Thinkpads Forum

Thought I'd start up a separate thread to help sort out issues related to setting up a triple boot system (OSX, XP SP3 Tablet, Ubuntu) on my X60 Tablet, rather than getting it lost in the very, very useful, but already quite long 10.6.X on X60/T60/X61 (CoreDuo, Core2Duo / GMA950, GMA3100) poll thread.

I've almost gathered together all the files and disks I think I need, but I have a couple questions about the best way forward before I start partitioning and installing.

First off, there are various Hackintosh how-to's that recommend installing OSX first, and then installing Windows, and then installing Ubuntu or some other Linux flavour last. See for example:
http://bigfloppydonkeydisk.blogspot.com ... -snow.html

But xene's post about triple-booting with Win7 recommends starting with Windows:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 25#p609625

One difference in approaches appears to be the effects on the bootloader and whether or not you need to repair your Windows boot loader or not? I gather that different strategies probably end up with different configurations of boot loaders (for example, the difference between using Grub or EasyBCD or Microsoft's MBR).

Now, I'm not planning on using Win7, but rather XP SP3 Tablet Edition. But I still think I need a bit further advice on all this. As far as I can tell, I have no need to use the Microsoft MBR, and that EasyBCD is actually only the right way to go if I'm using Win7/Vista. So using Grub looks like the easiest way forward, and installing OSX -> Win XP -> Ubuntu looks like the right order.

Any advice?

pkiff wrote:Now, I'm not planning on using Win7, but rather XP SP3 Tablet Edition. But I still think I need a bit further advice on all this. As far as I can tell, I have no need to use the Microsoft MBR, and that EasyBCD is actually only the right way to go if I'm using Win7/Vista. So using Grub looks like the easiest way forward, and installing OSX -> Win XP -> Ubuntu looks like the right order.

Any advice?

How do you plan to achieve a Vanilla Snow Leopard Install by using Grub? - You IMHO need Chameleon 2.0 RC4 or its mod AsereBLN 1.1.9 for it, Grub alone won't boot Snow Leopard with the features that Chameleon et al. offer (RestartFix and so on ...). And, here's the point: Chameleon needs to reside inside the Master Boot Record (assuming you don't use any external media like an USB stick to boot from). Therefore, my advice would be:

Get the following things:
- Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP3 install media (there are many tutorials around how to slipstream them from the install files provided by Lenovo's Windows pre-installs)
- An Ubuntu LiveCD
- An 8 GB USB stick to install Snow Leopard from, partitioned using a GPT partition scheme with 2 HFS+ partitions, 1 x 128 MB for the Extra folder from Sebinouse's package, the other around 7,8 GB for restoring the Mac OS X Install DVD to.

Boot from the Ubuntu LiveCD, install GParted from the Software Center, install the packages for NTFS and HFS+ support using the terminal and apt-get and then create on your ThinkPad's hard disk - using a Master Boot Record (MBR) - ...:
- 1 NTFS partition for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
- 1 NTFS partition for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, to be re-formatted to HFS+ during the up-following Snow Leopard installation
- 1 Ext4 partition for the Ubuntu installation

After that, install Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to the first partition. When you're done with that, boot the imaged Snow Leopard Install DVD partition using your 8 GB USB Stick prepared earlier, reformat the second NTFS partition on your ThinkPad's hard disk to HFS+ using the OS X disk utility and return to the OS X installer where you install Snow Leopard to the just re-formatted HFS+ partition. The whole install process will finally end in an error message, which is just natural, because your ThinkPad does not have an EFI where the boot drive could be switched by the installer. Reboot from your 8 GB stick, this time to your new HFS+ hard disk partition and finish the Snow Leopard install. After that, install AsereBLN's boot loader to your Snow Leopard partition, it will also overwrite the MBR formerly used by Windows, but that's alright, you'll be able to boot Windows using AsereBLN's boot loader, too (... and Ubuntu, which we'll install in a minute).

Finally, restart your ThinkPad again from the Ubuntu LiveCD and install Ubuntu to the third partition on your HD, the Ext4-partition. Reformat it with the installer and use it as "/". You'll be warned that you don't have any swap disk with this partition scheme, but that's okay, I think, given today's amount of RAM usually available in recent ThinkPads. And - VERY IMPORTANT: DON'T install Grub to your hard disk's MBR (probably /dev/sda), but into the boot sector of the third partition, the Ext4-partition (would probably be /dev/sda3, if I recall correctly).

Set the HFS+ partition active using GParted from the Ubuntu LiveCD like you already once before. This should be it. Your ThinkPad should now boot AsereBLN's boot loader from the MBR and the hard disk's second partition, the HFS+ partition. It should recognize Windows XP Tablet PC Edition residing on the first partition and Ubuntu on the third partition, the Ext4 partition (but ONLY if you install Grub into this partition's boot sector as explained above; if you don't, Ubuntu won't be found).

