Hi howard!
20 Jan 2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (howard schwartz) wrote:
hs> This got me wondering if it is possible to switch between different
hs> OSs, as quickly and easily as one switches from one program or
hs> task to another, using a windows desktop.
Generally not.
Think of it ... taskswitching is coordinated by a kenel which sits 'above'
the normal user tasks.
If there would be 2 kernels than we would need a metakernel, which switches
between the kernels :) (so the kernels would be userland programs and the
metakernel would be the kernel -> we are where we started.)
The kernel also has many important functions.
memory mapping, interrupt/exception handling, ...
which kernel would do these ?!?
This can only be supported by OSes that are made for such situations.
Eg usermode linux completely runs in usermode, and relies on the kernel of
another OS for special services.
If you have enough RAM than you can use PC Emulators as vmware or softpc.
(www.vmware.com -> payware)
Works really great.
You get a virtual PC and can install any OS you want in it.
VMware can use linux and win nt (2000/xp) as its Host OS, where it runs in.
you can even reach the internet from the emulated PC. (host does
masquerading for the virtual NIC)
hs> But I wonder if some kind of flash ROM could be included in a PC that
hs> contained all the things that had to be in RAM for an OS shell to talk
hs> to the PCs devices? If so, could not one simply exchange OS's by
hs> clearing one OS from ram and doing the equivalent of a reboot from
hs> disk, by reading in another OS from ROM to active RAM? This might
hs> greatly decrease the time needed to go to another OS - perhaps making
hs> it practical to run over to Linux and use netscape for the horrible
hs> website, and then come back to dos for text-based tasks.
HEY, text based tasks are one GREAT strength of linux :))
PS: if it is only DOS you care about, you can use DOSEmu in Linux and run
your programs there.
Or for windows programs you could try wine or wabi which does not emulate
windows itself, but try to mimic win32 API calls and map them to linux.
PPS: one incarnation of your idea is "hibernate mode" from windows.
If you activate it, contents of RAM is stored to HDD, and the PC is shut
down ... next time the OS detects the hibernate file, and reads it into
memory. (saves much time)
hs> Howard Schwartz
CU, Ricsi
--
|~)o _ _o Richard Menedetter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> {ICQ: 7659421} (PGP)
|~\|(__\| -=> A husband is a bachelor whose luck finally failed... <=-
