My personal Holy Grail

[Issac]

There's something that has been milling around my head for a while, now. And sorry, just in case this conversation exists elsewhere. The search function kidnapped my sister.

Software I've found regarding this subject, namely vmware and MS Virtual PC, have not satiated my desire. Software like this creates virtual hardware that's a little sad and slow to run. Not to mention that it's only for testing a non-resource intensive program. Also the limitations regarding transferring files to a real HDD from the VM are horrid, and there's so many risks involved in mounting a real HDD inside the VM that I'm scared to even attempt it. My point is, virtual machines are cool and all, but they're not what I need.

I've been looking for something that's more than a dual boot. If anyone knows of anything about this, I would be grateful. I've heard multiple bits and pieces but never the whole story as to the existence of this possibility. Specifically, I want to be able to suspend my activity on one OS (Say I'm currently working on Vista), wait a few moments and switch to another and let it boot up. Then once the other OS boots (Which would be XP or some flavor of linux), I'd like to be able to suspend that and return to Vista as quickly as one would return after hibernating or something similar. Like a few seconds, that's my gist. I want to use my physical hardware, not emulated junk.

To me, not having to shut everything down and restart just to use another shell/OS would be fantastic, and it is a holy grail, in my opinion. Even better would be running them both at the SAME TIME, swappable with a keyboard shortcut. That would be amazing. I mean, I have a dual-core CPU for a reason, let me use both actively. Dreams.

But if anyone knows anything at all about this fantasy, make it a reality, please. Bring it to light. It would be appreciated so, so much.

[jaclaz]

NOT the Holy Grail (but the search for it never ends ), but this could be a substitute:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4283

jaclaz

Edited June 25, 2008 by jaclaz

[Issac]

That is cool, and a start.

I wonder what kind of limitations are involved with this. I don't know nearly enough about the background of the subject, but I'm still curious.

[srikat]

http://www.ulteo.com/home/en/virtualdesktop?autolang=en

[Tripredacus]

A friend of mine once got three OSes running on a Mac at one time (without using virtual pc) but I haven't a clue how he did it. He only had photos of it where it had 3 monitors connected showing 3 different desktops.

[jaclaz]

A friend of mine once got three OSes running on a Mac at one time (without using virtual pc) but I haven't a clue how he did it. He only had photos of it where it had 3 monitors connected showing 3 different desktops.

[sarcasm]

Great.

I guess that now we are much closer to find the object of this topic, we have someone who saw pictures of it.....

[/sarcasm]

jaclaz

[ReDucTor]

Ulteo Virtual Desktop uses coLinux

I use VirtualBox which is just another virtual machine..

You could simply create a script which hibernates for both os's then make it on your desktop and dual boot it. Dirty but simple

[03GrandAmGT]

Bring back the Amiga's. You could do Windows, (Up to 98) with a hacked processor. And do McIntosh (OS 8) at the same time as running everything else without BOGGING the 68000 down. GREAT machines and I still run an Amiga 2000. Yes they ran with some REAL hardware emulation and by a set combination on the keyboard you could go between OS's. There is a picture of a guy running I think 4 different OS's on his amiga, I'll see if I can't find the photo.

Here's a little wiki on the matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation_on_the_Amiga

A bit of hardware

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=345

John

[mark]

I installed andLinux on an XP machine a while back. Verdict: It works. I works like someone with a split personality that a psychiatrist has given an imaginary phone connection to the two of them. One main personality and one laggy personality at the end of a long distance landline. But it works.

Mark