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Macbook Triple Boot: OS X, Fedora 6, Vista

BEFORE STARTING, READ THESE THREE ITEMS:

- at many reboot steps, you need to hold down the alt/option key to give you your boot options of hdd's or dvd's

- to work out a few driver issues in Vista, use boot camp (free from apple) to create the windows drivers cd but DO NOT use it to partition your drive or any of that other jazz. Just make the cd which you'll need later.

- If you have previously attempted to do this on your own, you'll know how big of a nightmare it is without the right information. I spent 3 tedious days (and nights) getting this to work. It was only after endless hours of web hunting, forum streaking, partition messups, and tears that I was finally able to accomplish this on my Macbook. If you want to try this same tutorial on your MacBook Pro, iMac, and so on... be my guest. Whether it will work or not is unknown.

And... go!

1. Install OS X(10.4) on a fresh mac-os-extended(HFS) partition and install the the latest OS X update with the software update utility

2. Run the following diskutil resizeVolume command (with sudo) in the osx terminal (according to your hard drive size) which resizes your osx partition and adds 2 others with the windows partition last (osx: hfs linux: linux vista: ms-dos fat32...will be converted at vista install) So, run it like the following (except you'll need to split up the sizes according to "YOUR" hard drive... and don't go over):
(before running this command, check the list of partitions.
disk0s2 is most likely the main partition name. To find out type: 'diskutil list' and verify the name as well as the fact that there should be one EFI partition (disk0s1) and then your OS X partition(disk0s2)

3. (while pressing alt) Reboot with the Vista DVD in the drive. Install vista on the correct partition(should be sda4 or hda4) Don't worry if Vista doesn't finish all the way or won't boot all the way yet. Just get as far as you can in the installation and then go to the next step.

4. (while pressing alt) Reboot and install Fedora 6 from the dvd(burn the Fedora ISO to an actual dvd) Make sure it's also installed on the right partition and during installation, install the grub bootloader when it asks. Make sure grub is installed on the linux partition and NOT the base of the hdd (for example: sda3 instead of sda)

6. Don't worry about any problems with Fedora not working perfectly either because vista and Fedora most definitely won't work or boot yet due to a range of problems between file systems, boot loaders, operating-system greediness and so on...

7. Boot into OS X and download a program called rEFIt and extract the files to the root directory in OSX (for example: Macintosh HD, just put the "extracted" files right in there and then...

8. Open up the terminal (still in osx) and cd into /efi/refit directory and then run ./enable.sh, it will ask for your password and bam, you have the refit boot screen loader for your mac making it possible to see all your installed partitions at startup (by pressing the alt/option key and selecting the rEFIt logo) and OS's (even though they're not all working yet)

9. (while pressing alt) Boot into the Fedora 6 DVD and run the command "linux rescue" Get to the prompt (skipping the disk check and the ethernet setup)

10. Once at the prompt, chroot to /mnt/sysimage

11. cd into /boot/grub and type: cp grub.conf grub.conf.backup(for a backup) and then type: nano grub.conf

12. In nano, add the following at the bottom(and don't save just yet):

title Vista at sda4
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

(this is where the magic occurs allowing grub to point to the windows MBR on boot... but we're not done)

13. Make a few other minor changes to what was there already in the file - just make sure your grub.conf file matches this and you should be ok:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda3
default=0
timeout=50
color white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Fedora 6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img

title Vista at sda4
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

14. Ctrl-x and confirm with " y " to overwrite the existing file

15. Go back to root ( cd / ) and type: fdisk /dev/sda (that's a space after fdisk)

16. Enter option: " t " ... and then partition number " 4 " (the windows partition number) and then the id number " 7 " (which changes the vista partition to an HPFS/NTFS partition id) Then type " w " to write the changes to the drive - This will save you from a windows booting error when the filesystem ID's clash -

17. Type exit twice to reboot

18. (while pressing alt) Reboot and DO NOT ENTER THE rEFIt MENU and then... eject the linux dvd and insert the windows dvd.

19. Boot into the windows dvd and after choosing the language, click on "repair" instead of install and just follow each step. It will automatically find a windows startup problem and fix it automatically (if it doesn't detect the OS or the problem the 1st time, reboot and do it again...it didn't detect the problem the first time on mine...if it does on yours...kudos!)

20. After vista is repaired and the computer restarts, take out the DVD, select the rEFIt menu, and if you did everything correctly (and in the right order)...choose any OS and VOILA! You should have a triplebooting machine!!!

~ And now, for those windows drivers from the cd you made. This can be a little tricky but pretty necessary if you want Vista to be totally functional with your mac. First, put in the drivers cd and start the installation. It will then begin to install all the necessary files and drivers into a directory but then... the installation will fail (at least it did on mine several times) So what you must do is snatch the folder full of drivers before it quits. Luckily, Vista stops at the end of the drivers installation and asks for some kind of verification on something. That is the window of time to go to Program Files (assuming you know where that is) and then copy and paste the "macintosh drivers" folder that it installed to your desktop. After the verify window is closed, it fails and rips back all those files, but if you did it fast enough, then you'll have a copy on your desktop. Then you simply go into the Device Manager and update any drivers you want in there. I also looked through the whole folder and installed anything that looked necessary (if it wasn't compatible then it wouldn't let me). Sometimes it would say, "do you want Vista to re-install that software with the recommended settings" and i'd just say yes and let it do its thing. But, it's your computer and you can do it any way you please.

Other things worth mentioning:
- Fedora 6 will automatically install everything pretty nicely except for your wireless adapter, ACPI (sleep mode), and other little things, use the updater or other resources online to fix Fedora the way you want them. And furthermore... I highly recommend downloading "Beryl", the sweetest desktop effects I've ever seen. The macbook runs it very nicely!!

My MacBook's Specs:

- 2Ghz Core Duo
- 2GB DDR RAM
- 120GB SATA HDD