what do i need to do to tri boot fedora 8, vista and xp?

[TigerMonsoonDragon]

ima get a new hd and partition it with 3 partitions one for each

 

[Nothinman]

I'd avoid it if possible, multi-booting adds complication for no real gain because eventually you get tired of rebooting all of the time and spend 99% of your time in one OS while the others sit there not doing anything. If you want to run multiple OSes just pick one and virtualize the rest.

 

[QuixoticOne]

There are different ways you CAN do it depending on whether you want to use Vista's boot manager, or Fedora's.

You can also involve the BIOS boot drive-switcher in there too if you have multiple physical discs.

I'd do this:

1) Plan to or actually do (if it's easy for you) partition out your drive into 3 primary partitions of appropriate sizes.

2) Install XP first into a partition at least 20GB, more like 50GB+

3) Install Vista second into a partition of like 50GB+ more like 70GB+
Vista will take over the XP boot manager and give you a choice to boot Vista or XP.

4) Install Fedora third into a partition of 50GB+ ideally and then let it install the GRUB boot manager which ought to be able to (either automatically or after you edit /boot/grub/menu.lst appropriately) give you a choice to boot either Fedora, XP, or Vista.

 

[htne]

QuixoticOne has correctly detailed how to implement multi-boot. One could debate how much space to allocate for each operating system, but the details are correct. The most important thing is to do this in the RIGHT order. XP, then Vista, then Linux.

With that said, I also agree with Nothinman. Unless you have a serious need for multiple operating systems, you will quickly tire of the hassle and wish that you had not done it.

 

[TigerMonsoonDragon]

sweet thanks

 

[corkyg]

If I really wanted to run separate OS's, I would use a mobile rack and a dedicated HDD in different inner trays. Things just work better that way.

Then, if the need no longer arises - keep the OS you like and convert the other drives to data, etc.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'd avoid it if possible, multi-booting adds complication for no real gain because eventually you get tired of rebooting all of the time and spend 99% of your time in one OS while the others sit there not doing anything. If you want to run multiple OSes just pick one and virtualize the rest.

:thumbsup:

 

[Scarpozzi]

As long as you have enough hard drive space and the license keys, no problem.

Just keep in mind, the most annoying thing about running multiple desktops is that you have to keep them all patched. You may use one OS for 2 weeks, by then the other 2 operating systems will have updates that need to be installed...so as soon as you boot into them, you'll get to install updates and restart. 🙁