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Dual Boot Simultaneously

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5 replies

by whoops

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i am currently dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu linux, but i hate having to restart my computer every time i want to switch OSes. is there any way to have both windows and linux boot at startup, and "log in" or out of one? like if i logged into windows and then later that day wanted to switch to linux, i want to just click to log out of windows, and go right into linux quickly. it seems like that should be possible, even though the RAM and CPU and everything would be sharing resources. does anyone know how this would be possible, or why it wouldn't be?

5 replies

by langlier

Because of the resource sharing etc its nearly impossible for both to be used at the same time. (you can virtualize them but the performance hit and reliability will suck). Best option is to buy a 2nd PC and a KVM switch and go back and forth.

by choppit

Virtualisation is likely the closest you'll get to achieving what you're looking for. If you intend to run a VM permanently on XP together I'd recommend you have at least 1GB of RAM and don't expect top notch graphics performance from the VM. Try VMWare Server
http://www.vmware.com

by whoops

well, the KVM is a good idea, but i don't have the money to buy another PC, and i wouldn't be able to share stuff from each HD, unless i went through the network, which causes other problems, since i would have to share my hard drives.

the other idea is a virtual route, which i have tried some before, but i find it difficult to share data still, and had hoped i could avoid virtual machines if possible. do you know the specifics of why it is not possible to boot two OSes at the same time? like what it is about its requirements that don't allow it?

by choppit

If both OSes were running on the same physical hardware (i.e not virtually) how would either be able to manage resource usage (CPU, memory, I/O) without knowing what the other was doing?

What's the problem with using network shares? If performance is a major consideration for you then you need to provide a second set of hardware.

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