Triple Boot Windows XP, Linux Ubuntu 8.04 & OpenSolaris
So, one of my adventures was finally making time to sort out my tablet PC - the magic TC1100 (which is souped up to 100GB hdd, and 1GB ram from original). Now my ‘Xen’ boy is triple booting as desired : Windows XP, OpenSolaris & Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
The install process took a bit of figuring out. OpenSolaris does NOT like being installed on a fourth or later partition (I had three for Ubuntu previously - / and swap, and of course Windows on the first). So, I deleted Ubuntu and started again, (this is why we back up kids - tar up your home directory, as I do, or use whatever back up method suits:) ).
Now, my 100GB hdd looks like this -
primary partitions:
/dev/sda1 Windows XP
/dev/sda2 OpenSolaris
/dev/sda3 Ubuntu (mounted as / )
extended partition:
/dev/sda5 Swap
Next step was working out what boot loader I would use. OpenSolaris uses a very modified GRUB (GRand Unified Boot loader) to cope with zfs, so I would need to invoke that. From reading, I knew the preferred method was to install Ubuntu last, or reinstall the Ubuntu Grub, to then call the OpenSolaris Grub. That is the path I elected to choose - the one of least resistance:)
Therefore, with XP already installed, I installed OpenSolaris, checked both O/S booted fine, then installed Ubuntu. I checked that booted XP & Ubuntu fine, and then while in Ubuntu, modified that Grub to call up OpenSolaris Grub, (no modifications are necessary to the OpenSolaris Grub).
The file is /boot/grub/menu.lst, and the relevant parts are below.
title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=94afe16b-8b92-4ff1-b038-a0cfe9c9f57b ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
title OpenSolaris
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
savedefault
makeactive
Now I can boot into OpenSolaris in a slightly fiddly but working fine kind of way:)
