Posted by
michael
on from the chaining-bootloaders-for-fun-and-profit dept.
cpaluc writes "Bored? Surplus spare time and PC hardware? Read on. OSNews has links to a couple of articles (1,2) about a guy who installed 37 operating systems on one PC. There's something to do with your spare time and hardware."
It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine. New versions of LILO eliminate the 1,024th cylinder boundary, enabling you to use up to 160GB for Linux. However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant.
um, what is your definition of redundant? Anyone?
-- They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
You can't name 37 OS'es? You should take a look here - sorry about the offensive domain name, but they really do have a very long list of OS'es, both old and new!
-- Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Step 1: install 37 operating operating systems on one machine Step 2: mount everything possible in linux (not sure about partition types, inconsequential detail though), cat it all to/dev/audio. Convince moma that this is a somber reflection on the fractured nature of our decentralized, technological culture. Step 3: Profit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-- sell your certainty and buy bewilderment
Apple Rhapsody x86
by
green+pizza
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
He should have included Apple's x86 version of Rhapsody (developer release 1 or 2 of Mac OS X from several years ago). Either that or Darwin x86, which is available from Apple's website.
Re:Apple Rhapsody x86
by
Aqua+OS+X
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It'd be neat to see that guy toss in a PPC and a 68xxx emulator too. If did that he could be up to 50+ OSes... however I guess emulators might be thought of as "cheating."
It might be fun to try an build a modern version of one of these old Apple machines: Power Macintosh 7300/180 PC Compatible These thing has both a PPC 604e and a Pentium 1. They could boot a PPC OS and an x86 OS at the same time. One could use a key combo to switch OSes on the fly.... they where rad:).
-- "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Solitaire was certainly in Windows 3.0, and I'm pretty sure my 80286 had Minesweeper with its Windows install as well. Not too sure about Minesweeper. Solitaire, though, was extremly exciting to look at when all the cards bumpbed "out of the screen" when you finished. Espcially on 12MHz.
Actually the earliest versions of Windows had "Othello" (or "Reversi") as a sample game. That of course required intelligence on the user's part, and MicroSoft apparently changed their target audience with later versions:-)
Re:Why???
by
hoagieslapper
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Correct me if I am wrong here, but are Windows 1.x and Windows 2.x even operating systems? I know Windows 3.x wasn't. The OS for Windows 3.x was DOS.
I can't find my favorite!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Where is emacs?
Re:I can't find my favorite!
by
The_Shadows
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Don't you mean, where is vi?
Re:I can't find my favorite!
by
SquadBoy
·
· Score: 5, Funny
No Emacs is a decent OS all it is missing is a good text editor. vi OTHOH is a text editor.
--
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics.
Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Re:I can't find my favorite!
by
sinserve
·
· Score: 3, Funny
It is vi, it inserts random Ms and Hs into your text. I am typHingM thMis in viH.
I couldn't sit still that long. Sure, some OS installations are more time-consuming than others, but in general I don't look forward to the interminable wait between prompts.
I'd also be curious to know how many reboots it took. I also want to know how come nobody cared enough to get William Shatner to go to this guy's house and say "What's wrong with you? Have you ever slept with a woman?".
I also want to know how come nobody cared enough to get William Shatner to go to this guy's house and say "What's wrong with you? Have you ever slept with a woman?".
From the article:
Were there any OSes you couldn't find?
Yes. Windows 1.0. Refer to the statement on Jupiter's 7th moon in previous answer. Oh, and I couldn't find an OS that would tell me how to successfully deal with girls either.
Am I the only person who finds this statement a bit incongruous coming from someone with the nick "Zen Mastuh"?;-)
--
Come on, give it up, that's
Re:Patience?
by
scott1853
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This is 2002. Everything, including achieving balance between body and mind takes place in zero-time. Well, except for Slashdot posting, that takes 20 seconds.
Alright, let me ask this.
by
antis0c
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Where the hell did he get all these Operating Systems from? Not even getting into how does he have licenses for them all, but Windows 1.01? All the versions of QNX? I'm asking a serious question too, anyone know where?
--
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Re:Alright, let me ask this.
by
Aexia
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I have an early CD-ROM program(some reference) that not only runs on Windows v1.xx but includes a copy as well.
Re:Alright, let me ask this.
by
Oztun
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I found a page with google that looks to have windows 1.01 and QNX links.
