# Dual boot vista - arch linux - freeBSD



## Diablotin (Oct 26, 2009)

Hi all,

I have already vista and arch linux on my hard drive. I want to install FreeBSD. There is an order to do that ? linux first or BSD first.


Can someone send me a link for a tutorial to do this dual booting easily ?


thank you


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## fronclynne (Oct 26, 2009)

I don't know anything about the limitations that vista may have with bootloaders, but I have dual-booted FreeBSD and ArchLinux.  It doesn't really matter what order, but FreeBSD generally must have root in one of the four primary slices, so it tends to be simpler to install FreeBSD before linux.

You'll also eventually want to move some piece of data from one install to another and won't have a thumb drive handy, so it makes sense to leave a few hundred MB for a fat32 slice as well.

Linux installs rather well in logical slices, and grub does a fine job of booting it (I don't recall precisely, but I think the FreeBSD bootloader can handle this as well).


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## Diablotin (Oct 26, 2009)

Ok, i'll try with FreeBSD first. I'm actually configure with - Vista - Arch linux respectively and it seems that FreeBSD detect not well the other partition in the installation. Anyway, my arch linux start up with filesystem check failed at 50% of the times even with a fsck command. I thing it gonna be good for anyone....

Thank you


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## Learning (Nov 5, 2009)

i install vista first and FreeBSD second, when i restart, the vista cannot boot


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## FBSDin20Steps (Nov 5, 2009)

Hi,

Do you have the FreeBSD bootmanager installed?


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## h5n1 (Nov 6, 2009)

On my notebook I first install Vi$ta, than ARCH, Window$ 7 and to the end FreeBSD 8.0-RC2, and put FreeBSD in GRUB. And all of this work like a charm!


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## FBSDin20Steps (Nov 6, 2009)

You did a wonderful job


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## mururoa (Nov 17, 2009)

I would do it, windows, linux, FreeBSD BUT I would use partition magic or like before installing the first OS and more important I would use ANY of the provided bootloaders but GAG (http://gag.sourceforge.net/) wich is OS independant. This way you dont depend on grub and linux to boot windows or BSD so you can remove or add OS when and how you want.


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## DutchDaemon (Nov 17, 2009)

I assume you mean "wouldn't use ANY" or "would use NONE"?


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## mururoa (Nov 20, 2009)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> I assume you mean "wouldn't use ANY" or "would use NONE"?


Yes, but now I cant find any edit button


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## graudeejs (Nov 20, 2009)

mururoa said:
			
		

> Yes, but now I cant find any edit button



10 day & 10 posts that's when you get edit button


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## vivek (Nov 20, 2009)

Yup, grub is way to go. It can multiboot almost any os out there. Personally, I prefer running everything inside vmware or virtualbox.


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## Learning (Dec 12, 2009)

i install grub on MBR and it works!


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## mururoa (Dec 13, 2009)

Gag is the way to go.
Grug makes you dependent of the system you installed grub into; gag not.


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