Most OS's On A Single Computer?

[Reokie]

I have always wondered, what Is the most number of OS's that you have (or seen) on any computer? Any stories or reasons why?

Edit: This means multiple boots only, no virtual machines:P

[Dr. C]

Are we talking about multiple boots or virtual machines?

[nolag]

Are we talking about multiple boots or virtual machines?

I was about to ask that. I would have to say no VMs because then the number can be too high. I have seen 3 (and will soon be doing 3). I saw Windows, ubuntu, and fedora because they are all different I guess. It was not me so I am not 100% sure why. I will be doing Windows 7, Ubuntu, and Debian. Windows for games and windows apps (wine is not good enough). Ubuntu because I am used to it. Debian because I want to learn more about linux and feel it is a step up (in that way), while still keeping things I am familiar with.

If VMs count then 5+, because I could so I did!

[Spice Weasel]

At one time, here was my GRUB screen:

QNX
FreeDOS
Debian
Fedora
Alpine Linux
OpenBSD
MS-DOS
Windows 2000

The partitioning layout was a nightmare.
The point was MS-DOS for things that didn't run on FreeDOS (I am a big oldschool gamer)
QNX because I wanted to check it out
Various *nix distros to test code on each one
W2K for chatting on Steam and AA on Morrowind.

[Rubi1200]

Current setup:

Ubuntu 10.04: stable working environment

Ubuntu 10.10: testing

Archbang: testing

Linux Mint Debian Edition: testing

[Naiki Muliaina]

Currently..... 9..... Sort of.....

Hard drive 1 - 360 gig

Fedora 13
Suse 11.3
Salix

Hard drive 2 - 360 gig

Mandriva 2009
Ubuntu 10.10 (an alpha or beta version, not updated)
Fedora 13 (an alpha or beta version)

Hard drive 3 - 1tb

Ubuntu 10.10
Mint (newest version, dunno number, maverick based)

Hard drive 4 - 1tb

Ubuntu 10.04

Hard drive 5 - 500gig

Something that doesnt work.... Uses ext4 whatever it is....


I ended up sorta collecting hard drives... Not intentional, just sorta acquired em...

[Reokie]

Are we talking about multiple boots or virtual machines?

Multiple Boots only :)

[Verbeck]

meant to vote for 3

count me out (1)

[GSF1200S]

My layout:

Arch Linux
Fedora Linux
Gentoo Linux
Xubuntu 10.04
Ubuntu 10.10

I think many users use 4+ as they get more interested in other perspectives.

[3Miro]

5 different Linux distros on different partitions and at one point a copy of windows for games. That is 6. There were a few more on Virtual Machines that don't count.

[oldfred]

Using old grub and chainbooting with two drives:

chainboot 145 systems
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?p=861282#post861282

Edit - Just to clarify I only boot currently 3 Ubuntu's old, current & next from 3 different root partitions & XP.

But I also loop mount with grub2 from my 4GB flash drive 5 or 6 ISOs - does that also count?

[ubunterooster]

I've had twelve at one point.

[Bapun007]

Only ubuntu 10.04 . Single boot

[Khakilang]

Only ubuntu 10.04 . Single boot

Same here. But I got another hard disk which I switch occasionally to test other new Distro when my old computer is not up to it.

[ronnielsen1]

I doubt any of you are going to beat this guy with 145 operating systems


How to install and boot 145 operating systems in a PC

This is the "howto" I promised to write after this thread.

The 145 systems are:-

3 Dos
5 Windows
137 Linux

I have also installed most of the PC-based BSD and Solaris together with a Darwin x86 too but these systems dislike to co-exist with a large number of other systems so I have to keep them off in another PC until I find a way to tackle the technical issues. (edited : latest arrangement in Post #32, #33 and #34)

There are only 3 steps in this howto.

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=147959

Or on virtualization:


https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/sandia-computer-scientists-successfully-boot-one-million-linux-kernels-as-virtual-machines/

[desnaike]

A few years ago I had this.

Ubuntu
Mepis
Opensuse 11.1
Mandriva

2hdd 2 os each
now only ubuntu 10.04 on desktop 10.10 on laptop.

[c00lwaterz]

confused with topic and first post. i have dual boot. vista and ubuntu. that's it hehe