Quick! Someone call the BSA!
by
Aexia
·
· Score: 5, Funny
* Windows 1.01 * Windows 1.03 * Windows 2.03 * Windows 2.10 * Windows 3.1 * Windows 95 * Windows 98 First Edition * Windows 98 Second Edition * Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate) * Windows Me * Windows 2000 * Windows XP
Not only do we need to verify that he has licenses for each of those installations, I'm willing to bet he illegally transfered licenses from their original systems!
In short, this man is a terrorist who only wishes to kill each and every freedom-loving American. Arrest him now!
Re:Quick! Someone call the BSA!
by
Electrum
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The key word is "or". He would not have the license for all of the above, just one of the above.
I think the real question is, what would Jesus do to be on Slashdot?
-- The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Re:Simple purpose
by
*xpenguin*
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I think the real question is, what would Jesus do to be on Slashdot?
Kill the trolls.
Re:Simple purpose
by
scott1853
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Jesus won't be on slashdot because he refuses to switch from Windows to Linux. Apparently Jesus never loses his data when his Windows box crashes because he always saves.:P
Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS
by
intermodal
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· Score: 3, Informative
Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS
by
NineNine
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Prior to Win 95? Actually, I consider everything up to and including Win ME to be DOS-based shells.
Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS
by
foonf
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
All the non-NT versions of Windows still are technically DOS shells, but the boot process has been changed so that Windows loads immediately (and cannot be started from another version of DOS).
There may be a valid technical reason for it, but the main effect was to completely shut out competing DOS implementations, as Caldera argued in their lawsuit against MS. During this lawsuit they actually demonstrated a slightly-modified Windows 95 running under DR-DOS.
--
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS
by
gmarceau
·
· Score: 3, Informative
To those who have replied to intermodal : You got your definition of an OS all wrong. An OS's job is to mediate between multiple program trying to access to same ressource. That could be the disk, the memory, the ports, the printers, etc. Msdos hardly qualifies, Win3.1 is twisted and Win95 is proper.
Msdos always just barely qualified as an operating system. It had some memory layout libraries and provided some basic disk access libraries, both of which could be ignored by programs. Win3.1 added mediation of screen estate space, of the printers and of the sound card. Those were the bad old days where the high levels function, which had fairly proper mediation, were running on a non-kernel. It was the Eric-the-half-a-bee of operating systems. Painful days indeed.
With its prehemptive scheduler, Win95 introduced clock-cycle mediation. It also brought proper memory mediation (memory "protection") For the first time, Windows was providing something more than a set of ignorable library functions, which qualified it as true OS.
You will indeed find Msdos code shipping with Win95 : it's upside down. It is part of the msoldapp compatibility layer that ran 16-bits apps, and it ran them under the new 32-bits kernel. This doesn't take anything away from Win95's OS-ness.
-- This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS
by
gmarceau
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Windows menu
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98 First Edition
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate)
Windows Me
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Ok I make the list realisticly at 28-ish. I count all the DOS's, Linux distro count as one, 9 Unix's (verses 11 listed), and 10 windows (all win98 as one)...
You can argue beyond that, but 28 is still impressive... No WinNT?
-- DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
Re:37 not quite...
by
nick_davison
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Windows menu
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
Windows 3.1
Windows 1-3x were not OSs, you had to have a DOS OS installed and boot in to DOS before running Windows - they were systems that ran over the top. That's excluding 95 still technically working that way but making you boot in to Windows then exit out (dressed up as logging out) to DOS.
It's the equivalent of calling RedHat two different OSs because it comes with Gnome and KDE.
Re:37 not quite...
by
rabidcow
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Windows 1-3x were not OSs, you had to have a DOS OS installed and boot in to DOS before running Windows
This alone does not make Windows a shell running on DOS. An OS may boot from another OS. You can start Linux from DOS, that doesn't make it any less of an OS. (even if it *only* booted from DOS)
The key is whether Windows used DOS functions while it was running or provided its own. Win95 avoided using 16-bit drivers as much as possible. Since DOS is entirely 16-bit, I think that at least begins to qualify it as a separate OS.
That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?
1 ??
Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems
by
403Forbidden
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I saw this on TheScreenSavers awhile back. If i recall he had multiple XOSL (www.xosl.org) bootloaders and it worked in chains.. one XOSL would boot another which would boot another etc. until you got to the OS of choice
The OSes he booted were not all unique kernels, there were about 10 different linux distros if i remember right, and Win 1.0-XP i belive.
