Dual-booting with other OS systems

bdbgittyhubby

Hello, I'm new here. Have anyone tried dual-booting new GhostBSD system with something like Tiny Core Linux or Windows for instance and how it goes ? 😃

vimanuelt

I often recommend using GhostBSD as your primary operating system and running other operating systems in virtual machines rather than setting up a dual-boot configuration. This approach offers a more stable and seamless experience, allowing you to run multiple operating systems concurrently without compromising the reliability of your main environment.

WB7ODY

Using virtual machines is better solution, like vimanuelt mentioned. Refind will let you select which operating system to boot. https:www.rodsbooks.com/refind
Refind boot manager is installed as part of Ghostbsd

vimanuelt

Good news, I read yesterday that Eric is working on a new installer with built-in support for multi-boot configurations. His solution will be what you need.

milomak

vimanuelt is there an eta when this will be ready?

vimanuelt

milomak
I do not know. Maybe Eric will comment. I would expect it might be available by the next major release in 2026.

Rwedan

I have found it straightforward to install the Ghostbsd iso on my GPT/EFI SSD with 2 other OSes already installed. During install I simply choose an unformatted part of the SSD to create a freebsd-zfs partition, and define the size of the partition which is a choice on the installer. Ghostbsd accepts the already ready/used EFI. What I particularly like is the ability to choose the partition size - something I found particularly problematic with installing Freebsd with freebsd-zfs.

There have been no problems at all with the dual-boot setup - and I still have space on my SSD for other os installs/experiments!

Uland

If it's UEFI it's possible with GRUB, I've had a topic about this before. But don't know about MBR.