How to multi-boot on a Mac

[mini-jaguar]

Note: this is if you want to install Mac OS alongside one or more Linux distros. If you don't need Mac OS, it's much easier to just set up an MS-DOS partition scheme on the drive and everything will be much more simple.

I also do not go into installing Windows, as I only have an older version of Mac OS which doesn't have Boot Camp, nor have I been able to get ReactOS to work.

1. Install the latest version of rEFIt. This will also make it much easier to boot Linux CDs/DVDs without installing.
http://refit.sourceforge.net/

2. Install MacOS. Note that you don't need to use up the whole drive, you can use Disk Utility to set up just a fifth, quarter, third of the drive or something similar. Note that installing Mac OS will take a long time, and also if you install the extra stuff like iMovie and all that you'll need a lot of disk space (I think I did that once and it took 17 GB or something similar).

3. Install some version of Ubuntu. I used 9.04, I think 9.10 works also. The reason to use an older version is that they use GRUB and not GRUB2, so it will be easier to edit the menu.lst file.

The reason why you need this step is that Ubuntu does some conversion to allow the new Linux partition to be seen by the EFI and vice versa (Puppy will just attempt to install into partitions which is sees as GUID, and consequently not work).

Note that installing Ubuntu takes a long time, almost as long as Mac OS.

4. Install Puppy on the same partition as Ubuntu as a frugal install. You can then add the extra text to the menu.lst file, which is located in the GRUB folder found in the BOOT folder.

5. If you want, you can delete Ubuntu. Simply delete the individual folders except for BOOT. Some folders like USR are huge, it might be better to delete the folders inside them one at a time. You can also delete all the folders inside the BOOT folder, except for the GRUB folder. Delete the lines in the menu.lst file relating to Ubuntu.

You can install more Puppies if you like. Here is a partial compatibility guide:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7b2#634094