Introduction
Ever felt the need to run three operating systems separately on your MacBook Pro? I scoured the internet in search of a good, straightforward guide to accomplishing the task. Unhappy with what I found, I decided to write one up for anyone else daring enough to do the same.
When all’s said and done, you’ll have a menu upon boot up giving you the option of either your Mac (tested with 10.5.3), Windows (tested with Vista 64-bit), or Linux (tested with Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit – Alternate Install CD) operating system. As an aside, this guide assumes that you will be dividing the drive space evenly between all three operating systems. Be warned, though, the time to completion may take up to 5 hours. This does not include burning OS install disks. Unfortunately, most of this time will be spent waiting for progress bars. The laptop will be rendered unusable for work. Plan accordingly.
Step One: Install Mac OS X
Assumes Mac OS X 10.5.3
1. Before we begin, back up all your documents to your home network or USB thumbdrive. Don’t forget to includ any Notes files, browser bookmarks, etc.
2. Next, install OS X to the Macbook Pro. Tell it to use the entire hard drive.
3. Use the Boot Camp Assistant to partition the drive.
- Start the Boot Camp Assistant located at: /Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant. A quick reminder: the “Windows” partition shown will eventually become both the Windows and Linux partitions. As previously stated, since we will be dividing the drive equally across all operating systems, slide the divider until the Windows partition takes up two-thirds of the disk.
- Click ‘Partition’ and wait for the process to complete.
- When the partitioning process completes, click ‘Quit and Install Later’. Do not use the Bootcamp installer.
Step Two: Install Windows
Assumes Windows Vista 64-bit
1. Insert the Windows install CD or DVD and reboot the machine. Hold down the ‘C’ key to boot from the CD. Please note that the Windows XP 64-bit install DVD may not recognize USB keyboards when booting from DVD.
2. Once the Windows installer loads, proceed through the installation. When asked where to install Windows, select the partition that is approximately two-thirds of the disk. In testing, this was ‘Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP 126.1GB’.
3. Highlight the partition and click ‘Drive Options (advanced)’.
4. Click ‘Format’ and ‘OK’.
5. Now that the drive is formatted, click ‘Next’. Windows will now install.
- During the Windows install process, the machine may reboot on its own several times.
- Windows is rebooting and expecting to boot back into the installation process. You need to help it do so by holding down the ‘Option (Alt)’ key when the machine reboots, and manually selecting the ‘Windows’ hard drive. (not the ‘Windows’ CD). If you happen to miss the chance to reboot into the Windows install process, the machine will boot into OS X. Simply reboot the machine, hold down the option key, select the ‘Windows’ hard drive (not the CD) and continue from there.
6. Once installation is complete, the machine will boot into Vista and have the user complete the setup procedure.
7. Eject the CD from within Vista by clicking the drive once in ‘Computer’ and selecting ‘Eject’ on the title bar. Vista now needs drivers for the Macbook Pro hardware.
- If you want to be able to have greater control over the fans in the Macbook Pro cooling system, you need to install the ‘inputremapper’ application (tested version 1.0.04) first. This is recommended, as the Macbook Pro can run quite hot at times, dependent on the ambient air temperature.
- Download and install inputremapper. You will need to use a USB key, as the networking drivers for the Macbook Pro have not yet been installed.
- Reboot the machine, holding down the ‘option’ key and choosing the Windows drive.
- Install the Windows drivers for the Macbook pro hardware by inserting the ‘Macbook Pro Install CD 1′ in the drive. If the Bootcamp Drivers application doesn’t start automatically, double-click on the CD in ‘Computer’ and run WindowsSupport/setup.exe.
- Once the drivers are installed, eject the CD and reboot the machine into the Mac OS partition.
Step Three: Install rEFIt
1. Boot into the Mac OS partition and install rEFIt. This is our boot menu application.
- Download and install rEFIt (tested version 0.11)
2. To configure rEFIt to be the default boot menu, open a terminal window and give the command:
/efi/refit/enable-always.sh
3. rEFIt has a default timeout of 20 seconds. When reached, it will boot into OS X. If you would like to disable the timeout:
- Open /efi/refit/refit.conf in Text Editor
- Change ‘timeout 20′ to ‘timeout 0′.
