs Windows choice? rEFIt 0.5 claims to support "legacy operating systems installed via Boot Camp". Does this mean we can finally have our one menu fits all?
If you're booting Linux via LILO or GRUB (i.e. with legacy BIOS compatibility), then no, we're not there yet. rEFIt currently relies on the firmware for BIOS boot code detection, and the firmware only checks the MBR, so there is only one menu entry for Boot Camp. I have ideas how a future version of rEFIt could improve on that, but it's not done yet.

blargity

22nd April 2006, 01:47 AM

Ok, but you could for instance install Linux like we used to before BootCamp (but using only one partition), and then Windows via BootCamp and end up at one menu for them all, no? Has anyone put together a HowTo for this kind of boot process, or should I just be patient?

goatmaster

25th April 2006, 07:32 AM

chrisp

25th April 2006, 12:05 PM

Oliver: Nice guide. With rEFIt 0.6 you can triple-boot with a single menu step instead of chainloading LILO throught NTLDR. That is, install rEFIt before starting the whole procedure and later simply omit step 25. The installed OSes and the current CD all show up automatically.

JonM1827

27th April 2006, 02:27 AM

I have two random questions... well not really random :p but anyways...

What is a swap file and what does it do? is it that "dd" thing, if someone could explain that it would be great...

And also which "brand" or whatever you want to call it of linux is most widely used / best... im sure its all opinion, but are there any that stand out?

I'm new to OSX, and I have barely at all used linux, and am not at all sure how to use it, but it is something I want to learn how to use...

I see that the guide that is posted uses openSuSE, and it also has Gentoo listed... I've heard people talk about numerous others as well...

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, and sorry for the stupid questions
Thanks in advance
-Jon

Also... I have two more thing with the LiveCD's do they run linux off of the CD's or does it install or both... or what?... I was just a little confused

Sorry I might as well ask all of the questions I have at once :p... with the lilo stuff... how do you make the conf file?

Thanks again

goatmaster

27th April 2006, 12:03 PM

Hi Jon

A swap file is an area on your hard disk used as virtual memory. It is not 100% necceesary, but recommended...

As far as Linux favours go, my fav used to be Debian, but their development has been a little slow lately, so I thought I would try OpenSuSE for a while.

The LiveCDs run off the CDs but you can install them.

The lilo.conf file you create with a text editor such as vi.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

O

JonM1827

27th April 2006, 04:22 PM

Also why do you use the Gentoo liveCD's and the openSuSE iso's....

-Jon

james.joy

28th April 2006, 11:10 AM

Hi All

I've put together a HowTo outlining how to set up an Intel Mac to triple boot OSX, Windows XP and OpenSuSE Linux. It is similar to the Triple Boot BootCamp HowTo on this site, with the exception of bootstrapping the Linux install section. You can grab it from here http://www.ethicalhack.org/howto/triple_boot_howto.html

If anyone knows of any changes that should be made to the document, please let me know. I hope someone finds it useful.

Cheers

Oliver
Hi Oliver

I am having a problem with following the guide you posted above. I get an error message at "mke2fs -j /dev/sda3" ... something like the partition does not exist. I have confirmed that I am currently dual booting with Mac OS X and Windows XP with a free third partition for Linux, following instructions from your above guide. I also have rEFIt 0.6 installed.

Can you / someone who has tried this out provide some help?

Thanks
James

Betamax

30th April 2006, 10:46 AM

Also why do you use the Gentoo liveCD's and the openSuSE iso's....

-Jon

I'm not Jon, however if I was to hazzard a guess I'd say the opensuse installer can't format the drive for some reason, whereas doing it manually via a live cd works.

I am having a problem with following the guide you posted above. I get an error message at "mke2fs -j /dev/sda3" ... something like the partition does not exist. I have confirmed that I am currently dual booting with Mac OS X and Windows XP with a free third partition for Linux, following instructions from your above guide. I also have rEFIt 0.6 installed.

Could you run "df" (no quotes) from the terminal and post the output. Thanks.

james.joy

1st May 2006, 10:19 AM

Could you run "df" (no quotes) from the terminal and post the output. Thanks.

