Explain a Mac Pro Tri-Boot to me
Ok, here's the deal. I have
2x160 GB HDDs in a RAID 0 - OS X
250 GB HDD - 185 GBs Windows, a tad over 50 GBs free.
I want to take that 50 free GBs, and install Ubuntu on about 30 GBs of it, and have a 20 GB FAT32 partition for passing files around between the 3 OSes.
Questions:
1) Do I need to remove my RAIDed HDDs again? (They're in SATA slots 1 & 2)
2) Do I need a bootloader of some kind? Should it be a EFI one or a BIOS one?
3) To get to the Linux partition, do I have to pick Windows on the option-key menu, then pick between Windows and Linux, or does Linux show up with OS X and Windows in the first menu?
2x160 GB HDDs in a RAID 0 - OS X
250 GB HDD - 185 GBs Windows, a tad over 50 GBs free.
I want to take that 50 free GBs, and install Ubuntu on about 30 GBs of it, and have a 20 GB FAT32 partition for passing files around between the 3 OSes.
Questions:
1) Do I need to remove my RAIDed HDDs again? (They're in SATA slots 1 & 2)
2) Do I need a bootloader of some kind? Should it be a EFI one or a BIOS one?
3) To get to the Linux partition, do I have to pick Windows on the option-key menu, then pick between Windows and Linux, or does Linux show up with OS X and Windows in the first menu?
Comments
After a PC/MAC boots, your computer starts to look for information on what to boot from where. All operating systems install a boot loader, all of them!
The most prominent boot loaders are things like GRUB for linux, and NT Loader for windows. I am very unfamiliar with dual booting an apple machine and the apple boot loader. (an OS other than OSX on an apple? no thanks)
During a linux install (for example Red hat 9) you partition the hard drive so there is satisfactory space for RH9 to be installed, you then go on to install GRUB, and if other OS'es are installed like Windows or other Linux distros you can add and rename them to the GRUB menu and also set a default, which will boot after a timer has expired.
The way I install windows and linux on a box is to start with windows, give it a partition in the installer, format and install. Then install Linux which will in turn install a more competent boot manager like GRUB.
I can only assume the most logical path to take would be to install OSX after windows then if linux doesn't pick it up (probably not) just add it to GRUB manually at boot.
As for RAIDS, from personal experience I would only recommend using a RAID setup for a single OS. I can't see an advantage for RAID unless you are a video editor, or for heavy server tasks (file server/web server/mail server etc), as you are splitting the file load over several drives thus increasing access speeds.
I use 2x200gb SATA drives on a windows box for gaming, which is fun. For multiple OS's it's just a hassle.
Also if you are wanting to use all 3 OS's for work then I would recommend and external or internal FAT32 drive for easy backup and file transfer between OS's
Hope this helps!
P.S
I want to take that 50 free GBs, and install Ubuntu on about 30 GBs of it, and have a 20 GB FAT32 partition for passing files around between the 3 OSes.
I guess you can now instlal ubuntu and add windows and OSx to GRUB after it has been installed. But don't take my word for it, just guessing
Edit: just found this in google: http://forum.insanelymac.com/lofiver...hp/t19762.html