What? No GEOS 1.0
by
nickgrieve
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
This *EXTREMELY RARE* operating system was the first release for the IBM-PC. Previously, different versions of GEOS had done very well with the Commodore 64 and Apple 2 line. This GUI-based OS was primarily used in businesses and schools, and seldom saw its way into the hands of the public. This was the very first version that was ever released for PC users. The welcome screen had three buttons, for the Appliances level, Professional level, and the DOS Room. In the first level, the user is greeted by large buttons for the calculator, Rolodex, planner, and notepad. These four apps run in full screen, and there is no multitasking or task-switching. In the Professional level, the user is exposed to all the applications, which can run in windows and multitask with one another. The screen could be filled with a background (wallpaper in Windows lingo) for some fancy decoration. The accessories included Clock, Calculator, GeoBanner, GeoComm, GeoDex, GeoPlanner, Notepad, and Scrapbook. The major applications were GeoManager, GeoDraw, GeoWrite, and Preferences. There was also an icon for the client software to America Online. (At that time, it was the only way to connect to AOL). The user interface was Motif, and a dark cyan color scheme was used. In the DOS Room, a button for the DOS prompt was the default entry. There was a utility for creating new buttons for running other DOS applications, and there was a broad selection of icons to choose from, including both generic and branded icons. This version was later followed by versions 2.0, and New Deal School Suite '98.
Windows 1.0 screenshots
by
stefanlasiewski
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
For a trip down memory lane (ok, I'm lying, my memory lane begins at Windows 3.0), here's a set of Windows screenshots, starting at 1.0 up to Win XP.
I did 19 different operating systems on the 486. It's actually quite useful to fire up some specific version of dos to twinkle some version-specific bug. Here's my list.
The installations of these were heavily stripped, because both msdos and pcdos will run the pcdos 7.0 utilities, along with a scattering of other utilities.
The other configurations were the main work client (pcdos 2000), a guest system for my mother (pcdos 2000 + win3.11 running a network install.
-- OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
XOSL obviously not planning ahead
by
prockcore
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· Score: 5, Funny
XOSL has a 24 boot-item limit and a 56 partition limit, forcing me to install more than one dedicate installation.
"24 boot items ought to be enough for everybody!" - Gill Bates, XOSL Developer, 1980
Planning issues
by
div_2n
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· Score: 3, Interesting
He had six IDE hard drives. As the article states, some OS's have severe temper tantrums if you try to install them past a certain cylinder on the HD (1024). NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000. I am not sure if the same is true for XP and 2000 on the same drive.
My guess is that given these limitations, it might have been impossible to add NT even if he wanted to.
Re:Planning issues
by
acoustix
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· Score: 3, Interesting
XP and 2000 can be installed on the same physical drive.
I have 98, 2000, and XP Pro (installed in that order) on my drive.
-- "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
37 OSes but none help with the ladies..
by
verch
·
· Score: 3, Funny
So many jokes..
Brain overloading!
Anyway, my mission is clear. How could anyone possibly stop when they were so close to 42?!
Seen this on Tech TV a while ago
by
qurob
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Multiple version of Windows wouldn't be redundant. Each new version brings exciting new ways to crash it.
Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems
by
langed
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
IIRC, EMACS can be run as its own OS as well. Granted, it's not done much, but it is possible.
And, there's a great OS called Oberon (yeah, there's a programming language of the same name--from the same people too) but this beast required a special, rather expensive and obscure card. On an 8-bit card for an 8086 or 80286 came an array of anywhere from 4 to 8 processors. It was one of the first true multitasking OSes available--well before PC hardware really supported it.
Personally, I was proud when I had 8 OSes installed in rather small partitions on my 1.2GB drive. (Hey, 1.2GB was "big" back around '95 or so....:) I used a third-party bootloader called "BootIt". It had the ability to create up to 10 partitions of different types, didn't have any problems getting around that 1024cyl barrier, and was capable of booting any OS I threw at it--even the MS products were able to boot from logical partitions, even well past the 1024th cylinder!
From a technical standpoint, when I read "37 OSes, 1 PC", I thought "Yeah, how many partitions, and what bootloader?" After all, there's a bit of a fixed limit of only 4 partitions in a partition table.... But BootIt got around that by storing the actual partition info in its own partition, and wiping out the partition info in the table, rewriting it just before booting the relevent OS (and unhiding the related logical/extended partitions as well.)
Theoretically, with a nice 20GB drive, I could have pulled the same stunt with BootIt--it was also capable of booting itself.
From the article:
If you count my 18 DOS window managers, I have a total of 57 operating systems on my PC.
