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!!"

Emulators

Now, run every single possible emulator available for each OS (from Sinclair Spectrum to CP/M to Atari 8-bit to N-64). That would multiply whatever "wow!" factor is involved here.

Re:Emulators

Now, run every single possible emulator available for each OS

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.

Monster Emulators

"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.

Re:Emulators

almost all cpu's (including video proc's) are emulated first, but remember the emulators are lucky to run at 1mhz at full throttle! they are to verify design, nothing more, nothing less...

Oh no! Let's go!

Now, run every single possible emulator available for each OS (from Sinclair Spectrum to CP/M to Atari 8-bit to N-64). That would multiply whatever "wow!" factor is involved here.

And have 'Lemmings' running on every single one.

Re:Emulators

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?

not a bad idea

No, if this guy REALLY wanted to impress me, he would have the 55 OS's running nested inside each other, in an emulator.

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'.

Re:not a bad idea

Old PowerMac running BeOS with SheepShaver - > which emulated Mac OS, running Virtual PC - > which emulated Windows, which ran IIS.

Nitpick: SheepShaver on BeOS is similar to WINE on Linux -- it doesn't actually emulate the OS, but lets it access the processor without completely switching. Thus SheepShaver wouldn't run on anything but a PowerPC chip, just as WINE won't run on anything but an Intel-compatible chip.

Re:Emulators

Here [mac.com] is a screenshot (actually cut from the below-mentioned pdf).

JP

Re:Emulators

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:

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. ...now if I only had used PC Ditto in PacifiST...

Steve would say...

...why couldn't the bastard just buy 55 laptops instead ?

Re:Steve would say...

No, because only two of them were running PPC operating systems. OK, so some of the x86 OSes were available in PPC versions, but it would still be about 40 x86 laptops.

The nasty ones

"...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.

55 systems....

and I bet Windows ME is still the worst!

Nice Testimonial

From one with lots of experience with many operating systems:

I find Mac OS X to be the most productivity enhancing operating environment that I have used - ever. Mac OS X is my "primary" operating system, although I do not use, nor have ever used, any Apple systems for or at work.

Re:Nice Testimonial

Did you morons even read any of his site?

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.

Re:Nice Testimonial

What about VNC [realvnc.com]? That was relatively recent, and definitely a boon for a lot of us. Came from AT&T Cambridge, AKA Bell Labs.

And they used to say there was no sw for Macs...

So I guess we can now put that FUD in the trash bin, together with "beleaguered computer company"

Except

He lists Windows 1-3 in that list... those aren't OSes. And he left out Microsoft BOB if he's going to count <Windows 95 as OSes.

Re:Except

• He lists Windows 1-3 in that list... those aren't OSes

So I guess you didn't read the comment where he says, "Technically, these are actually operating environments".

What no SCO?

That'll piss Darl off.

Re:What no SCO?

the real question is: how many times SCO can collect license fee from this guy?

Virtual PC == Cheating

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.

Re:Virtual PC == Cheating

I'd hate to burst your bubble there, but Windows does not run on PPC architecture. Neither do most of the OSes.

The important point here is that he is able to use those environments from within the Powerbook. Whether there is a major speed drop, that's another story. And if he were to choose a x86 notebook, that would have left MacOSX, OS9 out.

Re:Virtual PC == Cheating

Actually, Windows NT was made for PPC.

FAQ [gte.net]

Ooh, nice link!

My favourite quote: "Because Windows NT is designed to be a secure system, there is NO backdoor into the system."

x86 based? But...

"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...

Re:x86 based? But...

Having had both BSD and Linux variants on mac right at OS X.0 release, I didn't find an easy way to boot load all without typing in openfirmware commands (in Forth).

I never learned Forth well enough to write my own boot loader, tho.

I had at least 5 (and I recall 7, but I have a feeling that included YellowDog Linux and Debian PPC) mac native OSes installed at once before the machine failed (power supply, I later learned - this was on a PowerMac 7500).
BeOS
MacOS9
MacOSX
FreeBSD
SuSE Linux

I also ran emulators for everything under the sun and probably had more OSes than he had that way - I tried a good chunk of the downloadable OSes I found off of emulation.net [emulation.net] and had VirtualPC (1.0, mind you) with DOS and Windows 95 (tho the OS is technically DOS).

