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You can use SSE3 but I have no experience with it
Empty Hard drive
I strongly recommend that you start with a clean hard drive, no files on it at all. Backup all your data on another drive and put it off to the side for now. I'm using IDE. It's unclear if SATA works (either on board or an add in card). It's also unclear how well RAID is supported.
D-link DWL-G122 Rev B1 wireless USB adapter
I had an old linksys PCI wireless card and it just would not work with osx and Linux. However, I had great luck with the D-link usb adapter. It works under all platforms with minimal hassle. Normally they run about $50 but got mine on sale for $25. These adapters are plentiful as well so you can find them at compusa, best buy, fry's, etc. etc.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Gparted LiveCD (download and info here)
This is a great live cd that is pretty much specific for partitioning. It works with or without an operating system installed, partitions your drive straight forward.
Windows XP with Service Pack 2
NOTE: You should have SP2 or SP1 on the install CD, if you wish to install on to a hard drive larger than 137 GB (128 GiB). The original version of Windows XP does not support 48-bit LBA, and therefore suffers from the "137 GB limit". For more information on 48-bit LBA issues in Windows XP
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Mac OS X Tiger or OSx86 10.4.8 install disc
I use OSX86 10.4.7 with the full patch upgrade to 10.4.8. If you're not a developer then you shouldn't proceed.....it being against the law and all. I've heard some rumor that there is a JaS release floating around.... (as well as an additional "ppf" patch to bring it up to date)
Linux CD Installer (on this how to I use OpenSuse 10.1)
You can use any flavor you want, I've had decent luck with Suse since I'm not a Linux master and I want as much driver support as possible. I recommend the DVD-ISO for easiest install. Also, we will be installing GRUB as the boot loader of choice. This is again, due to ease and convenience. There are some problems with Vista's boot loader and the Darwin boot loader that I'm not going to get into, just take my word for it. For those using SuSE 10.2, the bootloader configuration is different so we shall use windows xp's bootloader. It is explained later in the tutorial.
There is some other software needed to get internet to work; I won't mention it now as it is not pertinent for a straight quad boot.
PARTITIONING
After going through this project, I learned a ton about partitioning. There are 3 types of partitions which are Primary, Logical, and Extended. Think of it broken up into two separate groups. Primary partitions and then Logical/Extended. A primary partition is the partition tables way of saying create a partition with a certain amount of space and separate it from other drives physically.
You can have a max of 4 primary partitions on a disc (3 if you are using 1 extended partition) From my experience, most operating systems work best when installed on a primary partition which is what we will be doing. Logical/Extended is the other half of the spectrum.
It's the partition tables way of saying "hey, I'm not a physical partition but I'm going to trick the computer into thinking it's a partition via software. So you can create 1 extended partition and then inside the extended partition you can create logical partitions. That way, if you are like me you can have 8 + partitions on one hard drive. It will make more sense when you boot up GParted LiveCD.
Most operating systems may work best from a primary partition, but this doesn't seem to be an issue with Linux. You can see from the SUSE Guide on Grub that Linux is just placed in a logical partition, as is done in this quad-booting article.
As for Mac OSx86, I assume based on this that it also requires a primary partition.
This article assumes that your PC's BIOS is new enough that it supports the LBA necessary to overcome the BIOS 1024-cylinder limit. This article also relies on Linux's GRUB boot manager which supports LBA out-of-the-box. If your BIOS didn't support LBA or if you didn't use a LBA-enabled boot manager, you would have to create a /boot partition near the beginning of your disk, which means you would most likely waste a primary partition on Linux.
If you waste a primary partition on Linux, you will only have 2 primary partitions left for your other OS's (remember that we need an extended, which is always also primary, partition to hold the logical partitions for Linux's swap and optionally Linux's root and other data). This would have resulted in a paltry triple-boot rather than the intended quad-boot :)
All these restrictions on primary partitions can probably be rendered boot by using an advanced boot manager such as Acronis Boot Manager.
GETTING STARTED
Boot into the GParted CD
You should have a bunch of unallocated space.
Create partitions in the following order:
1 NTFS Primary Partition, (for WinXP)
1 NTFS Primary Partition, (for Vista)
1 FAT32 Primary Partition, (for OSx86)
1 Extended Partition (with the rest of the unallocated space on the drive)
The rest of the partitions will be within the Extended Partition
1 ReiserFS Logical Partition (for Linux install)
Then the rest of your partitions as logical partitions. I have one for games, one for programs, one for video, etc.
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1. Install Windows XP with Service Pack 2 to your first NTFS Primary Partition.
2. After installation it is imperative you do the following so Vista's bootloader isn't installed:
3. Boot into Gparted CD
4. Right click on your first Primary NTFS partition (with xp installed on it) and select "Manage 5. 5. Flags" from the menu. Check "hidden"
6. Right click on your second Primary NTFS partition (with vista installed on it) and select "Manage Flags" again from the menu. Check "boot"
7. Restart the computer with the Vista CD in the CDrom drive
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Installing Vista
Install this to the second NTFS Primary Partition. Should be a straightforward install. Plop in the disc and let r' rip!
NOTE: If you install Vista after another OS without doing the above steps, Vista will automatically install it's new boot loader which is a pain! You do not want Vista's boot loader installed for this tutorial!
After it's installed do the following:
1.Boot the Gparted CD again
2.Right click on your second NTFS Primary Partition and click on "manage flags". Uncheck "boot"
3.Right click on your first NTFS Primary Partition and click on "manage flags". Uncheck "hidden"
