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What is the maximum OSes that can be installed on one PC? Usually we hear about dual booting.. that usually means 2 OSes, but can we install.. let's say 3 or more OSes?
9 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 28 December 2007 - 03:40 PM
TcM
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#2
Guest_Jordan_*
Posted 28 December 2007 - 05:13 PM
Guest_Jordan_*
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Yes, you can tri-boot. You could boot as many OSes as your hard drive will allow (speaking in space). At one point I had Mac/Suse/XP booting just to give an example.
#3
Posted 28 December 2007 - 05:53 PM
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But how did you end up with the booting process? I mean did you use the Grub menu or something? Or you just let the last OS installed using it's default menu?
#4
Posted 29 December 2007 - 12:48 AM
v0id
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The last installed operating system will replace the old bootloader with its own. So it's normally the last installed operating system's bootloader which is used for booting. Personally, I like GRUB.
It's only your space of available gigabytes which makes a limit. As long as you've free gigabytes you're able to make a new partition and install a new operating system.
It's only your space of available gigabytes which makes a limit. As long as you've free gigabytes you're able to make a new partition and install a new operating system.
#5
Posted 29 December 2007 - 05:41 PM
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Thanks for the clarification guys :)
Really appreciate it.
Really appreciate it.
#6
Posted 29 December 2007 - 11:20 PM
John
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v0id said:
The last installed operating system will replace the old bootloader with its own. So it's normally the last installed operating system's bootloader which is used for booting. Personally, I like GRUB.
It's only your space of available gigabytes which makes a limit. As long as you've free gigabytes you're able to make a new partition and install a new operating system.
It's only your space of available gigabytes which makes a limit. As long as you've free gigabytes you're able to make a new partition and install a new operating system.
But of course, you can always rewrite the MBR to use the bootloader associated with a previously installed OS.
#7
Posted 30 December 2007 - 04:40 AM
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Yeah, I once read how to do that with XP and Linux.
#8
Posted 05 January 2008 - 06:09 AM
G_Morgan
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Theoretically you can boot as many OSes as you want. In practice 4 per HDD is a pretty good limit given as that's as many primary partitions you can have. Even then most Unix systems perform better if you have more than one partition though BSD uses a slice system to create multiple logical partitions within one actual partition.
One possible way to get an indefinite number of systems on one computer would be using Linux LVM2. Basically you'd create a /boot partition which holds your kernel/s and then store the rest of the OS on your LVM partition (you can't boot from LVM, you need the kernel running to access it so must store it on a more traditional partition). I'm not sure how many partitions you can make within an LVM partition but it is much greater than the 4 (or 7 sacrificing the 4th for 4 extra partitions) you normally get.
One possible way to get an indefinite number of systems on one computer would be using Linux LVM2. Basically you'd create a /boot partition which holds your kernel/s and then store the rest of the OS on your LVM partition (you can't boot from LVM, you need the kernel running to access it so must store it on a more traditional partition). I'm not sure how many partitions you can make within an LVM partition but it is much greater than the 4 (or 7 sacrificing the 4th for 4 extra partitions) you normally get.
#9
Posted 05 January 2008 - 10:45 AM
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To say the truth I don't like playing much with the boot sector.. so I think that I will stick to do normal partitioning.
#10
Posted 05 January 2008 - 11:08 AM
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When I say /boot you aren't messing with the boot sector. That's just a boot partition that is used to hold the stuff necessary to boot the OS (the kernel and some of the grub stuff). You don't actually have to fiddle with the boot sector.
I don't think there is any point in doing this though since you can only boot Linux systems from it (at least the uses are limited).
I don't think there is any point in doing this though since you can only boot Linux systems from it (at least the uses are limited).
