Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

pinger · 2009-10-04 09:21:19

Hi all,

I have recently got a MacBook pro and although I find MacOS X quite good I just cannot live without my old trusty Linux. Also I'd like to have a small XP partition for a few games that just won't run using Wine.

I have read a lot of contradictory information about triple boot installations and was wondering if any of you had already done it and could point me to a good, up-to-date HOWTO. One particular problem is that I would like to use full filesystem encryption on my Linux root partition, as I have already had a laptop stolen once. I'm planning to have one /boot partition, one / encrypted partition and one encrypted swap. I understand this is too many partitions for MBR, with the MacOS and EFI partitions on top, and still leaving room for WinXP.

Any pointers?

Thank you in advance for your help!

dan.boff · 2009-10-04 09:58:26

i've done it... this is what your looking for:

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Last edited by dan.boff (2009-10-04 10:02:46)

pinger · 2009-10-04 13:36:41

Dan, thanks for your reply. Could you tell me what partition setup you have? Similar to what I'm trying to build (see above)?

Thanks again

TheSaint · 2009-10-04 13:39:19

I usually have triple boot for a long while now, Arch or Vista or XP.
First it should take a while to arrange the necessary partitions. I'd like to remember that only four primary partitions are allowed and one extended counts as primary.
The only think you have to care is to install Arch last and let the installation modify your boot sequence. Grub's menu.lst file should be edited afterward to access the other partitions.
MS already has a bootloader to which you may attach a linux partition, I don't know about Mac if it's using a bootloader like linux.

F

pinger · 2009-10-04 17:55:11

Hi Saint, thanks for your reply. Could you point me to any documentation you used for your installation? All triple boot howtos I've come across so far seem to be outdated and/or contradictory.

Thanks again!

TheSaint · 2009-10-05 10:11:50

I was to write the discovery of the wheel again :)but I think these precious tips are well suited for your Mac. Further info and video aren't difficult to find. Anyhow I started from Google
If some more detail is missing, then come back to me and we'll try it out.
Backup will be the first step, as much as important data you won't like to lose.

F

Last edited by TheSaint (2009-10-05 10:22:23)

strankan · 2009-10-21 09:49:42

pinger wrote:

Hi all,
I have recently got a MacBook pro and although I find MacOS X quite good I just cannot live without my old trusty Linux. Also I'd like to have a small XP partition for a few games that just won't run using Wine.
I have read a lot of contradictory information about triple boot installations and was wondering if any of you had already done it and could point me to a good, up-to-date HOWTO. One particular problem is that I would like to use full filesystem encryption on my Linux root partition, as I have already had a laptop stolen once. I'm planning to have one /boot partition, one / encrypted partition and one encrypted swap. I understand this is too many partitions for MBR, with the MacOS and EFI partitions on top, and still leaving room for WinXP.
Any pointers?
Thank you in advance for your help!

Well I got it working the other day on my macbook pro. The short version is
1) backup files from macos
2) erase entire disk
3) partion disk to your liking (i used 100G for macos, 35G for windows 7 and 25 for linux).
4) install macos
5) install refit
6) use gparted to change the partition types (leave the macos partition as it is, ext* for linux and ntfs for windows
7) install windows
8) install linux

The howtos I read all had problems booting the diferent os but it all work instantly for me some how. I'll check for the howtos when I get off work, but I followed one who got macos, slack and xp triple booting.

pinger · 2009-11-03 21:01:02

Hi all,

finally got around to trying the install, but it is failing at the GRUB installation step.

I would like the following setup:

MacOSX
Windows
Linux (/boot, dm-crypt /, swap)

OSX and Windows are booting correctly via REFIT

I have created three partitions for linux using parted. My partition table looks like this (parted - print)

Disk /dev/sda: 500 GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition table: gpt

Number Start End FS Name Flags
1 20.5kb 210MB fat32 EFI system partition boot
2 210MB 254GB hfs+ Customer
3 254GB 294GB ntfs Untitled
4 294GB 295GB ext2 <--- this is my /boot partition (ext2)
5 295GB 495GB <--- this is my / partition (dm-crypt)
6 495GB 500GB <--- this is my swap partition (dm-crypt)

Installation goes well, until I attempt to install GRUB onto /dev/sda4:

root (hd0,3)
>Error 22: no such partition
find /boot/grub/stage1
>Error 15: file not found
setup (hd0,3)
>Error 12: Invalid device requested

How can I get this to work?

Thanks in advance for your help!

6

zippy · 2009-11-04 05:00:11

I did it this way with a clean drive on a dell inspiron 1318 hackintosh style.

/dev/sda1 = /boot - 512mb
/dev/sda2 = encrypted lvm containing /, /home, and encrypted swap - 200gb *
/dev/sda3 = HFS+ with iatkos 10.5.8 - 50GB. Im not sure if this works with retail.
/dev/sda4 = NTFS with Win7 - 50GB

*theres a great wiki article to set the encrypted lvm up, and it leaves you with 4 partitions total.

If i remember correctly, this is how i did it.

Install arch, cfdisk your 2 partitions only - /boot and lvm.
Install windows, use windows disk utility to create a partition. It overwrites the mbr.
Install OSX, use disk utility to setup your hfs+ partiton. Its overwrites the mbr with the hackintosh chameleon bootloader.
***You can only install 10.5. 10.6 uses the EFI/GUID partitioning scheme which may not be enabled by default in the stock arch kernel and i have no idea if windows supports it.***
Insert arch cd and restore grub to the mbr.
Boot into arch and add your new os'es to grub since i refuse to use anything but the delicious grub, and i wanna see linux when i turn my laptop on.

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/mapper/vgroup-root cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:vgroup ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/mapper/vgroup-root cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:vgroug ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Apple
title OS X Leopard 10.5.8
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

# (3) Windows
title Microsoft Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader +1

pinger · 2009-11-04 19:55:29

Hi,

Many thanks for your reply. Only trouble is I have an EFI partition that I don't feel comfortable deleting as I imagine Snow Leopard has a use for it. So that still leaves me with 5 partitions even if I use an lvm for / and swap. Is there a way I could boot entirely from an lvm partition?

Thanks,

TheSaint · 2009-11-05 20:01:11

You can't have more than 4 primary partitions.
For more partitions, it's better to set logical ones

fdisk  -l
/dev/sda1               1        2432    19535008+  17  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *        2433        4134    13671315    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            4135       38913   279362317+   f  W95 Esteso (LBA)
/dev/sda5            4135        4377     1951866   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            4378        4985     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            4986        5593     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8            5594        6566     7815591   83  Linux
/dev/sda9            6567        9625    24571386    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda10           9626       38913   235255828+  83  Linux

F

Last edited by TheSaint (2009-11-05 20:02:09)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-04 09:21:19

Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#2 2009-10-04 09:58:26

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#3 2009-10-04 13:36:41

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#4 2009-10-04 13:39:19

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#5 2009-10-04 17:55:11

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#6 2009-10-05 10:11:50

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#7 2009-10-21 09:49:42

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#8 2009-11-03 21:01:02

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#9 2009-11-04 05:00:11

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#10 2009-11-04 19:55:29

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

#11 2009-11-05 20:01:11

Re: Triple boot Mac OS X, Arch and WinXP on a MacBook pro: any good howto?

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