Never mind, I got this running (triplebooting) with a Gentoo Live CD. I was trying it with ubuntu earlier.

Thanks for your help.

Regards
James

JonM1827

4th May 2006, 02:50 AM

I have a stupid question to ask.... Sorry in advance :p

Why do you want to tripple boot with linux? What are the advantages?
(not saying its bad or anything... and also I think its interesting, and might even do it if it will benifit me in some way)

Isn't OSX based off of UNIX, and basically linux with a fancy GUI....
or am I just off base...

I'm gonna plead ignorance on this one, because I have never used it...

Thanks
-Jon

Betamax

5th May 2006, 01:39 AM

I have a stupid question to ask.... Sorry in advance :p

Why do you want to tripple boot with linux? What are the advantages?
(not saying its bad or anything... and also I think its interesting, and might even do it if it will benifit me in some way)

Well personally speaking I administrate a network running all three operating systems... triple booting means I can use 1 laptop to cover all bases.

Other reasons would be for multi-platform software development... and of course geek bragging rights :p

Isn't OSX based off of UNIX, and basically linux with a fancy GUI....
or am I just off base...

Close enough. Technically OSX is basically freeBSD (ie a mach based kernel not the linux one) with a fancy GUI, but then again I'm just nitpicking ;).

JonM1827

5th May 2006, 02:37 AM

Haha alright thanks betamax...

-Jon

Carlitos

12th May 2006, 08:50 PM

Hi All

Following the installation steps shared by Oliver, I installed OSX, Windows XP and SuSE Linux 10.0 on an iMac 20' . Following wiki.onmac.net instructions rEFIt menu was installed without problems, and continue running after last actualization of OSX.

Just remark that first line of 24th step of Oliver's Installation Process has a mistake. It should be:

# mount --bind /dev /mnt/suse/dev

By the way, anyone knows how mount ext3 (Linux) partitions on OSX ???

Thanks for all comments shared in this Forum!!!

Regards

Hi All

I've put together a HowTo outlining how to set up an Intel Mac to triple boot OSX, Windows XP and OpenSuSE Linux. It is similar to the Triple Boot BootCamp HowTo on this site, with the exception of bootstrapping the Linux install section. You can grab it from here http://www.ethicalhack.org/howto/triple_boot_howto.html

If anyone knows of any changes that should be made to the document, please let me know. I hope someone finds it useful.

Cheers

Oliver

brimleybrimley

18th May 2006, 08:40 PM

I'm trying to install ubuntu on a intel mac with xp and osx as described here and on the wiki...

I resized the volumes like this:
#sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 170G Linux Lin 31G "MS-DOS FAT32" Win 30G

Installed windows no problem...and then used a gentoo live cd to format the Linux partition and make a swap file just like it says..

I then restart with the ubuntu 5.10 install disk and everything is cool until I get to the "[!!] Partition disks" screen and the only option for partitioning method that i have available is "Manually edit partition table". I select that and get a screen that says "This is an overview of your currently configured partitions and mount points"... problem is i don't see any partitions or mount points listed...the only options I have available are
Configure software RAID
Configure the Logical Volume Manager
Guided partitioning
Help on partitioning
Undo changes to partitions
Finish partitioning and write changes to disk

If I click "Finish partitioning and write changes to disk" then I get the red screen that says "No root file system is defined".

i was thinking it might be a naming issue since the SuSE install howto of oliver's uses /mnt/suse so i tried using /mnt/ubuntu... i.e:
#mkdir /mnt/ubuntu && mount -t ext3 /dev/sda3 /mnt/ubuntu
#dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/ubuntu/swap bs=1024 count=2097152
#mkswap /mnt/ubuntu/swap
#swapon /mnt/ubuntu/swap
but i got the same problems at the partition disks screen.

not sure if anyone is still reading this thread (thesman you out there? :)) , but i'd really appreciate any help.

