Intel Mac tricked into triple-boot config

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By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

18th April 2006 11:40 GMT

Intel-based Macs can now play host to three operating systems and boot into any one of them at will. The triple-boot technique has been outlined on the OnMac.net website, home of the first code to allow the new machines to run Windows XP.

The procedure's not trivial, though it makes use of Apple's BootCamp utility to ease you through the installation of Windows XP. After installing XP, the process walks you through adding a Linux distrubution off a live Linux CD to the dynamically re-partitioned Mac hard drive. This Linux uses a swapfile for virtual memory rather than the more commonplace swap-specific partition due to limitations in the permitted partition structure.

The trick is to use the BootCamp-required Windows XP bootloader ntldr to call up the Linux boot tool, lilo. To start up using Linux, users select XP in Bootcamp, which then activates ntldr, which, in turn, activates lilo from where you can select Linux.

Full details can be found here. ®