Re: How many OSes on one physical disk?

vodhner@cox.net wrote:
> (Was: How to safely update open office to 2.0+?)
>
> OK, I didn't pick up the point about an old version of Mandrake.
> Now I understand the "safely" part. That does lead to a need
> for some hacking.
>
> If you want the latest apps, and don't want a major hacking
> challenge each time you want to update, then it's best to have
> a fairly fresh OS and application environment.
>
> I've learned to move on to new distros every year or two, and
> keep a few on the back burner so I know what's out there.
> Otherwise, Linux definitely has forced-obsolescence problems
> like any other environment, because the software and
> hardware continue to develop.
>
> Since I also do some work in Windows, and share files
> between Windows and Linux, I have my data neatly tucked
> into separate partitions, mostly FAT32, and this means I can
> replace an operating system easily without having to rebuild
> my whole life.
>
> AS A RESULT, I'd like to have lots of Linux versions in place
> at the same time, for multi-booting. This leads to a partitioning
> question.
>
> I have this nice 130-GB disk. I would like to break it up into a
> whole slew of partitions, but I gather there are definite limits.
> Thus I can't have, for example, 99 different OSes on this drive
> each with its own boot partition. Right?
>
> How far can I go in this direction? Is there a practical way to
> have partitions within partitions or something? Something like
> an ISO filesystem housed in an ordinary file? If so can it
> update its data while running? Etc. . . .
>
> I'm thinking that VMWare and lots of virtual profiles could be
> one way to go, and that way I could keep one basic system
> running all the time while I'm tinkering with the others. But I'd
> like to look into the multi-multi-boot approach too, if I could put
> lots of boot partitions on one disk.
>
> Ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Vic
>

You can normally have up to 16 partitions (15 usable) on an IDE drive, 4
primary and 12 in an extended partition. If you create a primary boot
partition near the front of the drive you should have no problem with
multiple OSes.

That being said, I think you'd be much more productive (and happier!) with
VMware.

--
-Eric 'shubes'
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