Triple booting

[b1gapl]

I'm buying another hard drive, and I was thinking of triple booting XP, Vista, and Ubuntu. To go about this, is the procedure:

• While installing XP, create three partitions. 50GB for XP, 50GB for Vista, and 20GB for Ubuntu. Finish installing XP.
• Install Vista on 30GB partition. Finish installing and update.
• Install Ubuntu on 20GB partition. Create the swapdisk. (Or is it, create the swap parition beforehand, while making those partitions in the beginning?)

If I'm missing anything, please tell me.

Another question. I have two other hard drives as storage. Will Vista and Ubuntu, detect them right away, after they've been installed?

 

[KSoD]

Okay your setup will be just perfect. As that is the same setup i use. XP/Vista/Ubuntu in that order on my hard drive. ubuntu wont need SWAP if you specs are good. SWAP is mainly for older PC's. I have never used a SWAP and my Ubuntu goes great with my P4 3.4GHz and 3GB DDR2 RAM.

Yes Vista and Ubuntu will read and write to those partitions easily. Ubuntu supports NTFS by default.

If you want help getting the Vista bootloader to work right check out

EasyBCD Documentation Home - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

The Wiki there will provide you with all the info you will need on how to add XP to the Vista bootloader and how to use the Vista bootlaoder with Ubuntu as well.

 

[b1gapl]

Ah I see. Thank you very much for your input, and the assurance.

 

[KSoD]

Not a problem. Here to help.

If you got any real issues with using EasyBCD and setting up the BCD to work right jsut stop by the forums there.

The NeoSmart Forums

Either Computer Guru who wrote the program or me will be able to help you get it resolved.

 

[Schecters]

Yep, that's the same order I installed when I was triple booting. I ended up never using Vista though, so it was removed when I reformatted a month ago.

 

[forrestcupp]

If you do want a swap, though, you can set it up while you are installing Ubuntu. You don't need to do it ahead of time. Part of the Ubuntu installation is the GParted partitioner.

You can use EasyBCD if you want, but if you install Ubuntu last, you shouldn't need it. Ubuntu installation will set up Grub for you, which is a boot loader. If you already have XP and Vista set up, it will detect those and set up options to boot to them in grub.

Keep in mind that the latest Ubuntu does support read and write to NTFS, but Windows will not detect an ext3 partition. Ext3 is the default filesystem in Ubuntu. There are programs you can install in Windows that allow you to access files on ext3 partitions, but it's nowhere near as good as the support Linux has for NTFS.

 

[b1gapl]

I've used GRUB before, when I was playing with Ubuntu some time ago. And it worked pretty well for me. I might just do that. I also will be installing Ubuntu last.

Thanks for your tips.

 

[Brinson]

I don't think Ubuntu supports NTFS by default but its a very easy thing to install, just search NTFS in add/remove programs and it comes up and takes like 10 seconds to install NTFS support.

I'd get a gparted livecd so you can troubleshoot partition problems. You may need to make the partitions bootable or resize them, its also alot easier to setup the partitions with in my experience than during an OS install.

 

[carnageX]

I don't think Ubuntu supports NTFS by default but its a very easy thing to install, just search NTFS in add/remove programs and it comes up and takes like 10 seconds to install NTFS support.

Did for me. Even did on the livecd.

 

[Schecters]

I don't think Ubuntu supports NTFS by default but its a very easy thing to install, just search NTFS in add/remove programs and it comes up and takes like 10 seconds to install NTFS support.

It does support ntfs natively. That was one of the new additions to this release.

I used the Vista bootloader instead of grub for the os's. I thought it looked neater than having the 2 windows options and then like 9 ubuntu options. But either way is fine I guess.