Triple Booting an Intel Mac the Right Way

Miah Clayton writes "In the past, installing Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows on an Intel mac meant that you were forced into only having 3 usable partition slots due to the MBR/GPT hybrid limitations. Steven Noonan figured out a way to avoid dealing with the MBR partition limit and have a Linux install that isn't performance-crippled by having a swap file instead of a swap partition."

Comments

Performance Crippled?

[Foolhardy]

I was under the impression that modern Linux kernels had negligible performance impact from using a swap file as opposed to a dedicated swap partition.

Personally, I much prefer using a swap file because it gives me more flexibility in locating, resizing and moving swap.

Re:Performance Crippled?

[Hatta]

Quite true. Along that line, who uses physical partitions on a disk for linux installs anymore? Make yourself one physical linux partition, and use LVM to get all the volumes you need. You can even make yourself a swap partition under LVM if you want.

Re:Performance Crippled?

[sam0737]

With 4GB of RAM...My box could hardly use Swap. Or put it in another way, when it does use the swap space, it's slow like hell!

The 'free' command tell me that most of my ram goes to caching, but I very seldom encounter the case that I need more than 4G.

When the time comes that I need more than 4G, I would just go out to buy more ram! Paging to the harddisk is far too slow...

What is the point?

[CannonballHead]

As much as this will sound like a trolling post, it's not... what is the point of buying a Mac and then triple booting OS X, Windows, and Linux? It seems to be that Linux and OS X are redundant, not to mention that most things you can run on OS X can be run on Windows as well... why buy the Apple hardware?

The only reason I can think of is the image of the Mac, honestly. If there were major redeeming qualities of OS X (especially as compared to Linux?), I could understand that as well, but I am not aware of them (granted, I don't use Macs much, but if you're going to install a Unix based OS, Linux, in addition to a Unix based OS, Mac OS... hm!).

Or am I missing something - i.e., Apple hardware actually is that much better to warrant a higher price tag? Back when they were using RISC based processors, I would readily believe that there might be a difference... but now that even the CPU architecture is the same (Intel...) ... ?

Re:What is the point?

[Alinraz]

I agree with your: "what is the point of buying a Mac and then triple booting OS X, Windows, and Linux?" But for totally different reasons.

I ask: why would you bother with even a double boot, let alone a triple boot? There is nothing you can't do with a Mac, in OSX alone, that you can do with any other OS.

First, hardware: Apple hardware is clean, reliable, with features that are difficult to find in combination on other systems. Apple hardware works; and when it doesn't they fix it. You don't have to keep fussing with it like you do if you build a machine from scratch. And its price is comparable to similarly equipped PC equipment (there was a recent post here on /. about that specifically). Yes, you can buy a PC for less... but that misses the point doesn't it?

As for the OS: OSX is like running Linux in many ways. It is solid, never breaks, it performs well, doesn't have virus and worm issues: basically everything that Windows isn't.

It is based on BSD, and has gcc and other open source tools. It has ssh, bash, tcsh, and X. You can build and run nearly any open-source application or tool.

What OSX is missing from Linux: fiddlyness. While running a Linux distribution feels good, at the same time it's a fair amount of work. Need to get a new piece of hardware working: compile a new kernel module, add that, and muck with configuration files in /etc. And if you're unlucky, possibly have to muck with device nodes in /dev or monkey around with udev configurations. And that's just one example. Every time you want to add or change something it's rinse and repeat time. Oh and forget Linux on laptops... it's famous for having spotty laptop hardware support.

But really the question is "why multi-boot"? With VMWare Fusion on the Mac, I really don't know. Just run Windows applications side-by-side with your Mac ones in OSX. Run an entire Linux development server in a virtual box. When you need to compare configurations, clone the sucker and try out a different one. When your Windows VM starts to get a polluted registry, slows down and starts to eat itself, delete and reinstall it...while compiling the Linux kernel in a Linux VM, while writing a software certification test proposal in OpenOffice running directly in OSX. No lost productivity simply because you have to reinstall Windows.

The real question here is not "Mac vs Linux vs Windows?", it's "why are you still multi-booting?"

Re:What is the point?

