Triple Boot on MacBooks Working

MikeTheMan writes "By now, everyone probably heard that Apple's recently-released Boot Camp software allows users to install Windows XP alongside OS X. But now, people at OnMac.net have discovered how to triple-boot OS X, Windows XP, and Linux. There are instructions on the Wiki for getting Gentoo running, but it is probably trivial to get other distros working as well."

FAT32?

[squidguy]

Great... Apple wants you to run the XP partition as FAT32 instead of NTFS... can we possibly make it more insecure?
Caveat emptor: I haven't bought my Mac yet so I can say that I haven't tried this... yet.

Sweet, but what about dual boot?

[fak3r]

This is cool, I like it, but I want to dual boot on the Mac Mini; and by dual boot I mean like I have it now on my old iBook -- OS X and Linux. I don't want Windows on it. So, my question, when you boot holding down the 'option' key on the Mac can you make it so you'll have the option of OS X or Linux instead of having to rely on the NT bootloader to choose Linux? I'm sure after that you could hack out the Windows icon so you just have the X and Tux on the select screen.

So, can it be done? Would it require hacking Boot Camp? Did Apple make this easy to modify? Also, I saw that the Linux ATI drivers work; do they support the graphics card in the Minis? I'm waiting for my local shop to get the Mini Duo Core's in, then I'll likely jump in, but I want to dual boot from there, like I do now.

Re:Why boot linux here?

[NickFitz]

I do a lot of development on a Mac (in Eclipse, XCode and SubEthaEdit) and I've never found it necessary to look at the Finder for 10 minutes.

Similarly, when developing on a Windows box, I spend very little time gazing upon Windows Explorer.

What exactly is your strategy for development? Browsing the file system does not a developer make.

MacIntel - CHRP?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

From my perspective, the Macintel computer is the fulfilment of the CHRP dream from the mid-1990s. For those too young to remember, CHRP (pronounced Chirp) was an idea from Apple that stood for Common Hardware Reference Platform. Such a computer would exist outside of Operating Systems - it could and would run anything. It never really got off the ground, for obvious reasons.

I always thought CHRP was a great idea, and it seems to me that the MacIntel platform running bootcamp IS the reincarnation of CHRP. I think that if Apple can run the price of their hardware down enough and incorporate things like card readers etc. into the front panel, they could really increase market share in a big way. For example:

Here's an interesting idea, that could save a company vast sums of cash:

Buy apple hardware, and triple boot the suckers, and wave bye bye to the vast collection of test boxen that clutter the labs.

Granted: specific software that is dependent on specific hardware that doesn't fly with the mac platform won't be testable, but some huge vast percentage of what is out there doesn't operate that way, and this would especially be true of internet based applications.

So, instead of using a old Intel box that's been re-grooved to do Linux (initial cost, say, $1000) and ANOTHER Intel/AMD box for Windows (say, another $1000) and an Apple computer to test the Apple build (say, $1500), you now just buy the MacIntel box, ($1500) and install Windows and Linux and you're done.

This multiboot thing will be especially impressive as Microsoft continues along this idiotic path of multiple flavours of Windows. God ferbid they just make one REALLY GOOD version that does the job properly (a la OSX).

But this Bootcamp thing could save some companies millions of dollars. They could upgrade their labs to Apple computers, run bootcamp, and say bye bye to HP/Dell/Gateway/etc. forever, fulfilling the beautiful vision of CHRP.

Works for me.

RS

Re:Sweet, but what about dual boot?

[Jim Hall]

This is cool, I like it, but I want to dual boot on the Mac Mini; and by dual boot I mean like I have it now on my old iBook -- OS X and Linux. I don't want Windows on it. So, my question, when you boot holding down the 'option' key on the Mac can you make it so you'll have the option of OS X or Linux .. ?

I've played with Boot Camp, but haven't done much with it. [freedos.org] But from what I understand by reading the wiki, you can create a dual-boot MacOSX/Linux system. However, the BootCamp Assistant seems (inferred by TFA) to prefer you have one partition per operating system on the disk space you set up. I don't understand why, though (when I booted FreeDOS, then ran FDISK, it appeared as though the presented "hard drive" had no partitions, suggesting you could create your own partitions.)

