Why cant I have two OS running off of one Desktop seperate from each other?

[RainColt]

I was thinking to myself "I have the abilitly to put 8 cores into a single desktop for cheap, so why cant I run 4 computers off of one desktop?" Not 4 displays, 4 computers all seperate from each other, for example lets say I have a dual monitor setup and I want to run Ubuntu on one monitor and Windows on another seperate from each other and with no knowlage that the other even exsists, you know what I mean, no virtual box it's not one OS running within another, no these are two separate Operating systems the only thing they share is hardware, why cant I do that?

[gamer tom]

No idea....

Maybe because the OS kernels are different (Windows NT, Unix, Linux)??

[EChondo]

You can probably look into VMware, but your hardware has to be enabled to support it, which many motherboards do not.

I use VMware to create 4 hosts off of one quad core and distribute the RAM and hardware space amongst them. It works well, but of course you can't play games or anything, browsing the web and simple processing is pretty much the only things you can do, I use it to manage my email.

[IdeaStormer]

Well if you can figure it out you might be the next millionaire. Let us know how it goes. Meanwhile, I use VMware and have as many desktops of as many OS's I can stuff into my computer, yes RAM limited at resent. :(

[mgsstar]

If you are running VMware then you would need lots of ram for your virtual machines in order to give each one enough ram to run on.

[CaptainSi]

You could always put two computers worth of hardware into the one case if you wanted two completely independent systems in the form factor of one. I think it would be a great project, full of plenty of challenges, especially with mounting hardware, cable management and cooling, and I have no doubt it would involve duct tape and some ghetto as drilling and cutting, however it would be awesome all the same. With technologies like KVM switches, and the size of modern hardwares (mITX mobo, 2.5" SSD and HDD, compact enclosed liquid coolers, APUs, etc) I can't see why it wouldn't be possible. You may even get away with a single, modified PSU in such a build.

[azeotrope]

What you're asking to do makes no sense. If you have some understanding of how an operating system works and how kernels work, you'll understand why. To put it simply, a kernel controlls every bit of your hardware through drivers and allows each part to communicate to one another, sharing resources etc via algorithms such as schedulers. Even if you could, running two kernels simultaneously just wouldn't work. If you want more than one operating system on a normal motherboard, you have to virtualize.

[dgtL]

What you're asking to do makes no sense. If you have some understanding of how an operating system works and how kernels work' date=' you'll understand why. To put it simply, a kernel controlls every bit of your hardware through drivers and allows each part to communicate to one another, sharing resources etc via algorithms such as schedulers. Even if you could, running two kernels simultaneously just wouldn't work. If you want more than one operating system on a normal motherboard, you have to virtualize.[/quote']

+1 response!