Re: [MLUG] True Dual Boot

[Phillip Kelchen <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Isn't that what virtualization technologies such as what's upcoming in Intel's 65nm chips does- allow two guest OSes to run on the same chip at the same time without emulation?

Phillip 

On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 13:27 -0600, Christian M. Cepel wrote:
> Looking at the Nokia 770, and even more appropriately the blackdog, I'm 
> led to wonder... Has anyone out there ever developed a _true_ dual boot 
> system.
>
> I don't mean boot to windows or boot to Linux.  I mean when the computer 
> boots, it either brings up a firmware bootloader/controller or one 
> that's stored on disk.
>
> That bootloader would establish two (or more?) side by side sandboxes 
> and manage hardware access, and in one of those sandboxes Linux would be 
> loaded and in another, winxp...  One would be 'focused' and it would 
> have 'access' to the soundcard, vidcard and display, keyboard and mouse 
> input, etc.  Special keys could allow you to access other operating 
> systems in their own 'sandboxes' and perhaps view all of them split 
> screen like Mac's Expose, or similar.
>
> They would of course be sharing memory, either allocated, or truly 
> dynamically shared.  Same for processor.  The controller program would 
> allow you to specify thread priority and cpu usage and memory allocation.
>
> Networking would be shared.  When an OS is not focused, the controller 
> would suspend device access in such a way as to not screw up the OS.
>
> Frankly, I think my 1.xghz desktop/laptop is pretty much plenty for a 
> normal machine (I don't game, and it meets my needs when I render 
> video), so let's all that baseline for 1 computer.  1.5ghz 2gb ram. 
> Well, the computers that are being sold today, I consider to be two 
> computers worth of computer.  I could split a 3+ghz machine with 4gb of 
> ram between two concurrent operating systems and still be completely 
> content with the performance of both.
>
> Added to this thread priority and load management for foreground & 
> background OSs, if you wanted you could idle the background OS if you 
> wanted and give priority to the foreground OS.
>
> So...has this been done?  Is anybody working on it?  Is there any reason 
> it wouldn't work if the hardware and controller were sophisticated 
> enough to keep both OS's happy?
>
> This seems that it would work FAR and away better than emulators where 
> hardware access is funneled through the booted OS.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> I like the BlackDog, but I'd much prefer to have things this way.
>
>
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