If you want to be safe, I'd go ahead and follow the usual instructions with BootCamp Assistant, create a single Linux partition (no swap), and create a swap file in that partition.

At least, I infer that from TFA. As I said, when I experimented with it, it looked like you could create partitions as you would on any PC, when you booted into the "Windows" area (faked BIOS.)

I'll try this on the iMac I have at work in the next week ... see my web site [umn.edu] for updates.

Re:MacIntel - CHRP?

[Maserati]

Macs have always been good in multi-bhoot configurations. Way back in the dotcom days our QA department handed us a list of 45 PC configurations (OS and browser combos) and 14 Mac system. This request was made in all seriousnous, as if even a dotcom could come up with the office space for an extra 60 machines. We got the PC test builds done with removable hard drives (Orb drives - easier to swap than IDE removables) . For the Macs I just partitioned the drives 8 ways, named them appropriately and installed the OS and browser required on each. Startup Disk.cdev was a great bootloader for that situation.

These days VMWare or another virtualization environment would be the better choice.

very nice

[Tom]

This is an excellent step. Now if only someone can get the overcomplication down a little, maybe so that Linux boots directly from EFI and I don't have to choose "windos" first each time I actually want to boot Linux - that's just torture, isn't it?

Re:Now if only...

[lezerno]

"The first Porsche, the Porsche 64 from 1938, used many components from the Volkswagen Beetle." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche [wikipedia.org]

Re:Sweet, but what about dual boot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps someone can answer my question regarding boot camp... there's been a lot of speculation about why Apple released it. I can't help wondering if it is related to the inclusion of a Treacherous Computing TPM. [masternewmedia.org] Apple is rearchitecting its operating system around the idea of trust. The hardware checks the digital signature of the BIOS, the BIOS checks the bootloader, the bootloader checks the kernel... and so on up the software stack. This allows Apple to enforce the use of certain base software if you wish to run their app software (I'm think of DRM for iTunes)... you can't replace or alter (or even see) any of the bits underneath without the machine suddenly not being "trusted", and either not running iTunes or at the very least refusing to play protected content.

Where does "Boot Camp" come into this? I can't help think that Apple *had* to have an official multiple choice bootloader. Without it, developers (who need that capability) would have to rely on third-party ones -- and a third party one would not be signed by Apple... and hence breaking that chain of trust... their machine would not be "trusted", and would be locked out of things like (in future) Apple's update server, or (as I mentioned earlier) iTunes.

So in that sense, Apple simply had to have "Boot Camp" in order not to really piss off developers, or just customers who want to try out other operating systems.

Developers/ISVs?

[BeanThere]

It sounds ideal for cross-platform application development --- you only need one machine, and just need to reboot when porting/compiling to your 'non-primary' platforms. Combine with a decent cross-platform API like wxWidgets for best results. Make it a MacBook and you're portable too, and with all three platforms available to give product demos depending on who you're selling to.

Developers, developers, developes :)

[AHumbleOpinion]

I'm a linux noob, but i'm not clear why you'd WANT to boot Linux in this case, other than maybe if you are a multi-OS admin.

Not admins, you can admin Linux boxes from BSD or Windows systems. Balmer offers the non because-it-is-there answer: developers, developers, developers. The Linux and BSD APIs differ enough that you really need to build and test your software on both platforms on a pretty regular basis. This is less of a problem on more traditional BSD systems since Linux emulation is generally offered during installation. I'm pretty sure Linux emulation is not a standard feature of Mac OS X or part of the developer tools installation. Someone else will have to comment on how easy it would be to add yourself.

Re:Why boot linux here?

[__aaclcg7560]

People like you just gloss over it because it comes in a fancy package. It feels better even though it isn't. Shallow is what you are.

Surprisingly, my first impression of taking my Mac Mini (PowerPC) out of the box was all tactile. The weight, the construction, and all the surfaces felt "different". I'm not holding another piece of electronic equipment, but a masterpiece of computer engineering. That was a significant "wow" factor for me. Less than two months, I was completely switched over to the Mac. I used my Windows desktop for playing games and I use VNC on my Windows laptop to access my Mac desktop.