Your largest Multi-Boot

[TandyMan100]

How many OS-es have you ever had on one computer, all accessable from one menu? I once had: Ubuntu 9.04, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 98, ReactOS, another Windows XP (lol i dunno). Used GRUB. Forgot how I did that...

[kishy]

3 for me, XP Pro 32 bit, XP Pro 64 bit, 7 Pro 64 bit.

It gets difficult to manage, especially on a 160GB drive, with any more.

[Chuck(G)]

Ditto on the "hard to manage". And quite often, upgrading any of the OS-es would result in the multi-boot getting hopelessly messed up. At this moment, I rarely do anything more than Win9x and Win2K on any system.

I used to do a lot more of the multi-OS work and I found it easier to use a drive tray setup. Want to use a different OS? Just pull the right tray off the shelf and slide it in.

One could probably do something similar with CF-to-IDE adapters and a handful of CF cards or Microdrives.

[krebizfan]

I went the SCSI route. Recycled an old server with a bunch of small drives. Reset the boot drive in the SCSI controller so that drive-0 booted DOS; drive-6 booted NT 3.5; other drives had their own operating system (Chicago and OS/2) plus the system had a shared data drive. The setup made testing software I was developing under every operating system it might run much easier.

Now, I use a more sensible collection of Virtual Machines to handle the all the testing requirements; VMs are much, much simpler to adjust memory and disk space limits.

[NeXT]

My Forte VFX1 development system has 95, 98 and 2000 installed so I could develop for all three platforms.

[Bobthearch]

I recall having eight operating systems dual-booting on a single computer. I'll vote however many I can remember...

Windows 98SE
DOS (FreeDOS, I think)
2 different Linux distros, Mandrake and Lindows
QNX
BeOS
Oberon
BSD

not counting these two that installed and booted from within Windows:
Qube
Athene

So it looks like "7" is my answer. This setup was on a PIII Dell with two hard drives (each divided into multiple primary and logical partitions), and two boot loaders (BeOS Bootman and GRUB)

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Yes, I'm also a member at OSNews. :)

I actually recall an online story of a boy who dual-booted something like 30-40 operating systems on a single computer. The system was highlighted on a technology-oriented cable television show, and covered online as a result.

[Anonymous Freak]

By the title, I would assume that "Multi-Boot" means number of native OSes available to switch between via some kind of menu.

At present, I have three computers with two options each. (On a machine currently in storage, I have four.)

If you count measures such as changing the boot device in the BIOS, and/or physically moving a cable (but not removing or adding a drive,) then it goes to three on one computer. (Boot menu with two OSes on one hard drive; third OS on a second hard drive.)

In the past, I have had a system with up to five OSes on a boot menu.

But, by the actual poll wording and options, VMs would count. And for that, I have had a VirtualPC menu with 14 OSes in it, and presently have five on one computer with Parallels. The VirtualPC system had:

MS-DOS 3.3
MS-DOS 5.0
MS-DOS 6.22
PC-DOS 7.1
Windows 1.0 (with MS-DOS 3.3)
Windows 3.0 (with MS-DOS 5.0)
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (with MS-DOS 6.22)
OS/2 2.0
Windows 95
Windows 98 SE
Windows Millenium
Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Professional


So, through my roundabout reasoning, I voted "10+"

[Ole Juul]

I tried that for a while and had a Linux distro and several different DOS setups. Does that mean I've done two? I guess that's the intent of the survey so that's how I'll vote.

Now, with the price of functional computers for experimentation with older or low resource OSs being zero, I just use different computers. Basically, multibooting doesn't serve any real purpose in my world. :p I use a KVM to switch between my main Linux box and my main DOS machine. The rest I access either via their own console or through Telnet/SSH. I guess I'm old fashioned. :) Even reading NTFS disks is not an excuse because Linux reads and writes an awful lot of file systems.

Big question: For the purpose of this discussion, what constitutes an OS? Are different DOS setups, such as with/without networking, 12/16/32 bit installs, MS-DOS 3.31/6.22 etc. counted as different? How about different Linux distros? How about your regular Linux install which gives 3 or 4 choices at boot which are referred to in that world as "different OSs"? MS-Win 98 and other MS OSs do exactly the same and have a boot menu which offers different choices such as safe mode. In DOS, I have changed the kernel and left most of the rest the same, so is that a different OS or is it not? I'm confused!

[Unknown_K]

Ditto on the "hard to manage". And quite often, upgrading any of the OS-es would result in the multi-boot getting hopelessly messed up. At this moment, I rarely do anything more than Win9x and Win2K on any system.

I used to do a lot more of the multi-OS work and I found it easier to use a drive tray setup. Want to use a different OS? Just pull the right tray off the shelf and slide it in.

One could probably do something similar with CF-to-IDE adapters and a handful of CF cards or Microdrives.

I pretty much do the same thing with drive trays, partitions can and will get messed up eventually making for much more work.

[strollin]

What about multi OSs via VM software? I have had multiple OSs available on a machine that way with the capability of running several concurrently. I'd rather go that route than multi-boot. I used to use VMWare quite a bit in my work, used to test software in multiple configurations without having to have a bunch of different machines. Often needed to test the same software using different permutations of web servers, DBs, OSs, versions, etc... It would not be uncommon to have a dozen or more VMs configured on a single machine.

[krebizfan]

What about multi OSs via VM software? I have had multiple OSs available on a machine that way with the capability of running several concurrently. I'd rather go that route than multi-boot. I used to use VMWare quite a bit in my work, used to test software in multiple configurations without having to have a bunch of different machines. Often needed to test the same software using different permutations of web servers, DBs, OSs, versions, etc... It would not be uncommon to have a dozen or more VMs configured on a single machine.

The problem with VMs is that VMs can't always run inside other VMs. I have to boot into Windows 7 on real hardware in order to test Win7's XP mode. It's still a lot better than back 15 years ago when disks were too small, RAM too limited, and virtual machines far too slow to usably run operating systems inside a VM.

[strollin]

The problem with VMs is that VMs can't always run inside other VMs. I have to boot into Windows 7 on real hardware in order to test Win7's XP mode. It's still a lot better than back 15 years ago when disks were too small, RAM too limited, and virtual machines far too slow to usably run operating systems inside a VM.
That's a valid and interesting point, I've never attempted to run a VM within a VM. I doubt most users would ever need that capability.