A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

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clayasaurus

A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

Hey, reader.

Obviously I'm new to this site, but I think it's probably useful to mention I'm a bit new to Linux as well. I've had experience working in Linux, and much more experience in both Apple OS and Windows, but never installed Linux on any system of my own.

I also searched a bunch, both in the sea of Google and these fora, but I feel it is safer to make sure I understand the process by asking directly.

Here is my situation: I am building a new desktop computer and would like to install OS X (10.6), Windows 7, and Linux Mint Debian (9, latest basic version) on it. There are no problems with hardware, I've set up a number of machines, all the parts are new and quite nice except for the case, power supply and hard drives which I am re-using. They're nice, too, just not new.

In my reading up on the subject it seems I need to make a partition for each OS, but also create another to allow interaction with the system outside of any OS. Also, it seems the order of those OSes is important, but I've read conflicting pages on whether OS X or Windows needs to be in the first partition, and/or needs to be installed first. I would have thought on a custom system it doesn't matter. Does it?

As well, are there specific BIOS settings I may have not considered that I would need to allow triple booting? I'd ideally like the system to ask me on start-up which partition to boot from, I figure I can just have my motherboard prompt me as such. Will there be an issue with this, such as needing to boot to Linux and having some software do that prompt, etc?

I think these are the only questions I could not find a ready answer to in my searches.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Aging Technogeek

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by Aging Technogeek »

I'm not at all familiar with OSX, so I will leave that to others. Windows and Linux can be set up to dual boot easily especially since this is a fresh install of each. Windows always wants to be first on the disk, but, if you use Gparted from the Linux Mint live CD to set up and format partitions ahead of time this is not a factor.

I would set up four partitions (the partition sizes are based on a 240 GB drive-adjust as you wish to account for different drive size).

A Windows partition of 30-80 GB formatted in ntfs(standard Windows File system) Minimum25 GB

A Linux Mint partition of 30-50 GB formatted to ext4 (the default format for Mint 9)Minimum 20GB

An OSX partition - I cannot specify size or file system here. Hopefully an OSX user will read this and come to our assistance.

An optional fourth partition formatted to fat32 taking the rest of the drive as shared data storage area. ( I think OSX can read files formatted fat32, I know Mint can) This partition can be omitted and the space added to the Windows partition if desired. Mint can read files formatted in ntfs as easily as fat32. Don't know if MInt can read OSX file system or if OSX can read Windows or Linux. I know Windows will not detect or read files in any format except its own (ntfs, fat 16, fat32) without special software.

As far as I know, these can be set up in any order as each OS will see and prefer to load into the partition formatted in its native file system.

I don't know about booting OSX with Windows and Linux. If it were just Windows and Linux, you would install Linux last and, when it installed the Grub bootloader, it would automatically detect Windows and set up a dual boot menu with Linux as the default OS and a ten second timeout at boot to select Windows if desired..
clayasaurus

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

I downloaded the install .iso and burned it to a DVD-R, does that include gparted? Thank you for the helpful post, btw.
Aging Technogeek

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by Aging Technogeek »

Yes. When you start the DVD, it will load what is known as a "live desktop". This is basically the OS running from the DVD without installing anything to your hard drive. It will be a little slow, but it will do anything a full installation can do. Gparted will be in the menu under Administration. If you run it from the live desktop, you can preset all the partitions you will need on your hard drive for your multiple installations.

Have a good time setting it all up and keep us informed of how it's working out.
clayasaurus

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

I seem to be having trouble with the installation of the other OSes...

Linux installed flawlessly, and I managed to partition the drive with no problems. It's a 500 gb drive, so I made a 120gb primary partition for each OS, and a fourth extended partition with two logical partitions (a 20 gb swap and the remainder as storage). Linux now seems to dominate startup. I can't boot anything from a disc, not even when I chose to manually from my mobo's boot manager. Linux just starts up every time. I also can't run either install disc from within Linux.

Any thoughts?
clayasaurus

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

Update:

I ended up just deleting the install of debian, but left the partitions. I tried installing OS X first to see if I could just get it in and then put linux in after and manage the dual boot for starters, and I can't run the OS X install disc?

It's brand new, I bought it yesterday for the express purpose of installing it on this machine. I opened it in linux moments ago and all of the files are intact on the disc, I just couldn't run it.