If you want, you can also enhance this method buy using an external USB stick to boot from. There are very small USB sticks like DeLock's nano stick that won't even take more space on your X60 Tablet's two right USB ports than its case above does. The advantage of using an USB stick with at least one HFS+ partition for AsereBLN's boot loader and the Extra folder is that the boot loader does not need to reside inside your hard disk's MBR and that you can make any other partition on it active. You could for instance leave the Windows code inside your MBR intact, install Grub again into the Ext4 partition's boot sector (which will also leave the MBR intact) and set the Ext4 partition active. This will boot AsereBLN's boot loader as long as your ThinkPad's BIOS is set to boot from the USB stick with priority before it uses your hard disk for it. So you could simply boot using Asere's loader, exactly as above, but if you remove the stick, your ThinkPad would boot using Grub (because the Ext4 partition was set active) or Windows (if the NTFS partition was set active). Another advantage of this: All your custom kernel extensions reside safely inside the Extra folder on the USB stick - you can really destroy your Snow Leopard partition on your hard disk as heavily as you wan't, but you'll always be able to boot and re-install Snow Leopard to it again, very much like on a real Mac.

Hope this helps!

Great Gatsby wrote:And, here's the point: Chameleon needs to reside inside the Master Boot Record (assuming you don't use any external media like an USB stick to boot from). Therefore, my advice would be:

Thanks, Great Gatsby. And yes that helps greatly. I'm still trying to understand Chameleon and the other options, and I didn't realize that Chameleon provides some added functionality, or that it had to be in the MBR.

Thinking about partitions a bit more, I'm playing around with a plan right now that would look something like this once everything was finished:
0 - MBR - which somehow includes Chameleon or EFI or AsereBLN or whatever (I really still don't understand this, and am not quite clear if it will end up being a separate partition or remain just an MBR with pointers somewhere)
1 - NTFS - WinXP
2 - HFS+ - OSX
3 - FAT32 (or NTFS?) for Shared Storage
4 - ext4 - Ubuntu system - include GRUB here?
5 - ext4 - Ubuntu swap

This is more or less what Great Gatsby has suggested except that I've inserted a data partition, and I figure that I want to insert that partition in the first 4 to make sure that Windows can read it. I greatly value having a shared data partition that will be accessible by all 3 operating systems.

If the final MBR will still be limited by Windows limitations on the MBR, then my inclination would be to identify the last 3 partitions as subdivisions of a single "extended" as opposed to "primary" partition. But will the system end up with a Windows MBR, or is it really some weire Mac replacement for the MBR. And will there even be such a thing as "extended" and "primary" paritions anymore once everything is installed?

Phil.

I also have a "triple boot" on my X60t : 2 WinXP and & MacOSX ...

As you put it, we can only have 4 Primary partitions with a MBR partition scheme (mandatory for multi-boot). But in theory we can also have 3 Primary and 1 Extended (which can contain several logical partitions). I never tried this ...

Here is what I did :

MBR partition scheme
1) NTFS (WinXP)
2) NTFS (WinXP)
3) HFS+ (MacOSX)
4) HFS+ (Data)

NTFS partition can't be natively read/written on MacOSX, you have to use "MacFuse"+"NTFS-3G" or "Tuxera NTFS". So FAT32 seems to be a good choice for a shared partition (even with its limitations).

I used the Installation Program of MacOSX to perform the partitioning (you can also use a regular MacOSX): Terminal and fdisk command (more details HERE)

Don't forget to "flag" your MacOSX partition on which you plan to install "AsereBLN" which will allow you to choose the system you want to boot on.

Okay, Sebinouse already answered most of the up-following questions, so here are just a few additional remarks that could be helpful:

Sebinouse wrote:NTFS partition can't be natively read/written on MacOSX, you have to use "MacFuse"+"NTFS-3G" or "Tuxera NTFS".

Well, it actually can if you install Xcode (free download if you have a free Apple ADC account). Then you can activate read/write access on NTFS drives using the following shell command:
(Source)

Caution: I don't know which maturity Apple's own NTFS write support has gained in Snow Leopard, I would recommend doing a bit of research on that before using it on anything you really absolutely don't wanna loose ...

So FAT32 seems to be a good choice for a shared partition (even with its limitations).

Yes, the other option - just to name it for the sake of completeness - would be an HFS+ driver for Windows. There are mainly two products: MacDrive, which is a commercial HFS+ driver for Windows featuring read/write access and Apple's own HFS+ (read-only) drivers included in Boot Camp, which you could extract.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips and explanations, Great Gatsby and Sebinouse.

I'll post back once I get things up and running...or when I run into the next major hurdle! This will be a slow process for me, and I may end up doing it over multiple times until I get it set up the way I want. And I'm doing it in fits and starts whenever I can squeeze out some spare time. So it may be several weeks before I get anywhere close to being done. Regardless, I'll let folks know how it goes.

As a sidenote, it turns out that I've already got a license for MacDrive which I've been using to read HFS+ drives from my Macs, but I hadn't even considered using it to read data the other way by formatting my shared data drive HFS+. I wonder if I can read that in Ubuntu? FAT32 is not a very good format, but I don't run into file size problems with the work I do and it is very, very familiar to me, so it feels safest even if it isn't really. Mmmmm...have to think on that one a bit.

Phil.

pkiff wrote:As a sidenote, it turns out that I've already got a license for MacDrive which I've been using to read HFS+ drives from my Macs, but I hadn't even considered using it to read data the other way by formatting my shared data drive HFS+. I wonder if I can read that in Ubuntu?

Ubuntu can read HFS+ out of the box, as far as I remember. I don't access my HFS+ volumes with Ubuntu very often, so I have to re-check if a standard Ubuntu installation can write HFS+ Journaled. But I'm at least sure it can read it.