Group Manages Mac Triple-Boot, Adding Linux
"Triple Boot," as the OnMac.net Web site calls it, relies on the newly-released Boot Camp, Apple Computer Inc.'s dual-boot utility that created a major stir when it debuted two weeks ago.
The process is involved and not for the technically faint-of-heart, as it "chainloads" Linux from an already-installed copy of Windows XP using the "LILO" bootloader.
To get into Linux, users first boot the Mac into Windows XP, which in turn activates other software, including LILO, from which they can choose to run the open-source OS.
OnMac.net was established in January by Colin Nederkoorn, a Houston, Texas man who solicited donations for a prize to be awarded for the first Mac-Windows dual-boot solution for an Intel Macintosh computer.
In mid-March, three weeks before Apple released its beta of Boot Camp, Nederkoorn announced a solution, and awarded about $14,000 to a pair of California developers.
Even though OnMac.net's work was superseded by Boot Camp, Nederkoorn said he was interested in maintaining the site
The instructions on how to triple-boot an Intel Mac can be read on the OnMac.net site. The process has been tested on a MacBook Pro, Apple's Intel-based portable, but not on the Mac mini or iMac models.