I slipped away from the emulator scene after the death of that machine, though. The only thing I've grabbed recently is an Apple ][ emulator for old times sake (running on Windows... that's probably heresy, but my working mac is old :P )

How many?

"How many?
Does it really matter?"

Isn't that kind of the whole point when you title your website "Many Systems on a PowerBook"? I found it strange that he would even ask that question, much less give it its own little header/section.

Um, WTF?

Sure as shit, he's got 55 OSes on there.

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. :p

Re:Um, WTF?

one could certainly load 55+ OSes native on a PC notebook, all directly bootable with one of those new-fangled boot managers. :p

Ahh... but with VirtualPC you can run the all AT THE SAME TIME. Or at the very least you are running your primary OS at the same time as whichever one (or two or three) you are working with.

Of course you can do the same with VirtualPC for windows but then you are stuck with windows as your primary OS.

What Steve would say...

"You're a loony."

Re:What Would Steve Do?

Would he crap his pants?

That's 'crap his pants and see a glorious business opportunity, releasing the I-Poop, the portable MP3 playing colostomy bag' you I-nsensitive clod!

only 54 now

the one running his web server seems to have crashed.

Different versions

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.

Re:He's got the wrong acronym

or perhaps "What the FAAAQ?"

So What?

I don't get it. This guy just figured out Virtual PC. So what? That's what it does, let you run other OSes.

I've probably run way over 55 systems on my PC over the years. Looking at his list, I've tried most of these, including the ones he couldn't get working. How is this a story? Because it's on a Mac with emulation?

No offense, but his feat gets him into the typical Slashdot geek club, but not much else.

Re:So What?

No he is already in the club for the check he got from Knuth [kernelthread.com].All two dollars and 56 cents

Hobby Operating Systems

He missed a couple hobby operating systems:

• Mobius [sourceforge.net]
  
• O3one [o3one.org]
  

Happily, he did mention my hobby OS [sourceforge.net].

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.

What Steve Jobs would say:

"You've voided your warranty"

A friend who's got a tibook mentiond recently that the only v. of linux that doesn't void Apple's warranty is Yellow Dog.

Re:What Steve Jobs would say:

they are running on VM's, not booting. technically he isn't running the OS, but the VM, hence warranties are safely intact...

Re:What Steve Jobs would say:

This friend of yours. . .he hasn't, by chance, spent the last twenty years trying to copy a 17.6 MB file, has he?

BeOS in VPC

I've actually been trying to get BeOS Max to run under VPC 6, and its sorta working, but not really.

Basically, I'm able to boot to the floppy image or CD image and start the installation. mouse works. problem is, as soon as the BeOS environment gets any KB input, the input (mouse and KB) both hang complete. Installation will continue, but you can't click or otherwise get thru the installation fully.

So far I haven't been able to get it to install completely (just when its about to finish, my cat leaps on the KB and hangs it). I'm hoping however that when it IS fully installed it'll 'just work' and the KB issue will disappear.

I've tried this on a couple different machines with the same results, so I think it is definitely an issue w/ VPC in conjunction with BeOS Max and not the hardware. My next step is trying an ADB keyboard instead of USB.

Anyone else gotten this to work?

Why Virtual PC for most of the OS's?

Virtual PC makes it really easy to set up disk images for each OS. These images do not have a set size and can expand as needed. Saves a lot of time in formating the hard drive, rebooting, etc. Also, once you get your base image set up, you make a backup copy and then start in on your kernal tweaking or whatever. You screw up something, just toss the bad image and start a clean copy. Saves a lot of time re-installing OS's when they become corrupt. So, yeah, he could put multiple partitions on his laptop hard drive, install 10 or more Unix/Linux/BSD variations, or he could just shuffle drive image files around.

I think that's one reason Microsoft purchased Virtual PC. Your PC could be running a secure *cough* MS OS and then you could run other versions of Windows within VPC and have an easier time of things. Would be usefull for gaming, where each game is installed on it's own drive image, with it's own, tweaked OS. Since it's not really emulating on the PC, just running in a box, there shouldn't be a performance hit, just like Apple's use of OS9 within OSX.

somebody's gotta say it:

55 operating systems, still one button on the mouse.

Re:What is the point?

Umm, ever heard of "have your cake and eat it too" -- at the end of the day he doesn't have to reboot, and if the install is fubared, delete the drive image file and start over painlessly... plus having any number of them running at once is pretty neat, while working in Excel and burnin' in the background... try that on yr klone and see if you keep your hair.

