07/11/2013
Have you ever dreamed of using different Operating Systems on your computer? Would you like to enjoy using both Linux and Mac OS in addition to your Windows all without buying a single additional hardware?
If the answer is yes, then read on: For older PC's there are ways to make that desire come true.
People make use of their aging hardware by installing the latest versions of Windows, or Mac OS or Linux. However, installing multiple OS'es into one is rarely seen.
In our case, we had a 2005 PC with Asus K8N motherboard, AMD 3000 processor and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB VRAM graphics card.
First, we have cloned the existing WinXP installation from the harddisk into a spare 2.5" SATA HD using the Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac OS)
Using the MBR partitioning scheme, we have repartitioned the existing 120GB Samsung HD into 4 partitions:
1- 50GB for Mac OS
2- 20GB for Linux
3- 2GB for Linux SWAP area
4- remaining GB's for the WinXP image
We have installed Kalyway 10.5.2, which is a version of Mac OS X 10.5.2 configured for AMD PC's onto the first partition. We have used the customization settings as seen on the pictures.
We have reinstalled the Radeon drivers for HD resolution (1920*1080) (default drivers were good up to 1280*1024)
We have reinstalled the Ethernet drivers to activate the on-board Ethernet (default drivers were unable to drive the on-board Ethnernet)
We have installed the appropriate versions of Firefox, Google Chrome and Adobe Flash Players. All the drivers and applications mentioned so far are downloaded from the mirror at: ipkullan.com
Windows: We have transferred the cloned image of Windows using Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac OS.
Linux: We have installed Linux Ubuntu 10.10 into the 2nd and 3rd partitions and Linux's boot loader application GRUB 1.98 on the MBR of the harddisk. Upon completion, we have rearranged the GRUB's configuration so that WinXP is detected correctly and is booted when selected in GRUB's menu.
How you select the OS you want from the GRUB's menu, is seen on the last picture.