Will Vanderpool Make Linux More Popular?

Digitaldonkey writes "New Scientist is reporting that Intel's forthcoming multi-core processor architecture, codenamed "Vanderpool", could undermine Microsoft's dominance by letting other operating systems run simultaneously more easily. From the article: 'The chip will allow future machines to run, say, Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system as easily as today's Windows computers run Word and Internet Explorer simultaneously.'"

Comments

os/390

[deputydink]

Sounds a little like how those big iron mainframes run - virtualized os's playing together managed by hardware to a certain degree.

Seems like another case of technology history repeating itself. Still, the idea is fantastic although i don't see how a company like microsoft in the article can really benifit from it.

Article like this misses the whole point...

[MyNameIsFred]

For the vast majority of people, the problem is not being able to try the new OS. The problem is getting them to want to try the new OS. People like things that are familiar. They use Windows at home because they use Windows at work. Add to this the clones at CompUSA say to buy Windows.

Does anyone think their mother or father would switch because of what this article discusses?

Conversely, is this going to get businesses to try a new OS? No. If a business wants to try a new OS, in general, they can afford a machine dedicated to the new OS to try it out.

Re:Um...

[BrynM]

Why would this require a hardware solution?

Speed and better transparency. Dedicating hardware to a process will usually relieve resources used by the system as well. Think of it like the advances in graphics. It used to be that OpenGL was rendered by software for most Windows NT users. I remember getting GLQuake to run at 12.5 frames per second and being stoked. Then along came the dedicated hardware (to the consumer at least). Suddenly 12.5 FPS was a joke and new and shiny features were added/enabled (GLQ runs at 300+ FPS on my GF2 card now and has blended shadows, colored lighting and fog).

I believe that this architecture may do the same for virtualization and make it truly reasonable to run real-time apps under multiple OSs without the hickups of today. I could then theoretically run Apache/POP3/DNS on the very same box as Active Directory/SQL Server/.Net without many problems - great for a small test environment. Eventually, the hardware might become small/portable and you could start to think of hand-held devices with multiple operating systems or functionalities. The manufacturing and testing industries would love such a device.