Triple Booting an Intel Mac the Right Way

Miah Clayton writes "In the past, installing Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows on an Intel mac meant that you were forced into only having 3 usable partition slots due to the MBR/GPT hybrid limitations. Steven Noonan figured out a way to avoid dealing with the MBR partition limit and have a Linux install that isn't performance-crippled by having a swap file instead of a swap partition."

Re:What is the point?

[gblackwo]

There are arguably different pros and cons to all three operating systems, so why not have all three if you have the space? This is slashdot, the question is not why, but why not.

Also, a lot of people don't just buy macs for the operating system but for the optimized rock solid hardware- please no flamewar.

Here is why.

[Miah Clayton]

I am not an enthusiast of anything. I like my Mac for a few reasons, but the purpose for triple booting is a sole one: I am a developer. I need the ability to cross develop. And I need to do it on the run, since I am very seldom in a fixed position for more than a few hours. Therefore, I need to use a laptop for most development. This is not an ideal situation, ever. Laptops notoriously have smaller HD sizes, more RAM restrictions, slower processors, and, typically, integrated graphics. With these limits, using VMWare Fusion (which I own and still use for certain things) carries an unacceptable overhead. It also occasionally interprets OpenGL and DirectX improperly, which is not an acceptable scenario as a game developer. The ability to genuinely triple boot allows me to remove the RAM and CPU overhead caused by booting as a guess operating system. It has nothing to do with "Macs are awesome" and everything to do with "I can cross develop every major platform on one machine, and one I can be on the move with"

Re:What is the point?

[Alinraz]

Assuming you were actually replying to me (not exactly clear based on your quote and what you said), I'd like to answer you.

First off, I'm not evangelizing anything. I was merely answering the parent poster when he asked about the benefits to purchasing a Mac over a PC. I was describing why it works best for me; I recognize that other people might want/need other things.

I've just always thought it ironic that I'm so much more productive developing Linux software on OSX than when I used Linux as my primary OS.

Please use whatever you want to use. I would never dream of suggesting that because a Mac is perfect for what I do, it is perfect for what you do.

However, I think the main point of my post is valid: why multi-boot? Even what you point out is different hardware running a single OS most of the time.

As a note, I am all about the right tool for the right job. I run several machines: A Linux fileserver for our home network server, my OSX laptop (often running Win or Linux in a VM) for my day-to-day work, a Linux server for web hosting, a Windows laptop for my wife, a Tivo (Linux again), and a Linux server for my piano. I even have an old desktop that I never turn on that is configured to dual-boot WinME (don't ask) and Linux; but I never actually use the dual-boot on it...I haven't even turned in on in a year.

Ramdrives can be used: SSD's! True ones are best

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually done that (using a ramdisk, albeit, a true SSD, for the job - &, it works)!

(& it does even BETTER than moving your pagefile.sys to another std. mechanical HDD does (or in the case of Linux, a swap partition, which is how I do that on NT-based OS as well, albeit onto this SSD) which DOES work for better performance by NOT burdening the MAIN disk you house your OS &/or programs on typically!)

Fact is, I've been stating folks do that for more than a decade now online, first back as far as 1997 in NTCompatible.com's ARTICLE #1 & far before that on forums boards online, for improving NT-based OS' performacne... & it works, as the init. poster stated (IF users have more than 1 HDD online in their systems)

It does make sense, &, it DOES WORK FOR BETTER/FASTER PERFORMANCE!

How?

I.E. -> Let your main disk perform program & data loads of things you actually use, while the read/write heads of another disk do paging (& in my case, I also put over %temp/tmp% ops, webbrowser caches, logging from the OS + apps onto it as well (on another partition on my SSD, the first partition is the pagefile.sys)).

E.G.-> I do this, via a piece of hardware called a CENATEK "RocketDrive", a TRUE SSD (uses faster RAM for writes than FLASH SSD's use, in PC-133 SDRAM, & the PCI 2.2 bus (133mb/sec speed) is what it uses, & it is the ONLY piece of PCI equipment in my machine now in fact, so it has the entire bus to itself, w/ out contention from other devices on said bus)

It's FAR faster than Flash-based SSD solutions have, & mainly faster in write performances!

(Which FlashRAM based SSD ramdrives are far slower at... write performances!)

Now, some folks using Flash-based SSD's have used more than 1 of them, putting writes onto 1 flash SSD, & reads onto another flash SSD ( & iirc, it was IBM or SUN Microsystems who have done so) to GOOD effect actually with FLASH based SSD's (using 1 disk for reads, & the other for writes)... So, it's not "impossible" to get decent write performance outta them, by simply splitting up where you read to, AND, where you write to...

IBM & SUN have begun to use this as well, & yes, it works!

(For databasing, which was one of my suggestions in an article for EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com while on paid contract to improve another of their wares in SuperCache I & II, which I increased the performance of it by up to 40% via creating a tuning engine for it which they bought out the code from myself on - I did the added research for ramdisks & Database tables/devices as well, & it worked out for they as a performance enhancer also)

However, my approach only requires a single unit, the CENATEK RocketDrive, for better performance - not more than 1 unit as IBM &/or SUN have done to offset the delay in writespeeds that FLASH based SSD's incur...

Fact is?

My ideas for this were first written up for SuperSpeed.com, on their website, alongside the likes of Mr. John Enck who is one of Windows IT Pro magazine's technical editors (SuperSpeed.com was then EEC systems circa 1996-2002 or so)... & my ideas for using SSD's for DB work took them to a finalist position @ Microsoft Tech Ed 2000-2002 (two times in a row in fact), in the hardest category there:

SQLServer performance enhancement.

This works, simply thru reduction of latencies AND placing reads/writes such as webbrowser caches, pagefiles, logging, & temporary ops onto it, taking this burden off the main HDD (which is far slower anyhow, so, every little bit helps here!

Now, so you know?

There's even a better TRUE SSD out there than mine, & it has been out there for years (not FLASH based stuff that's slower on writes than "real SSD's" are) called the Gigabyte IRAM (uses faster ram, DDR iirc, & a faster bus in SATA 1 150mb/sec transferral rates)...

APK

P.S.=> Using a TRUE SSD for both taking away things like webbrowser caches,