Multibooting Windows 8 + 3 linux distros
 

Hi, got a notebook with a spare 120 gb drive. Want to install a multiboot system had thougth partitioning like this:
Win8 40 GB nrfs
Ubuntu 12.10 16 GB ext4
Mint 14 Cinnamon 16 GB ext4
Crunchbang Waldorf 15 GB ext4
swap 3 GB swap
home 30 Gb ntfs

I have the isos already burned on media. I also have a super grub 2bootable cd. I would do all partitioning using Paragorn 12 hard disk manager and then start installin oses

I need to know HOW TO PROCEED in what order, where to put grub for each linux, how to get windows and all linuxes in one boot loader to chose at boot time.

PLEASE CAN ANY ONE GIVE ME A STEP BY STEP HOW TO DO THIS?

THANKSSSS

Don't share home between different distros. Put your home on the same partition as the system, and have your last partition for data. You can then create symlinks for Documents and so on.

There are different ways to set up multiboot. You need to have Grub in mbr, and then you can either boot all distros from the same Grub, or you can install Grub on the partitions for the systems and then use chainloading. I for myself prefer to have a separate partition for Grub, not connected to any of the installed distros, and manually add entries to it.

Ubuntu, Mint and Crunchbang all have Grub2, and they usually find each other and Windows. One way which is easy to begin with, is to just let them install Grub in mbr. That means the last installed distro will have control over Grub, and if you remove that distro, you need to reinstall Grub before you can boot.

Here you can read about Grub.

I'm too tired to go deeper with this now, but this should get you starting. You can change later if you want another way to boot your systems.

Lennie thanks, will read about grub and google the symlinks stuff for data partition.
Was thinking from what I had read till now in installing first windows 8 with EASY BCD, then install each linux in its own partition with grub on / (not mbr) and use easy bcd to manage booting. Dont know if it can be done or if it is better using grub for managing all the booting.

Will read more but any suggestion will be very helpfull

:-)

I better warn you about Ubuntu. It has happened twice with Xubuntu 12.04 that it got an update to Grub, and without asking it overwrote mbr. So if you want to use another boot-loader, you better learn how to reinstall it...