Well, if you count QuarterDeck's DesqView, you can throw in a whole new mix of multiple versions of DOS, Win 2.x, and Win 3.x--and you can even use it like I do--I put DesqView on a spare box an ran a Win3.1 version of IE 5 on it. I found it to be a great way to get IE "running" on linux. (I have a friend who said he wouldn't switch unless he could keep his Internet Explorer. Boy, converting Windows zealots can be kinda rough!:) Okay, and it felt a little satisfying--like a slap in the face of the great, evil Empire of Microsoft. Make the two platforms interoperate, somehow, even when they go out of their way to prevent it. It's one of my favorite--and frustrating--challenges.
And, coming back to the article again, you can count these new permutations separately:
DesqView
DesqView+Dos3+Dos4 (setver.exe didn't come with DOS until 5.0)
DesqView+Dos5+Win3.1+WinS extensions
Oh, and if this guy really wanted to get his hands dirty, he could start rolling out his own OS; that has been a bit of a hobby for some of us underchallenged college students.:)
And finally, one more note--I haven't seen the obligatory V2OS reference on here yet... As of around V0.89, it can be installed to a hard disk.:)
Why not HarrixOS too ??
by
MeerCat
·
· Score: 3, Funny
An easy 38th with this - the only OS written in QBasic ! As enthusiastically reviewed by NTK
-- I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Slashdot Mirror
I can't even name 37 operating systems
Step 1: install 37 operating operating systems on one machine /dev/audio. Convince moma that this is a somber reflection on the fractured nature of our decentralized, technological culture.
Step 2: mount everything possible in linux (not sure about partition types, inconsequential detail though), cat it all to
Step 3: Profit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sell your certainty and buy bewilderment
He should have included Apple's x86 version of Rhapsody (developer release 1 or 2 of Mac OS X from several years ago). Either that or Darwin x86, which is available from Apple's website.
He installed these?
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
How could you even find these versions let alone tolerate installing them? Hmm... Just imagine all the versions of Minesweeper and Solitare!
Honestly, who could possible have the time to do something like this?
Where is emacs?
I couldn't sit still that long. Sure, some OS installations are more time-consuming than others, but in general I don't look forward to the interminable wait between prompts.
I'd also be curious to know how many reboots it took. I also want to know how come nobody cared enough to get William Shatner to go to this guy's house and say "What's wrong with you? Have you ever slept with a woman?".
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Where the hell did he get all these Operating Systems from? Not even getting into how does he have licenses for them all, but Windows 1.01? All the versions of QNX? I'm asking a serious question too, anyone know where?
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
* Windows 1.01
* Windows 1.03
* Windows 2.03
* Windows 2.10
* Windows 3.1
* Windows 95
* Windows 98 First Edition
* Windows 98 Second Edition
* Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate)
* Windows Me
* Windows 2000
* Windows XP
Not only do we need to verify that he has licenses for each of those installations, I'm willing to bet he illegally transfered licenses from their original systems!
In short, this man is a terrorist who only wishes to kill each and every freedom-loving American. Arrest him now!
Actually he just wanted to be on Slashdot ...
/. ? :)
What would *you* do to be on
theefer
They weren't technically operating systems
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Try not to install any operating systems on the way to the parking lot!
You can argue beyond that, but 28 is still impressive... No WinNT?
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?
1 ??
I saw this on TheScreenSavers awhile back. If i recall he had multiple XOSL (www.xosl.org) bootloaders and it worked in chains.. one XOSL would boot another which would boot another etc. until you got to the OS of choice
The OSes he booted were not all unique kernels, there were about 10 different linux distros if i remember right, and Win 1.0-XP i belive.
This *EXTREMELY RARE* operating system was the first release for the IBM-PC. Previously, different versions of GEOS had done very well with the Commodore 64 and Apple 2 line. This GUI-based OS was primarily used in businesses and schools, and seldom saw its way into the hands of the public. This was the very first version that was ever released for PC users. The welcome screen had three buttons, for the Appliances level, Professional level, and the DOS Room. In the first level, the user is greeted by large buttons for the calculator, Rolodex, planner, and notepad. These four apps run in full screen, and there is no multitasking or task-switching. In the Professional level, the user is exposed to all the applications, which can run in windows and multitask with one another. The screen could be filled with a background (wallpaper in Windows lingo) for some fancy decoration. The accessories included Clock, Calculator, GeoBanner, GeoComm, GeoDex, GeoPlanner, Notepad, and Scrapbook. The major applications were GeoManager, GeoDraw, GeoWrite, and Preferences. There was also an icon for the client software to America Online. (At that time, it was the only way to connect to AOL). The user interface was Motif, and a dark cyan color scheme was used. In the DOS Room, a button for the DOS prompt was the default entry. There was a utility for creating new buttons for running other DOS applications, and there was a broad selection of icons to choose from, including both generic and branded icons. This version was later followed by versions 2.0, and New Deal School Suite '98.
