I posted about triple booting ages ago, but never went ahead. Now I'd like to give it a try. Very interested to hear from anyone who got all three to play nice on a Mac.
I have a Mac Mini 2012 with an upgraded 1TB SSD drive. Currently it is running Yosemite and bootcamp Win10 Pro, which work great but I miss my Linux. Been using CentOS on another laptop, but really what I'd like is my Mac with three OS partitions and a fourth one for shared data that all of them can access.
I understand the main problem with triple booting is that Windows can't handle enough partitions on a drive, and if I can get the windows partition up to the front instead of OSX, all should be well. Is that right?
Can I use gparted or some other tool to drag and drop the existing partitions? I can run it off a Ubuntu live usb. Seems like I should try to have Windows, then the storage partition, then OSX, then Linux, with each OS's recovery and swap partitions next to it. If I only create the CentOS partition after the others are in place, it gives me some working space on the drive.
Or, I already have the installers for all 3 OS on usb. Can I manually partition the drive 4 ways in OSX recovery and install them by booting off the usbs? Sure I'd have to download the bootcamp drivers for windows, but is anything else wrong with that plan?
I don't mind losing my existing OS installs, but I want to know I've got some chance of success before I spend all day.
About VMs, yes I have tried and they are easy to set up, but the lag is still annoying. Maybe I'm oversensitive about that, but I'd rather get a triple boot working if I can.
I have a Mac Mini 2012 with an upgraded 1TB SSD drive. Currently it is running Yosemite and bootcamp Win10 Pro, which work great but I miss my Linux. Been using CentOS on another laptop, but really what I'd like is my Mac with three OS partitions and a fourth one for shared data that all of them can access.
I understand the main problem with triple booting is that Windows can't handle enough partitions on a drive, and if I can get the windows partition up to the front instead of OSX, all should be well. Is that right?
Can I use gparted or some other tool to drag and drop the existing partitions? I can run it off a Ubuntu live usb. Seems like I should try to have Windows, then the storage partition, then OSX, then Linux, with each OS's recovery and swap partitions next to it. If I only create the CentOS partition after the others are in place, it gives me some working space on the drive.
Or, I already have the installers for all 3 OS on usb. Can I manually partition the drive 4 ways in OSX recovery and install them by booting off the usbs? Sure I'd have to download the bootcamp drivers for windows, but is anything else wrong with that plan?
I don't mind losing my existing OS installs, but I want to know I've got some chance of success before I spend all day.
About VMs, yes I have tried and they are easy to set up, but the lag is still annoying. Maybe I'm oversensitive about that, but I'd rather get a triple boot working if I can.
Last edited:
