I'm trying to get away from Windows, and maybe go to Linux...but I would like to experiment a bit, before I commit to a total change of OS's.

Is it possible to run 2 different OS's on the same computer?

If this is too vague, I can give you more info on what I am dealing with now...

yes, not exctly at the same time, however, it is usualy only one of a kind with out an external manager, for example you can run one copy of windows 9X (95 98 ME) one copy of NT (2k 2k3 XP ) and probally multiple copys of Linux

windows should always be installed before linux because linux will isntall a boot manger

Basically, this involves partitioning your hard drive (unless you have multiple hard drives in your machine, in which case you'd donate each one to an operating system). Then, install Windows as normal to one of the partitions. Then, install Linux. In the linux setup, you'll specify the other partition to install to. The linux setup will also install a boot loader/boot manager. This way, each time you start up your computer, it will prompt you asking whether you want to load Windows or load Linux.

Absolutely! There are several ways to do this. The easiest, and where I tell everyone to start, is to try Knoppix; it's free to download. Since it's CD-bootable (it runs from RAM and CD), no installation is necessary, yet it's a full Linux environment. See my signature for the link. The newest version has just been released. It can also be used as a slick Debian installer and a Windows backup/rescue disc. In my opinion, Debian is a good choice. My current Linux install is from a Knoppix CD.

As far as multiple installed OSes, there are a number of boot managers, the standard ones being LiLo and GRUB. You can find out more about these (and Linux in general) at The Linux Documentation Project http://www.TLDP.org. There are also a number of other boot managers. For example, because of the exigencies of my particular setup, I use the GAGBoot graphical boot manager from a floppy: http://GAG.SourceForge.net. There are several others, as well.

I was also going to recomend Knoppix,I used it and It was great, bootup and no special talents needed to use ,I have Cable and it picked up everything and i was on the net right away and with the Wine program,you can still use some windows programs,Your Harddrives are also accessible from the Knoppix cd,I also have install a KDC version of Linex, I don't like changing Browers so I total OS change is not for me. ,

We run System Commander on all of our laptops at work. You install it thru win 9x. It does a whole lot of work for you as far as setting up and formatting partitions, making adding another OS very easy.
We have Win NT, 98, and DOS6.2 on our laptops.
They are used primarily for Two-Way Radio programming.

Hi, i have one harddrive with linux 9 and other with xp pro. Can you please let me know, how can i use both on same computer?

linux 9 harddrive is not in my xp pro computer.

thanks
Mohammad

ZeekeDaGeek,

I designed a theory for a new type of computer system and was ignored by a large industry. It works to make every type of operating system work better and is really cool! I don't think the industry took me seriously? I have a new concept that will blow everyone away! at least in the PC world... It is so amazing! I designed the hybrid gas/electric car theory that exploded in Japan! I never got the credit for the designs but I designed the theory and all of the principles for its building plans! I know, I can't believe it either but it happened!!! You'll find some new changes going on in the future with this new transportation system I created! I showed a Large company recently how to do it, and it wasn't Toyota! They'll find out later on...

I have this new computer concept and designed it on paper but that is where it is right now-- is just on paper. It is really new and if it were to be implemented, all of this os stuff would be non-sense. The PC would just work with no problems, ever! I can't say too much about it here because one day I would like to patent it and get it going but it is very expensive to do but would be well worth it! What I created is a new device that would replace some items. It is really cool how this new device and system works! It is almost as big as when windows 98 came out back in 1998! Just getting it marketed and created is the hard part! And money is always an issue! It could verywell change the desktop for a very long time with plenty of expansion in the future! I thought I would share this with this website. I noticed "ZeekeDaGeek's" saying at the bottom about "every operating system sucks" part... and decided to share my thoughts with this community, it just caught my attention...

Actually, there is even a way to run multiple OSes at once-- I have a copies of VMware and VirtualPC; both products can run a "guest OS" in a window inside of your currently running operating system. Virtual PC only works in Windows, but I've run VMware in Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows. There's also a free program called Bochs, but it's way too slow for anything but DOS, or a text-based Linux installation.

I really like VMware-- you can run the OS inside of another, and use the host OS's network adapters to communicate with other systems on your network. You can even run more than one virtual machine at once, given you have enough memory-- instead of having multiple test machines, I currently have one machine that has two VMware instances running; since I'm testing a domain setup, I have a copy of Windows Server 2003 running in one machine as a domain controller, and I have a Windows XP Pro install in the other instance that I can use to log into the domain from.

VMWare is the way to go - lets you try almost anything before you commit. We use this a lot at work to try out network solutions before we commit them to the live domain - very very cool.