anomaly256

18th May 2006, 08:47 PM

I had this same issue with ubuntu too on my first try. ubuntu's 5.10 default kernel lacks both GPT support AND PATA support. It would see my sata controller and dvdrom drive but refused to recognise the hard disk hanging off it. In the end, instead of rolling my own livecd I just used gentoo. Now I have all 3 OSs iving side by side quite happily, with full hardware acceleration in all 3 :)

brimleybrimley

18th May 2006, 09:04 PM

thanks for writing back...

ubuntu's 5.10 default kernel lacks both GPT support AND PATA support. It would see my sata controller and dvdrom drive but refused to recognise the hard disk hanging off it.

do you know if the new dapper drake beta supports them?

In the end, instead of rolling my own livecd I just used gentoo. Now I have all 3 OSs iving side by side quite happily, with full hardware acceleration in all 3 :)

do you have any links to howtos on compiling my own kernel and burning the install disc...i'm guessing that's a bit more than what i have time for right now.

yeah, i'm kinda wavering between gentoo/suse/ubuntu, but I'm new to linux and i hear all the package management is really well done in ubuntu and i'm not looking to worry over dependency issues or that will probably just leave me spending most my time in osx and xp.

anomaly256

18th May 2006, 09:28 PM

do you know if the new dapper drake beta supports them?

I don't have any dapper iso's to try, I updated my last ubuntu setup using dist-upgrade so never bothered downloading them to try with sorry

do you have any links to howtos on compiling my own kernel and burning the install disc...i'm guessing that's a bit more than what i have time for right now.
yeah, i'm kinda wavering between gentoo/suse/ubuntu, but I'm new to linux and i hear all the package management is really well done in ubuntu and i'm not looking to worry over dependency issues or that will probably just leave me spending most my time in osx and xp.
Ubuntu is indeed a good distro for beginners, although, I don't think it's ready for the mactels yet :) (I also tried mactel-linux's ubuntu livecd but again, this had issues seeing the partition structure properly without reformatting the entire drive. maybe they'll fix it up soon). I also don't have any specific howtos on compiling kernels or creating livecds, although how i've done it in the past is to use an ISO editor and just replace the kernel image with my new one, that way you don't lose the boot image when making a new (fresh) iso from an existing livecd, or have to worry about extracting the boot image and applying it to a new iso

brimleybrimley

18th May 2006, 09:40 PM

thanks for the info...i will check out the mactel-linux site and thanks for the tip on using an iso editor, don't know if i'll go that route just yet, but its good to know. hopefully i'll get something figured out...
thanks for the help!

brimleybrimley

21st May 2006, 11:10 AM

so i ended up following oliver's howto for installing suse, but i've run into a problem getting lilo working...after i run /sbin/lilo, i get the following:
"Partition 3 on /dev/sda is not marked Active"
and then when i reboot i don't get the ntldr screen, it just goes right into windows.

Hatebreeder

22nd May 2006, 02:56 PM

i'm really going crazy by now...
after trying it for over a day now, this is my problem:
i've followed the insructions on the wiki, everything seemed fine.
after mounting the ext3 partition and creating the swapfile i launched the gentoo installer from the live cd.
at the partitioning screen it doesn't give me any options, i an only select "/dev/sda" as device but without any partitioning table, i can just proceed. then i get the warning that i have not specified a partition to mouns as /. after going through the whole installation setup, the installer freezes right at the beginning (after "GLI: ... Setting root password. GLI: ... Livecd root password set.)
i think there's a problem with the partition...
any ideas?
thanks a lot!

Ari

28th May 2006, 08:52 PM

OptimismPrime

29th May 2006, 10:09 AM

the problem here is that the Linux kernel by default only has NTFS read enabled, there is "experimental" write support, but i would strongly advise not to use that.

There is a method with a wrapper called "captive-ntfs" where you mount the filesystem read only, tell it where the ntfs.dll i think it is, is located on the drive or even copying it off of the drive, and use that via wrapper to access NTFS with Microsofts own driver "just about" as safe and stable as nativly under Windows.

