How To Triple Boot MAC OS X, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 8.10 Linux

[ptolomy_was_right]

If Kalway is working great, i would suggest you to install Kalway, and if you just need a bootloader, you can install Chameleon bootloader from the iATKOSv7 disk, boot from the DVD, then select Chameleon v2 boot loader from the utilities menu and install it on your disk. if your leopard parition is first parition on first disk, your disk will be disk0s1. Likewise you can confirm what your disk number is from disk utility from utility menu. Hope this helps you... It has been long time you're trying to figure out how to install Mac OS X. I know how frustrating it is, i have been through the same for about more then a year... but in the end i found out the right Distro. Wish you good luck!!

Edit : .cdr files are CD-R images, also it can be mounted with Daemon tools, use can then rip the disk and then burn or burn directly... You can burn the .cdr files directly using ImgBurn from Windows OS.

Hey thought you would be interested! As you might have sen from above reply to someone else, I finally got the dual-boot right (using Chameleon) but a greater moment was when I FINALLY got the 1280x800 15.4" screen res fix working! I tried sooo many times and no good, you know what the problem was? I ws using the wrong kernal. I should have know - a guy with NR-series VAIO started a thread on InsanelyMac about fixing that very problem and said to use Vanilla kernal only, I guess I didn't really understand and also was thrown off by one or two others having success with eg speedstep. As soon as I customised the Kalyway instal and chose vanilla and vanilla ONLY, the fix work like a charm first time. Woohoo!! Computing never looked so good. Still have three minor problems, nothing I can't live with, but maybe you know the answers?

1. Ethernet port not supported (Marvell Yukon) but have purchased external USB ethernet adaptor from eBay v cheap so no big deal but woould be great to get my onboard port working. Are the drivers/kexts available?

2. Chameleon sets OS X as default (only gives you 5 seconds to press a key to choose Win boot). Any way of editing this like you can edit grub??

3. 10.5.3 update fails to install every time (crashes)... I'm happy with 10.5.2 but any ideas? Would it be safe to skip this update and go straight to a higher one?

Anyway, thank you so much, you have helped me out massively!!

ps. Got rEFIt to install onto OS X partition but bizarrely it never altered the boot. (Tho' maybe that was because I had already installed Chameleon). But it says it needed 10GB of space on the disk!! That can't be right...

[thomasdietrich]

So far, i haven't got sucess with Grub2 loading Mac OS X. So i downloaded the latest version of rEFIT from their site and installed it. Now rEFIT boots all the three OSes : Windows 7, Ubuntu 9.10 and Mac OS X. You do not need to completely re-partition your disk. When you boot from Mac OS X dvd, Before installing it to any partition click Utilities and open Disk Utility. Then select a partition from left side and then click on erase. Now select Mac OS X (Journled File System). click apply and after the erasing process is complete, you can quite Disk Utility. Now the partition you erased is ready for taking Mac OS on it... Any more queries, do post back...

Hello, I'm using this exact scenario. My problem is this: I've already got Windows 7 and Ubuntu installed. I'm trying to install OS X. After I boot from the DVD I can get to the Apple Disk Utility and see the partition where I want OS X. When I try to Erase and format as HFS+ it errors out that it cannot mount the drive. I'm trying to install to the 4th Primary partition on the hard drive. Windows 7 has the System Reserved (1), the Windows install (2), Ubuntu uses a Primary Extended with 2 Logical (3), and I'm trying to get OS X onto Primary partition # 4.

I've tried MANY different approaches. Used Disk Management in Windows to create FAT32 partition. Used diskpart in Windows 7 to create and format and make partition active. Used gparted in Ubuntu to create and format as HFS. The closest I came was using FAT32. OS X installer Apple Disk Utility recognized proper partition name, but when I tried to erase and put HFS+ it then errored out, couldn't mount, and started calling it disk1part4 (or something similar) again. Subsequent attempts at erase fail with the "unable to mount" error.

Any suggestions?

