Triple Boot - Vista, Windows Seven RC, and Ubuntu 9.04

Apologies first off if this thread has been created in an inappropriate area, and if this question has been answered previously (the forum search yielded few results).

I've recently pieced together and ordered a new i7 gaming rig (hailing a single one-terabyte gigabyte hard drive) in addition to a HP DV3T laptop (hailing a three-hundred twenty gigabyte hard drive). While both systems have yet to arrive, I have made plans to install Vista, Windows Seven, and Ubuntu 9.04 on both machines (Vista and Ubuntu 9.04 on the HP DV3T at the very least). I've read tutorials on dual booting Vista and Ubuntu or Vista and Windows Seven, but have yet to find one specific to Vista, Windows Seven, and Ubuntu 9.04. I'm also very interested in establishing a central file depository that could be shared by each operating system. Simply put, I'm curious as to what would be the best procedure to install the operating systems. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips?

The bootloader would than look as followed, expect with both Vista and Windows Seven located under "other operating systems?"




Do you suggest creating the NTFS partition following installation of Ubuntu? How large should each partition be; 75GB for Vista, 75GB for Windows Seven, 75GB for Ubuntu, 135GB for shared depository (for the laptop)?

Triple booting is not really that much different from dual booting, you just have to install the operating systems in the order randomizer suggested.

75-80GB for each operating system seems reasonable enough.

I'd suggest something along these lines

swap is optional since you should have more than enough ram

Good luck

Yeah randomizer you're absolutely right.

Linux will effectively never ( essentially never ) use swap if you have enough ram, which is great because swapping kills performance.

You could always try it on an old computer first, just to get familiar with the process

That's very convenient but it creates performance problems and many other issues.

I'd suggest installing one linux distribution ( whichever one you like the most ) and one version of windows ( whatever works for you ) natively and then running other versions virtualized.

Most virtualization solutions use really low end virtual hardware. Your virtual VGA, sound and network cards are going to suck.

Good luck

Yup, you're right on Some virt solutions have 3D acceleration but it's far from ideal and you can pretty much forget about running any sophisticated 3D games or 3D apps.

I heard Xen offers 3D, it might be hardware 3D, but haven't tried it.

YMMV

It should be be an easy installation. I have Quadruple install on my xp,vista, win7, then Ubuntu 8.10. In case you encounter problem use easybcd to restore the ubuntu bootloader in case it does not come up.

+1 on ext2IFS. I've run it on Vista 64 and it had no issues with some very large media archives I was working on at the time. I would expect it to work fine on Win7 as the driver model is the same as Vista.