Problem is, iirc, you need both, a installed Linux and XP, or at least installed Linux, so you can install the Captive thingy and modify some config files...

ONLY a Live CD i am afraid will not work, but i could be wrong, never used captive Myself as i always tried to keep my OSes seperated, each their own Box *G*

Edit:
----

I read up on the Issue and it seams as if Knoppix Live CD has "captive-ntfs" integrated since V. 3.4.

So i'd advise getting a recent Knoppix Live CD from:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

Also if you want to read up on captive, it's project page is at:
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

Edit 2:
------
The recently released Knoppix 5.0.1 wich uses a method called "libntfs+fuse" wich is enabled by default and should give you NTFS write capabiltiy out of the box.

Ari

29th May 2006, 06:55 PM

Well, I just downloaded the Linux Defender live CD (based off KNOPPIX) and it didn't boot up (64 bit, complained). Will a Knoppix live CD work on my iMac? Also, I can't find the Knoppix 5.01 CD anywhere; I can only find 5.0, but will that work on my iMac, and will it have NTFS write "out of the box?"

OptimismPrime

29th May 2006, 08:48 PM

One does not know if one does not try........
from your comment "(64 bit, complained)" i'm guessing you got the wrong version.... since the Yonah, wich is used in EVERY intel Mac released yet is a 32 BIT ! CPU.

Knoppix SHOULD work, although i can't guarantee since i don't have a x1600 graphics Mac, and the Ati Linux drivers have their trouble with all x1x00 Graphics chip out of the box...there are workarounds and guides as to how getting that to run, but i can't say for sure if Knoppix did what is necessary in the recent release.....

Only as much as that Knoppix is supporting NTFS write capability out of the box since Version 3.4 with the most recent version having a totaly open source solution, or alternativly if you don't trust that for any reasonas, what apears to be a successor or extension to the captive method where it would promt for a Windows CD to extract the original MS Filesystem driver, but just as well works with the open source solution already turned on by default.

So....IF a recent full Knoppix CD boots into GUI with x1600 Graphics, it is what you are looking for, alternativly try and find a option to boot with "Vesa Framebuffer" Mode wich will give unaccelerated, barebones 2D support, but at least a GUI, this selection is made via F1 or F2 during startup where it says press either one of boot parameters or different kernels IIRC.

Betamax

30th May 2006, 02:04 PM

I've followed the instructions to the letter, but when I come to mounting the Windows XP partition, mount says:

livecd:/ # mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/WinXP

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda4,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

I think it's because I formatted the XP volume as NTFS. What option would I use to mount an NTFS volume, if possible?

EDIT-

Oh crap. I found the ntfs option, and it mounted the drive, but I can't proceed with the installation because I can't write to the NTFS mounted image. Will I have to reformat my entire computer, or is there a solution to this? I'm stuck in the Gentoo live CD, and I really need some help, and soon...

Thanks.

Well you only need to write to the windows partition if you are going to use ntldr method to boot the mac into linux. Try using the refit method outlined in the wiki instead.

Failing that, do this instead:

1. create the mbr file on the linux partition

dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/linux.mbr bs=512 count=1

2. restart into windows

3. Download the ext2 disk viewer utility from http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs

4. copy the linux.mbr file from the linux partion to the root of your c: drive

5. open boot.ini in notepad and add the line

C:\linux.mbr="XYZ Linux"

to the end of the file

6. restart.

Ari

30th May 2006, 11:35 PM

Thanks a lot for your help, but I can't find the linux.mbr file (it's not in the root directory, and it's not in the right pane when "hda1" is selected; only "swap" is there). Should I have run the above command not on the live CD, but on the SUSE partition I have already installed? If so, how would I boot up into it?

Betamax

31st May 2006, 01:49 PM

My bad. / probably read only. Change that to:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda3 of=~/linux.mbr bs=512 count=1

and run as a normal user. That ought create the linux.mbr file in your home directory (which should be mapped as ram disk).

Ari

1st June 2006, 11:01 PM

Nope, it's not in the home directory. It's nowhere to be found. I still think that the ext2 viewer is browsing the previously installed SUSE partition, and that that command didn't create the file where the viewer could read it...