I think I'm in the right spot, since my system now starts with grub, but why can't I load the disc? I figure I'm just missing an obvious step...

Update:

I am actually able to boot from my win7 install CD, but the OS X one just defaults to grub. Since there are currently no OSes on the system, that's useless...
StanTheMan

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by StanTheMan »

Here is how I prepare a single hard drive for multi-boot.
Firrst I go to the Gnome Partition Editor website and download their ISO for the latest GPartEd which handles the " ext4 ' format. I burn that and use the disk live to partition my hard drive.

Here is my present arrangement.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6501752/gparted.jpeg

Factory installed Windws computers usually have Windows on the C:drive and also one or two hidden partritions for back up tools. Theese will all be PRIMARY partitions.
You need to reduce the size of C:drive either using Windows own disk management , or using something like GPartEd.
Now, oof the resulting empty space, use GPartEd to create LOGICAL partitions for lInux.
With mdern SATA drives it doeswn't matter much what order you make them. The Logical partitions all start counting from " 5 " .
I have sda5 which acts as a data partition mounting on " /home " of one or more of the Linux distros. This will automatically hold my e-mail, desktop and applicatons settings, and User documents. Most of my Linux distros are installed on 7 GB mounted on its " / " . My last parttion sda16 is an extra data partition (my own personal preference) .
As each Linux distro is installed it writes its own MBR and makes its own bootloader. It is possible to keep one particular distro for a permanent bootloader but there is special commands to do that. If you are mixing grub-legacy and grub2 distros , use grub2 for the last installed distro (grub2 will recognize both versions) .
Your Linux bootloaders will invariaby recognize the Windows install. However if there is a hidden Windows backup system, it will recognize that too (but you do NOT want to start up that). There is a way of hiding the boot list of that back up Windows.
OSx has a different architecture and likely will not be compatible.
clayasaurus

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

So I need the linux partition to be logical? This is also not a windows machine per se, it's all custom parts. I'm setting the partitions to whatever I want, currently I am trying to install linux mint debian onto sda1 which is primary/ext4.

I know that OS X is in some way compatible, I've watched a few triple boot set ups load. I am pretty sure I have my system ready to accept that, actually, but like I say I can't even get the OS X disc to boot. The Windows one boots, I actually ran a few steps into the install(also when there was already a linux os installed, windows identified the partitions and I was installing it on one of the open primary/ntfs) as a test and everything seems fine.
Aging Technogeek

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by Aging Technogeek »

As I said earlier, I know nothing about OSX, but I have seen versions of Windows XP that were set up to install only on Dell computers. If you tried to install on , say, a Hewlitt-Packard system, the Installer would report that it could not find a hard drive, or the hard drive was faulty and the OS would not install.

It is possible that the OSX DVD you have will only install to an Apple computer. It could be that there is a signal built into the BIOS on an Apple system that the installer looks for. If the signal is not found, it will not install.

All of the dual boot systems using OSX that I have read about in the forum seem to be installed on Apple computers of some type, usually MacBooks. I have not heard of anyone using a stock Apple sourced OSX install DVD to install OSX on any system other than Apple. But, as I say, I have no personal experience so all I am saying is basically hearsay and logical inferences from that hearsay, and may be completely incorrect.

Also, let me reiterate; if you want to have your Linux Mint installation set up a multiboot menu foe you, it must be the last OS installed so it can detect and include all other OS in the boot menu.
LarryP

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by LarryP »

Not sure if this will help but apparently osx and grub don't like each other.http://blog.larsstrand.org/article.php? ... untu-Vista If I read this right the easiest way to get things working will be to use the OSX disc to wipe the partitions install OSX then follow the directions for installing linux and Windows. I am not a Mac user so I really am not sure what else might work. And yes I myself would hate to have to redo partitions I had already set up.
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euthypro
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Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by euthypro »

OS X runs on Apple hardware. Unless you are on a Mac, you are not going to get OS X to run unless you have a cracked version and have the proper set-up. If you are installing a cracked OS X, you are better off getting information from hackers who engage in that. You can try google, but I doubt you will get much help on this forum.

Angel
clayasaurus

Re: A question concerning setting up a system to triple boot

Post by clayasaurus »

I see. Thanks for the input all around, I'll try wiping the partitions and installing OS X first.
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