For a trip down memory lane (ok, I'm lying, my memory lane begins at Windows 3.0), here's a set of Windows screenshots, starting at 1.0 up to Win XP.
0 1w indowshistory_screenshots.html
http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2001/10/a2510
Interesting how similar Windows 2.0 looks to Windows XP, and many other GUI environments...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
sPh
I did 19 different operating systems on the 486. It's actually quite useful to fire up some specific version of dos to twinkle some version-specific bug. Here's my list.
The installations of these were heavily stripped, because both msdos and pcdos will run the pcdos 7.0 utilities, along with a scattering of other utilities.
System commander provided the menu.
msdos 5.00 6.00 6.20 6.21 6.22 7.00b
pcdos 5.00 5.02 6.00 6.10 6.30 7.00 2000
drdos 6.00b 7.00
mswin 95a
os/2 3.00 4.00
nt 4.00
OS/2 3.0 was heavily stripped to 9MB total, it was used for burning cdroms.
On top of these, I ran different operating system extenders: These
dosshell [a hacked win30 standard mode]
win30
win31
win311
deskView
qemm
The other configurations were the main work client (pcdos 2000), a guest system for my mother (pcdos 2000 + win3.11 running a network install.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
"24 boot items ought to be enough for everybody!" - Gill Bates, XOSL Developer, 1980
He had six IDE hard drives. As the article states, some OS's have severe temper tantrums if you try to install them past a certain cylinder on the HD (1024). NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000. I am not sure if the same is true for XP and 2000 on the same drive.
My guess is that given these limitations, it might have been impossible to add NT even if he wanted to.
So many jokes..
Brain overloading!
Anyway, my mission is clear. How could anyone possibly stop when they were so close to 42?!
This guy was on Tech TV the other day.
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/st
There's a link to the article
Out of all the OS's he is runnning... He's not running GNU/HURD :)
Multiple version of Windows wouldn't be redundant. Each new version brings exciting new ways to crash it.
And, there's a great OS called Oberon (yeah, there's a programming language of the same name--from the same people too) but this beast required a special, rather expensive and obscure card. On an 8-bit card for an 8086 or 80286 came an array of anywhere from 4 to 8 processors. It was one of the first true multitasking OSes available--well before PC hardware really supported it.
Personally, I was proud when I had 8 OSes installed in rather small partitions on my 1.2GB drive. (Hey, 1.2GB was "big" back around '95 or so.... :)
I used a third-party bootloader called "BootIt". It had the ability to create up to 10 partitions of different types, didn't have any problems getting around that 1024cyl barrier, and was capable of booting any OS I threw at it--even the MS products were able to boot from logical partitions, even well past the 1024th cylinder!
From a technical standpoint, when I read "37 OSes, 1 PC", I thought "Yeah, how many partitions, and what bootloader?" After all, there's a bit of a fixed limit of only 4 partitions in a partition table.... But BootIt got around that by storing the actual partition info in its own partition, and wiping out the partition info in the table, rewriting it just before booting the relevent OS (and unhiding the related logical/extended partitions as well.)
Theoretically, with a nice 20GB drive, I could have pulled the same stunt with BootIt--it was also capable of booting itself.
From the article:
Well, if you count QuarterDeck's DesqView, you can throw in a whole new mix of multiple versions of DOS, Win 2.x, and Win 3.x--and you can even use it like I do--I put DesqView on a spare box an ran a Win3.1 version of IE 5 on it. I found it to be a great way to get IE "running" on linux. (I have a friend who said he wouldn't switch unless he could keep his Internet Explorer. Boy, converting Windows zealots can be kinda rough!Okay, and it felt a little satisfying--like a slap in the face of the great, evil Empire of Microsoft. Make the two platforms interoperate, somehow, even when they go out of their way to prevent it. It's one of my favorite--and frustrating--challenges.
And, coming back to the article again, you can count these new permutations separately:
Oh, and if this guy really wanted to get his hands dirty, he could start rolling out his own OS; that has been a bit of a hobby for some of us underchallenged college students. :)
And finally, one more note--I haven't seen the obligatory V2OS reference on here yet... As of around V0.89, it can be installed to a hard disk. :)
An easy 38th with this - the only OS written in QBasic !
As enthusiastically reviewed by NTK
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Buy VMware and not only have 37 operating systems, but run several simultaneously.