Triple boot VSIDO, OSX and Windows 7

[lwfitz]

Last week I went out and wasted my money on a new Macbook Pro 13". First thought I had was, how do I get VSIDO installed?

Now I know there very well may be a better way to go about getting this done but heres how I did it:

I started from a completely fresh install of OS X. First thing I did was delete the OS X recovery partition since from earlier attempts I found that it becomes useless once the new bootloader is installed.

Wait to create additional partitions until after Windows is installed (unless your not going to install windows. In which case you can skip all my rambling). Go into Launchpad and select bootcamp assistant. From there you can partition for Windows and download the drivers that will be needed once Windows is installed.
Once the bootcamp partitioning is done go ahead and boot to your Windows disk or usb and start the install. When given the choice you will choose custom install and then select the partition labeled "BOOTCAMP". You will have to format the partition and then you can run the install.

After your Windows install finishes go ahead and boot back into OS X and put the bootcamp drivers onto a a dvd or usb drive. Go back into launchpad and select other and then disk utility. Now you can create your partition for VSIDO. I suggest just shrinking the OS X install drive and waiting to do any formatting until your booted with the VSIDO live session.

At this point go ahead and download the rEFInd bootloader

http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/?source=navbar

Download the cd version of the latest release (as of this post its 0.7.8 ) and once installed extract the .zip file and mount the ISO. Navigate in the mounted ISO  to "install.sh" and copy the file using command+c. Once copied go back into launchpad and click on other and then terminal. Paste the "install.sh" into the terminal (it will paste the file path) and hit enter. Enter your password and let rEFInd bootloader install.

Once your new bootloader is installed go ahead and boot to your VSIDO install cd or usb. Once booted up run the install. I attempted to install with swap but swap wasnt recognized (I believe because of gpt) so I canceled and restarted the install script without swap.
This is the point where you will format your VSIDO install partition. In my case I chose to use only one partition for root and home but I dont see any reason why have two partitions would be an issue. When prompted you will tell VSIDO to install grub to the "root partition".  And then run the install.

The install took about 4 min for me and once done I rebooted and was presented with the rEFInd boot menu with options for OS X, Windows and my VSIDO install.

If all went well you will not have a triple booting mac with OS X, Windows and VSIDO.

I should not the after I installed VSIDO my Windows 7 install didnt boot the first time. I had to go back into OS X disk utility and repair my Windows partiton (dont delete just repair). Everything then booted perfectly.


Additionally, fluxbox is obviously a pain with no right click so I went with KDE.
OS X only supports reading ntfs drives so if your wanting to write to your windows install from OS X you will have to install a ntfs-3g driver. I chose to go with paragon-ntfs as ive used it in the past and it works perfectly.

Edit:

I just updated my OS X install to 10.9.2 and no longer had an rEFInd boot menu and had to re-run the "install.sh" rEFInd install script and then all was good again.

For anyone worried about removing the OS X recovery partition, as long as you have an OS X install disk or usb you can use that for recovery if your machine decides to melt down. For machines (2010 and newer) with the latest firmware you can use the Apple Internet Recovery by holding command+Option+r at startup.

Ran dist-upgrade today and my keyboard backlight stopped working. The script found here

http://www.mabishu.com/blog/2010/06/24/macbook-pro-keyboard-backlight-keys-on-ubuntu-gnulinux/

works perfect


Update:

I spent the last couple hours trying to get things reinstalled after upgrading to a ssd and adding a 500gb 7200rpm drive where the dvd superdrive was. For some reason I got all kinds of errors including but not limited to....

Code Select Expand

Calling: Test-Built in
Error reading /Lib/Udev/Hwdb.bin no such file or directory
Load module index
Unload module index

Code Select Expand

Probing EDD (edd=off to disable) ....


The only way I was able to get past these errors was to add

Code Select Expand

edd=off nomodeset

to the kernel parameters. Do not even try to boot in failsafe mode as it will error and just frustrate you as it did me.

Also, I was having an issue with slow boot times. After enabling readahead all is good. That can be done by running

Code Select Expand

sudo systemctl enable systemd-readahead-collect systemd-readahead-replay;2D


[VastOne]

Great How To!

Thanks man!... Makes me want to go out and buy a CrApple...

[lwfitz]

Thanks!

And..... DONT DO IT 

I can justify this because of work and thats all! it took two months of telling myself it was ok before I finally pulled the trigger on it lol

[dizzie]

Nothing wrong with a Apple if it's PPC based, like a Power Macintosh G3


and rEFInd is nice, makes you install sane OS on crappy intel mac's