Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Triple Boot A System - Windows, Fedora, OpenSolaris

Install Windows on the system by creating a primary partition (termed C, also known as hda0 for Linux). Then create an extended partition where you can then split it into logical drives (like D, E, F, etc. - the entire extended primary partition is recognized as hda1 in Linux).

Next Install Fedora 9 taking care that the MBR is installed at the first location of its corresponding drive (hda2, as hda2 is the newly created primary partition).

Note - This is a reference image and the name of the drive, sda1 may vary.

  • This is taken care during the installation where we have a choice either to install the MBR at the first location of the hard disk, or at the first location of the Fedora partition; select the later
  • Fedora creates the swap partition also as a primary partition, so avoid swap as Windows can recognize only three primary partitions (Windows C + Fedora hda2 + Fedora swap) and we won’t be left with another primary partition to install OpenSolaris. Else create the swap partition of the Linux as an extended partition
  • Now don’t get panicked if Fedora doesn’t load, just keep on going because we have not allowed Fedora to update the MBR

Install OpenSolaris 2008.05 on the system, and complete the installation without any hassles on another primary partition (hda3).

Boot the Solaris and got to /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst, this is a privileged file and it requires to be logged in as the root.

Add these lines to the grub of Solaris at the end of the file -

title Fedora root(hd0, 2) chainloader +1