[thomasdietrich]

I'm using the iAtkos OSX86 10.5.7 distro. I've used this DVD on this machine before, and I know it works. For that install I had used the Apple Disk Manager to partition the drive as GUID, which killed my Windows 7 install, but it installed and ran fine. When I got my new hard drive I installed Windows 7 first because that's my primary OS. So this drive is partitioned as MBR. I don't want to use Apple Disk Utility for the partitioning because it's very limited and cannot handle the complexity of what I'm trying to do. It would kill both Windows and Ubuntu if I tried. Its stinky and bad.

So, I'm left in the conundrum of trying to get OSX86 to install on partition 4 of my MBR drive. I can't go back in time and install it first, that ship has already sailed. Can't really ghost my Win7 or Ubuntu partitions because I don't have another drive large enough to hold them. Gotta find a way to get OSX to recognize that last partition properly, format it, and mount it so I can complete the install. Or maybe I just run OSX in a VM or something.

Any other ideas?

[thomasdietrich]

Yes, I have the 4th partition ready for OSX. I understand that Apple Disk Utility formats at the same time as the Delete function, but it's just not working. Like I said, it just complains that it cannot mount the partition. The only time it was even remotely successful was when I first formatted the partition to FAT32, but then Apple Disk Utility errored out when I tried to make it HFS+.

I have used gparted to delete and re-create the partition as HFS+ (had to use apt-get install hsfsutils first), but OS X still complains that it cannot mount the partition.

I've since tried deleting the Linux swap partition just to see if that would help, but it didn't.

Just as I was typing this I've had an idea. In my machine I actually have 2 SATA drives and 1 IDE drive. The 1 SATA drive which is my primary boot drive has Vista, but has grub installed as the boot loader, which then points to the OS's on SATA drive 2, which currently contains Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I'm wondering if I change my BIOS to show the SATA drive 2 as primary boot, and then boot the OSX install CD, if maybe, just maybe, the evil Apple Disk Utility will finally properly recognize that drive. Not sure, but I'll give it a try. I'll let you know the results.

[ptolomy_was_right]

I see, where the link? Sorry just don't see it.

They must've deleted it. Is it against the rules to post links?!

www dot insanelymac dot com/forum/index.php?showtopic=104276

you'll have to put the dots in yrself ;-)

[xpack]

Okay thanks again I'll be sure to true this out in the next hour or so and I'll post on how it works out

What if I don't have AppleYukon.kext?
All I have is the AppleYukon2.kext

WORKING Marvell Yukon 88E8039!

First open up up Computer
Then navigate to the System -> Library -> Extensions

Then right click on the IONetworkingFamily.kext and click Show Contents

Then navigate to Contents/PlugIns folder. You more then likely will have just a AppleYukon2.kext or even just a AppleYukon3.kext those do not mess with. Instead you need to find the correct AppleYukon.kext
'Hint search: Marvell Yukon 88E8039/Intel '
And look at the 5th post.

And copy that file into the PlugIns folder (It'll ask you to authenticate so just enter your password here)

Then open up Terminal and type

sudo su
(It'll ask for your password)

Then type in

cd /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns
chown -R root:wheel AppleYukon.kext
chmod -R 755 AppleYukon.kext
kextload ApplyYukon.kext

Then you'll get a message about New Network Added. And there you go. Your done. Plug in the ethernet and restart.

[sohardivetried]

I have Windows 7 and ubuntu 10.04 dual booting on my 532h, can i not just use gparted to make a hfs filesystem and use the osx jump drive install to install? i Would love to have osx and it really wouldnt bother me to get rid of windows if i have to as i dont boot it anyways. could i just delete the three windows partitions dev/sda1, dev/sda2 and dev/sda3 and keep my linux intact, booting with live usb to fix grub after installing osx to sda1? or should i just wipe it clean and start from scratch with a osx install then ubuntu after for grub? id really rather keep a working os on here though. even if the ubuntu install is super easy. im currently downloading the iso listed above, hopefully this will work, but since i dont have an optical drive at all im really hoping the usb install will work. any ideas? other things i havent considered?