[denzacar]

Why Macs? Well, if you need a lot of power (I do a lot of PhotoShop) you can't get a Windows machine with 8 cores cheaper than you can get a Mac Pro - sorry. It's cheaper to buy the Mac Pro and put Windows on it (even with the cost of that license) than it is to buy an 8-core Windows machine. Go figure!

If only there was some use for all those cores...

Scroll down for graphs of Power Macintosh G5 routinely outperforming Mac Pro in Photoshop:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macpro.ars/7

Read the text to see why it does not really matter (in most cases) if you have 8 or 2 cores:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/photoshop_and_multicore.html

Re:What is the point?

[lupis42]

From gblackwo (1087063):

There are arguably different pros and cons to all three operating systems

You say there is no need to multi-boot because OSX does everything perfectly. I submit that OSX does nothing perfectly, but everything well, which makes it useless to me. I have many devices, each for one thing, and OSX doesn't do any of those things better than the alternatives. Why use it?
Ubuntu Netbook remix is much nicer on the ultra-portable than OSX or Windows, 64 bit Windows is required on the gaming machine, and Linux+XBMC does for the mediaboxen quite well. Macs were never an option there, because the one piece of hardware that has component and TOSLINK out in a small form-factor with no adapters or messy cables, the Apple TV, has no DVD drive and does not allow me to easily put stuff on it (where stuff includes zsnes & and a controller, a DVD drive, and support for all of the stuff I have that's not in a format Apple accepts).

I wasn't intending to attack OSX here, just to attack the evangelism in the parent suggestion that we should all use X because it does what he needs, and we obviously need the same things. Everyone wants different things from their computers, and there is no single solution that will ever satisfy them all.

Re:What is the point?

[jo_ham]

The iMac really is a beautiful piece of hardware, leaving OS aside. I have an "old" white one (dual core intel, just with the older white case before the all-aluminium ones came out) and I love the damn thing.

I can carry it around easily when I need to go somewhere (it packs up neatly even for transatlantic flights) and if I want to move it between home and a friend's house it takes about 2 minutes to unplug it and the KB/mouse and pack it back into the box it came in, which has a big carry handle on the top so I can carry it like a suitcase.

The screen is beautiful (despite lots of wank on /. recently about how 'apple imac screens are shit!', I find it looks very nice, and the all-in-one design works well for me.

It won;t suit you if you want to be able to replace every last single transistor with one you bought from a white box store, but you can change the memory on your own, and with a service manual (ie, if you're competent enough to build your own whitebox PC, then you can take apart an iMac) and change the HD, optical drive etc. In my opinion, the 3 year apple care is well worth the cost - so if any of the "non-standard" bits go wrong, which on an iMac is the logic board, it'll be repaired.

So, I can't upgrade the graphics card or the CPU, but then, I don't really need to - it's not supposed to be a bleeding edge games machine that would require that. It works for me as a Final Cut Studio work station and my home machine, with some WoW, EvE, Quake 4, UT2K4 thrown in - all of which play very well.

I can dual boot it if I want, and while I don't have Windows on mine personally, I do support a friend's office machines - he recently replaced all the Dell boxes he had with iMacs after seeing mine, and they run Windows exclusively for his business needs.

As for two Unix based OSes, well that's up to you. While there is an excellent set of open source tools and software available on OS X from the community at large (like Darwin Ports, and pretty much any app you can run in Linux you can build and run in OS X), there are just some times where you want to be doing what other people are doing - I know, for example, that some open source apps just work better on an actual Linux install, rather than on OS X - while it's a Unix OS, it does have its quirks. I could fully understand why a Linux user would want to be able to dual boot.

So, to get back to point, not even considering the OS that is running on it, Apple hardware is worth it for me. In my experience, it is built well, looks good, is well featured (firewire, gigabit ethernet etc) and has some genuine advantages in form and design over a traditional PC that make up for the disadvantages like lack of GPU changeability etc.

It may not be for you though - if you want a fully expandable tower Mac, then you're looking at a Mac Pro, which really are expensive. In the consumer end though, if you want a working machine with a lot going for it, then the iMac, Macbook and Macbook Pro are three of the best Windows, OS X and Linux machines you can buy right now.

Re:if you're going to...

[Miah Clayton]

In my case, I rather enjoy keeping my nose clean. You can't have Mac OS X on a Dell without breaking the TOU, and most likely not without warezing it.