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55 Operating Systems On A PowerBook
OttoMagick writes "I found an article called 'Many Systems on One Machine' over at Kernelthread.com that shows over 55 operating systems running on a 17inch Powerbook. The article includes screenshots and descriptions of each system, and also hacks and tips on getting the nasty ones installed. The author Amit Singh (the Hanoimania guy, covered earlier on Slashdot) explains his reasons for all this in a related FAAQ (frequently asked + anticipated questions) ... In all a very interesting read, specially the FAAQ, where he calls the setup "the iPod of operating systems". Now thats an Apple Power User! I wonder what Steve Jobs would say if he sees people doing such things to his machines!!"
...why couldn't the bastard just buy 55 laptops instead ?
"...each system, and also hacks and tips on getting the nasty ones installed. "
As soon as I saw "nasty ones" mentioned, I checked the list: Yes, Windows ME is on it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The chair of my physics dept once said that he'd seen, on a visit to a local Air Force Base, a CPU emulator that could be configured to simulate any CPU on the market. He then said they had four of these monster emulators at the AFB.
I asked him why they didn't just buy one and have it emulate the other three.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
and I bet Windows ME is still the worst!
It seems he's running a lot of those operating systems in Virtual PC. Is it just me or does that seem like cheating? I was expecting him to have all those operating systems installed natively.
"With the exception of Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, all systems listed are x86 based" Well, sorry..., but at least Linux and the various BSDs also exist for ppc architecture. And probably even more OSs. I would have liked to see those installed natively. But then again...
Sure as shit, he's got 55 OSes on there.
:p
This is all kinda like a mule with a spinning wheel: No one knows how he got it, and be damned if he knows how to use it.
Seriously tho' Almost all of them are running under virtual PC. That hardly makes this article about a powerbook, and more a testemonial to Virutal PC ( or a simple x86 processor ).
Now, if you want to have fun, one could certainly load 55+ OSes native on a PC notebook, all directly bootable with one of those new-fangled boot managers.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
the real question is: how many times SCO can collect license fee from this guy?
"He then said they had four of these monster emulators at the AFB."
They had to shut down this project, of course, after the Rodan emulator wiped out half the base.
The Mothra emulator was sold to Saddam Hussein in 1987, and its current whereabouts are unknown, but its presence in Saddam's arsenal, combined with his poor knowledge of English, might have inspired the "Mothra of All Battles" phrase used in 1991.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the one running his web server seems to have crashed.
I noticed that on the list there are just
FreeBSD
NetBSD
OpenBSD,
but every Windows & Dos version released, like, ever. I consider that either non-consistent and/or cheating. Either include every release of non-MS-systems as well or then just single representation from each product line. Pick one from each series: MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/ME, Windows NT.
- Mobius
- O3one
Happily, he did mention my hobby OS.Emulators like VirtualPC and Bochs are a really nice way to play with operating system code without having to worry about screwing up your machine.
55 operating systems, still one button on the mouse.
14 Windows systems, whose interface is a bore,
11 DOS OSes, from the days of yore.
11 systems scattered across the sundry lands,
7 real-time systems, in mission-critical hands.
Three OSes for those who teach, and those who will to learn,
Three for the Big Blue Demon, from which he could not earn.
Three of the Small Red Demon, plus one for the Penguin Tux,
One for desktop publishers, whose software costs big bucks.
One OS to rule them all, one OS to find them,
One OS to emulate them all, and on the hard drive bind them.
In the land of G5, where the cycles fly...
dinner: it's what's for beer
No, if this guy REALLY wanted to impress me, he would have the 55 OS's running nested inside each other, in an emulator.
Of course it would probably take 10^236 years to printout "Hello, world!" in the innermost OS but speed isn't really the issue, is it?
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
This friend of yours. . .he hasn't, by chance, spent the last twenty years trying to copy a 17.6 MB file, has he?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I work at IBM Almaden Research Center. Before moving to the Bay Area, I was a Member of Technical Staff in the Information Sciences Research Center at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where I worked on Operating Systems and Networking.
I'll bet he has credentials that you guys who can't admit that Mac OS X rules (:-) can only dream of.
My favourite quote: "Because Windows NT is designed to be a secure system, there is NO backdoor into the system."
So I guess you didn't read the comment where he says, "Technically, these are actually operating environments".
That would be impressive. It's probably been mentioned already... but this is not a bad technique. i knew a guy who ran a University web server like this, few years ago... not quite 55 OS's, but it went like this:
Old PowerMac running BeOS with SheepShaver - > which emulated Mac OS, running Virtual PC - > which emulated Windows, which ran IIS.
"Ha! Let's see it crash through three Operating Systems!"
That was the idea anyways. It was damn slow but nice thing was that when the Windows image crashed it only took 6 seconds to recover to its saved 'state'.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
What's more fun is to see how many levels deep you can go with emulation. I did this several years ago and, if memory serves, had:
...now if I only had used PC Ditto in PacifiST...
OS 8.1 on a PowerComputing clone running VPC 3 (Windows 98) which was running UAE (Amiga Forever version -- 3.1 roms) running Fusion (68k Mac -- OS 7.1) running SoftWindows 1.0 (Windows 95) running PacifiST (Atari ST, TOS 1.0).
I was actually able to load an image of "Dungeon Master" in this config, albiet taking a full six minutes to get past the splash screen.
I remember trying other combinations involving different emulators, but Five levels deep is the best I was able to get.
over 55 operating systems running on a 17inch Powerbook
Wow...that's over 3 operating systems per inch!!!