[anshusehgal]

Well, to be precise and what I have seen in other solutions/ querries, people are unable to get that kind of setup working correctly and am also unsure why but yes Ubuntu can mount HFS+. Grub (and other bootloaders) probably can not read HFS+, so you would have to have a separate /boot partition with a different filesystem.

[sohardivetried]

well its grub 2 i have installed, and it does boot osx. everything ive read says as long as you install linux last with grub 2 and add something like this to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg

menuentry "Mac OS X" {
set root=(hd0,6)
insmod video
insmod vbe
gfxmode="1024x600x32"
xnu_kernel /mach_kernel rd=disk0s6
if [ /System/Library/Extensions.mkext -nt /System/Library/Extensions ]; then
xnu_mkext /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
else
xnu_kextdir /System/Library/Extensions
fi
}

guess ill just make a couple boot drives and go to work lol, just thought id see if anyone had tried that and got it to work.

[SnowWalker]

hi, ;-D there, I'm new at this (kind of/new at MAC OS) I have a HP Compaq Mini 311c-1010sp. i have install MAC OS X Snow Leopard trough a Drawing patch specific for HP Compaq Mini 311, i up date work nice ( dont have WIFI) every thing else was fine, i install WIN7 lost boot of MAC then install Ubuntu 10.10, know i only have Ubuntu working although on GRUB.CFG i have all 3 OS there, but does not boot MAC or WIN7. Please some one as an Idea why and what to do about it. many thanks.

SnowWalker

P.S. I'll check if my grub.cfg as some thing like the previous post. and get back here. ;-D

[Rudra.J]

Update grub settings so that it detects the Mac OS. By default it does detect mac but doesn't write its entry into grub.cfg Follow the commands :

sudo update-grub

Grub will check if there are more then one OS installed on the machine.
This should help you, it will give you some messages like :

Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic-pae
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic-pae
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1
Found Ubuntu 10.10 (10.10) on /dev/sda2
Found Mac OS X on /dev/sda4

Now make not of the device on which the Mac OS X is detected. Now reboot and see if it is already detected and added in the Grub Bootloader. If it is not added, don't worry just boot into ubuntu again. Open up grub.cfg and add the following code to it :

title Mac OS X Snow Leopard
root (hd0,4)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Check again by rebooting. If this doesn't help, remove the codes entered and again add this code :

menuentry "Mac OS X" {
set root=(hd0,4)
insmod video
insmod vbe
gfxmode="1024x600x32"
xnu_kernel /mach_kernel rd=disk0s6
if [ /System/Library/Extensions.mkext -nt /System/Library/Extensions ]; then
xnu_mkext /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
else
xnu_kextdir /System/Library/Extensions
fi
}

Also you will have to manually search for the drivers in mac its know as kext. Or specify the wifi drivers that you need. Well now a days i'm into android. and just saw this thread and so thought of replying you.

[nfh]

I was trying to find a way to setup a triple boot with these OSes, and I came across this thread.

Is it possible to have both OSX and Ubuntu installed on an USB hard drive, and have them booting without any issue?

[Rudra.J]

Well as far as i know, you cannot install Mac OS on USB hard drive. But, you can try it out. I haven't tried this, and thanks for the idea, Would try it out tonight! As for Ubuntu is concerned, its possible. But then being a USB hard drive, you will be pissed at the performance!

[ajay-tech]

Well as far as i know, you cannot install Mac OS on USB hard drive. But, you can try it out. I haven't tried this, and thanks for the idea, Would try it out tonight! As for Ubuntu is concerned, its possible. But then being a USB hard drive, you will be pissed at the performance!

Hi just dropping in to say that you can install it onto an external hard drive but the bootloader installs to the computer.

[Rudra.J]

Hi just dropping in to say that you can install it onto an external hard drive but the bootloader installs to the computer.

I never said it wont work. also on an external drive, what performance can you expect. Also the bootloader will be on the first hard disk. And if you want even on the external hard-disk, in that case you need to make it first drive. I haven't try it though. But as its an external drive on a USB port, i wouldn't expect it to work well...