- Save and close.
Step Four: Install Linux
1. Enter the Linux install CD (tested Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit Alternate Install) and reboot the machine. Hold down the ‘C’ key to boot from the CD. In this case, you might actually need to use an external USB keyboard. Sometimes the Linux install CD doesn’t recognize the built-in keyboard correctly.
2. Treat the Ubuntu install as you normally would until you arrive at the partitioning section. Brace yourselves, here’s where it gets tricky.
- When Linux installs, it will corrupt the portion of the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the current Windows partition. In order for Windows to be usable, the MBR installed on this partition must be backed up.
- When the installation procedure asks about partitioning disks, exit to the command line and make a backup of the MBR of the Windows partition.
- In Ubuntu, this is done by pressing Alt-F2 to get a command line.
- Enter
dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/sda.mbr bs=512 count=1
and hit the ‘Enter’ key.
- Press Alt-F1 to return to the Ubuntu installation.
- Choose the ‘Guided – Resize…’ option. (in testing, this was ‘Guided – Resize SCSI3 (0,0,0), partition #3 (sda) and use freed s’)
- Make the Linux partition 50% of the resized space (one-third of the overall drive, if the Windows partition was two-thirds…)
- Continue the installation process.
- After the base Linux OS files are installed (but before installing a Linux bootloader) the MBR must be restored from the backup that was created earlier.
- In Ubuntu, this is done by pressing Alt-F2 to get a command line.
- Enter
dd if=/tmp/sda.mbr of=/dev/sda
and hit the ‘Enter’ key.
- Press Alt-F1 to return to the Ubuntu installation.
3. Continue the installation process until reaching the bootloader installation screen (in testing, this was the ‘GRUB installation’ page).
- In Ubuntu, do not install GRUB to the MBR. Windows needs the MBR as it is.
- When asked where to install GRUB, choose the Linux installation partition (not the swap). In testing, this was /dev/sda4. (Note that this partition is one greater than the partition specified on the ‘Guided – Resize…’ line of the ‘Partition disks’ screen.
4. When the installation is complete, eject the CD (if it is not done for you) and reboot the machine.
Step Five: Update rEFIt
At this point in the process, rEFIt will see all three operating systems and will be able load Mac OS and Windows. Linux, however, needs to have its own partition records updated to properly load.
1. Once the machine is rebooted and on the rEFIt screen, press the arrow keys until you reach the ‘Partitioning Tool’ icon. Press the ‘Enter’ key.
2. When it asks, “May I update the MBR as printed above?”, press the ‘y’ key. rEFIt’s partition records will update.
3. You should now be able to boot into any Operating System.
Final Notes and Observations
General
To disable the Apple ‘bong’ noise when the machine starts, install and configure StartupSound.prefPane.
Windows
Windows will check (CHKDSK) its partition the first time it boots. It will notice the difference in partition size. This is fine, let it run through. Windows will still load afterward.
The right-click behavior in Mac OS (Control-click) can be replicated in Windows by using inputremapper.
Linux
To reduce the amount of time the GRUB menu appears when booting Linux (tested Ubuntu), edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst where it says ‘timeout 10′ to say ‘timeout 3′ or whatever your preference is.
To replicate the right-click (and middle-click) functionality in Mac OS by using Control-click,
- Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Accessibility tab > General – and enable “Allow to turn accessibility features on and off from the keyboard”
- Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Mouse Keys tab > and enable “Allow to control the pointer using the keyboard”
- From the terminal, type
gedit ~/.xmodmap
- Type
keycode 116 = Pointer_Button3
keycode 108 = ISO_Level3_Shift - Save and close the file.
- Go to System > Preferences > Sessions and click ‘Add’.
+ Name: xmodmap
+ Command: xmodmap /home/[your username]/.xmodmap
+ Comment: Add middle- and right-click functionality
+ Click ‘OK’.
- Restart X to use the changes (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace).
Thanks to Dan Wieringa. This guide originally appeared on his blog, GeekLimit.