----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert C Wittig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 6:45 AM Subject: Re: [SURVPC] Multi Os-ing like multi-tasking?
> > Now that a few major old and new OSs are available for the PC > > (e.g., dos, windows 8x, windows xt, linux, Os2, - -) I find > myself > > morning the choice of having to give up several wonderful tools > > ported to operating system A, but not to OS B, etc. > > Which tools, do you which you could run on which Operating > System? > > > This got me wondering if it is possible to switch between > different > > OSs, as quickly and easily as one switches from one program or > > task to another, using a windows desktop. > > > > As of now, switching to another OS usually involves a laborious > and > > relatively time consuming rebooting of the PC. > > I switch OS's a lot, and the process is neither laborious nor > terrible time consuming, it takes under 2 minutes, and requires 3 > simples steps, 1) reboot. 2) select an OS from LILO, and 3) log > in. > > > The factors preventing fast OS switching that I can immediately > > think of is: > > > > a) different file systems and binaries > > b) different kernals in memory. > > > > There is not too much that can be done about a, but I wonder if > > some kind of flash ROM could be included in a PC that contained > > all the things that had to be in RAM for an OS shell to talk to > > the PCs devices? If so, could not one simply and quickly dump, > for > > instance the contents of flash memory holding Linux, to your > ram > > and start using linux? > > The little bit I have learned in the past few weeks of studying > assembly language has shown me that an OS places at least some of > its various calls and functions at very specific memory > addresses, and that the boot process makes these placements in a > very precise and orderly cascade of steps. I don't think trying > to execute the Linux kernel while running DOS or Windows, or even > an already booted version of Linux would work... I think it would > fail at the execution phase, as soon as it tried to call BIOS, > and initiate the process. If you were somehow able to get around > this obstacle, the Linux kernel would have to over-write memory > addresses in use by the current OS, which would probably > precipitate the mother of all crashes, in a matter of > nanoseconds. Sounds like fun!<g> > People have been running many OS's at once for quite awhile now using VMware with good results from what I've heard. Wes To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
