how to switch between os' ?

[scottstensland]

xen is a virtualization software layer which lives between the hardware and any OS
if U google : xen virtualization ubuntu

xen allows multiple OS to run simultaneously on a given computer.
About 5 years ago the creator of xen gave a talk where I worked
and He purported to be close to having xen actually move executing
live OS's between boxes - to facilitate 0 downtime during maintenance and
load balancing. This included preloading onto target hardware the entire address space
of an OS then finishing by xferring host/port/DNS of the OS onto the target box.

[3rdalbum]

xen is a virtualization software layer which lives between the hardware and any OS
if U google : xen virtualization ubuntu

xen allows multiple OS to run simultaneously on a given computer.
About 5 years ago the creator of xen gave a talk where I worked
and He purported to be close to having xen actually move executing
live OS's between boxes - to facilitate 0 downtime during maintenance and
load balancing. This included preloading onto target hardware the entire address space
of an OS then finishing by xferring host/port/DNS of the OS onto the target box.

Fait accompli, isn't it? A while back I heard a big fuss over a demonstration of VMware migrating a live OS from one AMD CPU to a machine with a different AMD CPU with no downtime. It was even a different microarchitecture CPU.

Xen is probably the closest thing to what the OP wants. It's still virtualisation, but it's "guest-guest" instead of "guest-host".

[scottstensland]

a generation ago IBM's MVS OS routinely ran/runs multiple disparate live OS's simultaneously on same hardware - its fitting the masses now gain access to similar

[akand074]

I'm confident my desktop can run two OSes simultaneously.


... actually I was about half way through an explanation as to why it would be a good idea to be able to do that (I don't see why it couldn't be possible to split your resources on boot) when I actually convinced myself there is actually no use for that over a VM. Point being anything that I don't need 100% of my hardware for, VM would work fine. Though, if there was a way to have one OS fully running while the other is hibernating in the mean time, and then relatively quickly boot the other and hibernate the current one, then that could be useful. As long as it can do it relatively quickly.

[Mark Phelps]

I'm confident my desktop can run two OSes simultaneously.

One problem you're going to run into attempting this is memory management. Typically, an OS gets loaded into low memory at a specific offset. If two OS's both try to load themselves into the same memory space, that is going to cause major conflicts.

IF you have a memory manager, however, that can load the OSs into different spaces and make them think that they are BOTH loaded into low memory, then you might be able to run both at once.

[neil_1]

Alrighty thanks
im goin to stick with vmware then