Also, if it's any help, I installed SUSE using this guide; it's slightly different than what the Wiki says:

http://ethicalhack.org/howto/triple_boot_howto.html

Anyway, thanks for all your help.

Spellbound74

8th June 2006, 01:34 PM

thanks for writing back...
do you know if the new dapper drake beta supports them?

yes dapper drake supports the mac intel disks. i have tried and it works.
the problem is, when i have to choose the installation volumes, i MUST choose a swap partition. of course, i don't have any.
has anybody succeeded at this ?

i have also tried to *delete* the windows partition and replace it with the swap partition. it works until the end of the installation, where it fails because of the boot loader installation. i guess installing in expert mode would resolve the problem

storm_07

8th June 2006, 11:48 PM

I know this has nothing to do with this topic but i need help you see i just installed fifa 05 and wen i click on the icon and all it works but then it says Hardware Graphic Accerleration requires....what do i doo??? can some one plzzz PM ASAPP thanks alot

JonM1827

10th July 2006, 05:35 PM

I was reading through the wiki (the tripple booting section)... and when it says:
"From here, you need to bootstrap your favorite Linux distro. Depending on the variant, this may also require you to compile your own kernel."

Does this mean that I can just continue with the gentoo install, or do I have to compile my own kernal first... or can i use ubuntu because i am new to linux, and it would be better for me...

and also on my last note if i do use a pre-configured live cd will everything be supported out of the box aside from the iSight... or do i have to make wireless, etc... work by changing the kernal....

basically im asking can I just just run the installer from the live cd at this point, or do i have to do something else

thanks in advance for the help,
-Jon

kainewynd2

11th July 2006, 04:04 AM

I posted this new article in the Wiki:

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp_Ubuntu

It looks like any distro that comes with parted and a recent kernel should support this in some way.

Spellbound74

16th August 2006, 11:02 AM

hello,

i've installed a triple boot using ubuntu. i had to modify my lilo settings, and when i reinstalled lilo, i noticed there was not one linux icon in the rEFIt menu, but TWO, pointing on the same system.

i'd like to make one of the icons disapear. so far i've heard i had to reinstall the linux partition. is there another way ? :confused:

thanx

pene

2nd October 2006, 10:43 AM

Hi,

I have triple booted successfully using the intstruction in the OnMac wiki (OSX, XP and Linux), but I want now to switch back to dual-booting again (just OSX and XP) as I am out of disk space.

I don't mind erasing xp and reinstalling it again, but I do not want to have to erase OSX.

So, how can I erase the two partitions of XP and LINUX and enlarge back the OSX one, so that bootcamp will be able to work on the drive again? (or at least to be able to manually repartition the drive for dual booting)

Thanks

Foucellas

4th November 2006, 02:36 PM

I have two linux icons in refit and one doesn't works
how I can erase it?
thanks

atramos

30th November 2006, 03:51 PM

The main pain-point is really these two steps:

6. Use the command line diskutil command to resize this partition. The command works as follows:

diskutil resizeVolume /Volume/<Put Name of Partition Here> <Size you want in Gigabytes>G

this command does not work properly. You have to resize things a little bit a time, and you will have to restart each time. You can eject/reinsert if you are working in Firewire Target Disk mode.

7. Once you've created free space, you have to use the gpt tool to add a partition. Check the man page, it is somewhat tricky.

My findings:

diskutil is quite buggy: working from this article (http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp) - I was able only to get to create HFS partitions - creating FAT32 or NTFS fails with strange errors, not to mention it lacks a deleteVolume command, so not long after successfuly creating those unwanted HFS partitions (just to debug diskutil), I had to reinstall the OS (fortunately I had an image backup).

gpt is a joke... it complains about the disk being in use (Resource Busy or something) even if you boot into single-user mode. And that's even for the harmless 'show' verb, so the variation suggested above (use diskutil just to resize, and then gpt to add) is a total no-go. Perhaps it has to be used with an external drive - I did not try that.