Dude, they're operating systems...

Not Pokemon!

Why this is better than running them on an x86 PC

First, a disclaimer of sorts. The guy is obviously a geek, what other reason does he need?

Now, surely it would have been nice to see them all installed natively, but one of the beauties of VPC is it's ability to run multiple OSes at the same time. Could that have been achieved if all these OSes were installed natively? With the possible exception of Linux->MacOnLinux, the answer is no. Emulation of some sort is necessary.

I would like to see if the other *nixes, the ones that are available for the PPC architecture, could be installed, but I don't think they could be run in tandem with OS X.

'Course, I don't really know jack-squat. I'm such a wannabe...

(tig)

What WOULD Steve Do?

Easy, he'd encourage it. Apple is a hardware company. or at least they think they are.

The 55 operating systems

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...

What Steve Jobs Would Say

I wonder what Steve Jobs would say if he sees people doing such things to his machines!!"

um... "Cool?"

Remember, this guy started Apple when he was a kid (comparatively) and, despite being the salesman, he hacked hardware as well.

37 OS'es Native...

I'm sure /. covered this when it came out, but this kid [maximumpc.com] got 37 different OSes to run NATIVE on one machine.

WTFAAQ?

Now this may be somewhat off-topic but I'm tired of people trying to use the front page of Slashdot to try to launch their favourite pet jargon. There is no such FLA as FAAQ. Why can't a single A service both "Asked" and "Anticipated"? I mean 4 FAAQ's sake!!

What about?

All those operating systems and no mention of the one I _still_ like to play with...

What about the Commodore 64? If you're going to count running OS' through VPC then you might as well go get the C=64 emulator. Heck, why not Apple ][?

This guy is amazing

Anyone notice this is the same guy who solved Towers of Hanoi in over 100+ ways? Check out is projects link in the FAAQ.

Quite impressive for someone who got hardcore into computing just out of spite.

Also of note from his resume: He's also doing Desktop Linux work for IBM. Interesting to know that IBM does Desktop Linux at all, even if it is confined to their research labs at this point.

Virtual PC overdose

Too many of the examples use emulators, for this to be really interesting.

For example, I think OpenBSD and a laptop may be a smart combination, but then I see:

OpenBSD 3.4 installs under Virtual PC without much effort..

and immediately lose interest. Try running it natively, since that's what a sane person who actually wants to use it, would do.

Emulators for the Mac

If you are interested in running various emulators on your Mac, then I recommend John Stile's Emulation.net [emulation.net] web site. It covers Game consoles, desktop OSs, arcades and handhelds. IMO, worth the visit.

densest yet?

over 55 operating systems running on a 17inch Powerbook

Wow...that's over 3 operating systems per inch!!!

MacOS 7 and 8 for us Mac users

Like this person, I am a MacOS user with access to Virtual PC, but when it comes to emulating older MacOS to run old freeware/games and code that OSX and 9 have "broken," I'm a bit at a loss. Don't get me wrong, he has a great documentation and his tests are encouraging to all of us mac users needing Windows and x86 support. I would like to see someone do this kinda thing with native MacOS emulation as well.

Since he is an APPLE powerbook user, I was hoping for more Mac systems on his list. He DID mention DOS 1 and Windows 1 with detail for five+ sequels each, which is a bit overkill for most people.

The Emulation.net site [emulation.net] deals with Mac emulation for us. If you want a few more mac options, you need a link to vMac [bannister.org]. Maybe someone here can go ahead and do this, and post a story on slashdot with their findings. My mac doesn't have enough room for storing CD images of emulated Operating Systems, and unlike him, I don't have resources to find system software :-| . Sometimes even hardware images are needed for Mac emulators, but I think this is only req'ed for PC users

Good luck!

But wait... how many at once?

This old picture [lava.net] shows the 4 OSes (and 4 WM's) I got running on my dearly departed G3 iBook simultaneously.

I shudder to think how many things I could run at once on my dual G5... :)

What, no Contiki?

I've just got Contiki [dunkels.com] running on my C64, ethernet enabled and all. Haven't really been able to set it up for anything fancy yet (as in, not enough room for a bunch of C64 drives or even a comfortable place to use it), but I'm sure I'll get something fancy running on it eventually.