I’d like to pay with a bit more with my old computer – a spare 200 MHz AMD K6 with 80 megs of RAM and 10 gigs of HD space.
I’ve had bad luck installing and running other operating systems on my main home computer, but I still want to experiment with non-Microsoft products. I’m thinking about installing all of the following on it …
Windows 98
Caldera OpenLinux
BeOS 5.0
FreeBSD
QNX
OpenStep (NeXT) 4.2
AtheOS (see http://www.atheos.cx )
So, how many operating systems are running on your computer? Which one do you use the most? (Please, no OS flame wars …)
Hey - I think I’d do pretty well if the questions was “How many operating systems do you have on your computer(s)?”
I have Windows 98 on my “Big” PC (AMD K6-2 450, 128 RAM). I have Windows 95 B on my nifty Compaq Armada laptop. Windows 95 on the 486 Thinkpad I’ll probably be selling soon.
I have Mac OS 8.6 on the iMac, and also on my 6100/66 PowerMac. *But—*I am pathetically geeky and did install some different OSes on Zip Disks for the PowerMac. (Since you can boot off of a Zip disk.) So it’ll run OS 7.5 on one Zip disk, and OS 8.1 on another Zip disk. Very cool. Very geeky. Very pathetic.
Um, I think I prolly have, like, one? 'Cause when I turn it on, like, in the morning? This big blue picture comes up that says, like, “Windows 95”? That’s an operating system, right? And I’m pretty sure that when I bought the computer at Best Buy, nobody said anything about any other kinds of operating systems on it. Would I know if there was one? Would it have, like, a different color picture or something when I turn it on?
Sheesh, I dint even know you were allowed to have, like, more than one per computer. Do you have to pay, like, extra to Bill Gates to get that or something? Is it like playing music CDs on your Playstation?
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to migrate to Linux someday, but until WINE or another emulator can let me get my crack fix of games, I’m not going to let go of my Windows machine.
So, Windows 98, and that’s that. But if we’re going to count how many OSes I’ve got on bootable floppies, let’s see what I can dredge from memory. I’ve got versions of MS-DOS, starting at 1.25, and going through 2.12, 3.1, 3.3, 4.01, 5.0, 6.0, 6.2, and 6.22.
I miss booting into DOS 2.12 – I did it so often on my PCJr that I still know the pattern of whirrs and beeps of the floppy drive. Whirr wheer. Whirr wheer whirr wheer. Whirr whirr.
I stick to one operating system per computer. At the moment, I have three, one Windows 2000, two Linux (one Debian, the other a Slackware/Red Hat bastard). My next machine will probably run one of the BSD variants.
One. Windows 98 SE. It works fine, never crashes, and all my software runs well with it. Why would I want another? Microsoft, although much maligned, makes great software (I love Office 2000), and the OS was free with my computer. I can’t see the advantage of Linux, or another OS. I am not a programmer, and the one thing I have learned from my years of computer usage is if it is running stable, DON’T MESS WITH IT! Just about all my computer problems involved adding and then trying to remove additional software (usually games). The OS (even windows 3.1) did not crash out of the blue, I had usually deleted/moved/added something that conflicted.
Yet, you have room to actually do something on that lap top?
Do you need all of those systems?
Man! I’ve just got 2, which works just fine for me. Win 95 and MSOFFICE.
But then, I don’t need half of the stuff in the system anyhow, like spread sheets, mathcad, publisher and such, using mainly the word processor.
God, the kids want Linux so bad and I won’t have it anywhere near my computer. They have no idea what they would do with it, but they like trendy stuff and free stuff.
And even the regular downloads they get, like Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 6.0 caused enough grief I had to uninstall it.
Please. Details! How did you manage this on one laptop? What are the specs on this laptop? How much hard drive space? I realize that the earlier systems probably take up hardly any room…but still. Amazingly geeky of you! Bravo!
And - how do you get a computer to run such old systems? I figured my 6100 PowerMac would only run System 7.5 or later, since System 7.5 is what it shipped with. How do I get to see what System 1-6 look like? (I’m geeky enough to be curious about this stuff!)
Ex amiga junky here, which Amiga OS are you running and is it under emulation or is that a really funky laptop with multiple processers. I still find it intersting that it took micorsoft until windows 95 and mac forever to come up with preemptive multitasking that Amiga had since 1985. Its too bad Amiga had such bad managment.
/slight hijack/
What cool is the Amiga could run Mac and Pc software/OS under emulation so you could get multiple OS’s without even rebooting. :). I have even see an Amiga emulating a Mac and then having a PC emulator running on the Mac emulator, dreadfully slow but a neat experiment.