smiley1970

1st February 2007, 11:49 PM

Thanks for the excellent wiki BTW! I'm quite a noob to Ubuntu and terminal so really appreciate your work. :)

I'm having some trouble though on a 17" iMac Core2 Duo. I have attempted for at least 6 hours a day for the last 7 days to follow your method and get stuck at the point you put in the Ubuntu install to partition /dev/sda3

All points until then finally work for me but the install still won't mount on /

I then thought maybe that was as far as it should get and then attempted up to 'mount -t proc none /mnt/ubuntu/proc' and then 'mount -o bind /dev /mnt/ubuntu/dev' but the terminal says they don't exist and then the /bin/bash doesn't cut it.

I have just proceeded anyway also to see if that was meant to happen and I can only get so far before the files you speak of just don't exist. For example swapon doesn't work and the lilo file doesn't exist (though it does seemingly connect to get the updates)

So
1) I'm installing Kubuntu. This should work yes? I even tried replacing any entry with Kubuntu and same errors.

2) No matter what way I do it the installer won't mount

I've ended up re-installing OSX about 5 times and now am sure it's not due to any errors on my drive. Windows installs and the great rEFIt GUI. When I get my errors in the Kubuntu install I then can't access the Windows partition. :eek:

Well you could say my patience is JUST still holding out. ;) If anyone can suggest what I may be doing wrong and offer assistance I'd be so grateful!!

Also tried the following method which lead to my first OSX lockout! http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=196912
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=196912)

Shiggity

2nd February 2007, 07:16 AM

Oh wow. This looks cool. I'm about $870 away from the MacBook Pro I want. Once I have it I'm really gonna try this. I bet the first day with the machine is gonna be dedicated to trial and error in this procedure. Keep it up!

denethor

8th February 2007, 04:57 PM

As asked before in this topic (But not answered clearly):

I already have 50-50 Partitoned (OSX-XP on NTFS) disk on my Macbook Pro up and running. I want to resize OSX part 40-10 for Linux without touching the NTFS part. Is it possible? (Yes it looks like possible with diskutil but What I am asking is surrival of the existence XP installation)

First possible problem: boot.ini has this lines
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3).
What if I' am going to change these lines to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4) ? Is it possible to prevent WindowsXP lost itself with this simple change?

Second Possible Problem: With this resize operation its clear that partition table of disk will change. At this point is it possible to recover WinXP installation? Or above boot.ini trick is just a dream?

By the way I pretty sure(!?) that OSX will boot anyway. So possibility of data loss looks like just a bad chance. Becouse OSX can access NTFS drive that means that I can recover my files to external drive or DVD. Is this correct?

Thanks

jnetman1

20th February 2007, 09:38 PM

Had triple boot working fine, but for some reason, the system has lost which partition is the C drive. gptsync says all is OK, but Windows won't boot. Booting from the WinXP install CD shows drive C as Partition 1 (the EFI partition) rather than Partition 4 (which it has now designated as drive G:) Any ideas for a fix?

denethor

21st February 2007, 06:07 PM

First possible problem: boot.ini has this lines
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3).
What if I' am going to change these lines to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4) ? Is it possible to prevent WindowsXP lost itself with this simple change?

If you want some thing done do it yourself. I took the risk and tried.
Yes above trick works. Change your boot.ini with correct partition number, it works! This means that you can rezise the partition of your MacOSx installation while you already have working dual boot configuration.

2nd point is If your current dual boot configuration is MacOS/Vista no need to do anything. Vista can handle partition table change smoothly. No tricks no new configurations.

majn00n

5th June 2007, 04:28 PM

Hey, sorry, this is probably the worst question of all, but why can't I see the contents of the link:

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp ?

All that comes up on that screen is:

"Before you start This procedure takes 3-4 hours (with broadband downloading), which is mostly Windows & Linux installation. Also note that if you want to undo this process without destroying and reformatting your JHFS+ partition, you'll need iPartition. This is not reversible (nondestructively) with Apple's tools.
Before you begin you will need the following:"

Any ideas?