Planning to dual/tri boot XP Pro/Vista with Linux

Anyone planning to do dual/tri boot C2D with XP pro/Vista RC1 and Linux/Solaris? I woul like to use Fedora Core 5 as the Linux platform and solaris 10. Been waiting for C2D and will be buying one in a few weeks time. The models I have in mind are 1) HP dv9000t and 2)Dell E1705. As of now, I am edging more towards dv9000t - because it has 2 drive bays. I am hoping to purchase two 7200RPM drives and install XP on one and Linux/Solaris on the other.

Any recommnedations, before I make the purchase ? I would like to use full functionalities of each OS.

BGeo

 

That would actually be quadruple booting. Linux is absolutely not Solaris, in any way shape or form, except that they're both Unixy. Solaris is a real UNIX, and Linux is UNIX-like, but has many important differences.

Make sure you install the Microsoft OS's first, and then probably Solaris, and last, Linux. That way you get Linux's boot-loader (grub or lilo), which is probably the most amenable to multiple OS's. You might/probably will have to configure the boot loader. Be prepared to have another computer connected to the internet and Google while doing that install, because it doesn't sound like you've done this type of thing before.

You don't necessarily need multiple drive bays, you can just partition one drive however you want (say, 4 30GB partitions on a 120GB drive) and it should just work. Well, you may need more, a couple of extended partitions as well, as Linux usually wants a separate swap partition, rather than just a swap file. But anywho, go with the specs of the machine that you want, don't just go on the number of drives it supports (unless that's all that's important to you). I do recommend a machine with an NVIDIA card. That'll make your life easier in Linux. Not sure about Solaris.

 

Well, partitioning a single disk for different OSes will leave little space for using various applications. That's the reason I thought of using two large drives. Thanks for mentioning Nvidia cards. If I am buying dv9000t it will be 7600 and 7900 if E1705. In fact, for the E1705 option, I was considering X1400, to reduce cost (as I am not a hardcore gamer). Are there any known ATI - Linux compatibility issues?


I have done Single boot Solaris, Linux on separate notebooks before. But, have never done a double or tri boot on a notebook. It will be interesting to see how it goes.


One other question: if I buy dv9000t with two drives, how will the factory configuration be? Will the second drive be empty, meaning; recovery would only require reinstallation on to first drive? Or would using a recovery CD wipe out the two drives? So, then I might have to use Partition Magic or some other partition management software.

BGeo

 

It's not incompatible, it's just that ATI's drivers on Linux are a pain in the rear to get working.

The second drive will probably be empty. But you'll have to muck with the partitions manually no matter which way you slice it.

 

Right now I am tri-booting XP, Vista RC1 and SUSE 10.1. I made a thread about it the other day. I would only suggest having three OS' at most, not four. Hard drives can only have 4 primary partitions, and most computers these day come with factory partitions for either restore or diagnostics. Therefore you could only have 3 OS' installed. And definitely install Linux last. Vista's bootloader takes default for the Windows partitions, but you can't edit it to see non-Windows partitions. GRUB on the other hand will see Windows paritions. I upgraded my Vista Beta 2 to RC1 and it reinstalled the bootloader, and now GRUB no longer appears at start so I can't get into SUSE. Now I'm gonna have to try to boot off the SUSE DVD to get GRUB back.

 

I am running XP\Vista\Ubuntu 686 and 386 on my W3J

 

Actually, he could use extended partitions and have more than just the 4 primaries.

 

Might be wrong on this one as I haven't done my setup yet. But I think that to triple boot Windows / Linux / Solaris you need to install Windows, then Linux then solaris and reboot to solaris CD to install the solaris version of grub. The linux version does not support native solaris FS.

Otto.

 

Here is a link on how to do it: http://hell.jedicoder.net/?p=27

Otto.

 

On my notebook, I tri-boot OSX 86, Linux, XP, I have done 4 way booting but removed Vista (It was an old Beta).

My order to install it was:

1) Windows XP
2) OSX 86
3) SUSE Linux
4) Vista (removed)

 

So, a 4-way boot is possible, right ?
I would like to install XP Pro, Vista, Linux and Solaris. What sequence/order of install would you recommend ?

BGeo

 

My personal suggestion would be:
1)XP Pro
2)Vista
3)Solaris
4)Linux

This will allow you to use GRUB easily. And you have to install Vista after you install XP. No choice on that one if you want to get it working easily.