Re: OSes (was: Does 'load .spl' have a mind of its own?)

[jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Peter Evans wrote:

> Jordan Fox on a system that already has four OSes loaded:
>
> > Given sufficient hard disk real estate -- which usually isn't
> > much of an issue these days -- one could easily add Linux or
> > other WINs to that mix.
>
> It's not quite that simple. For example, it's my understanding that most
> Linux distros are happiest when they have three partitions to themselves.
> And NB that's partitions, not just logical drives. Well, a single drive
> is limited to a maximum of four partitions. There are ways to install
> various elaborate combinations of operating systems, but you may find
> that you need a second physical hard drive (no matter how gargantuan the
> first one may be) or careful thought or both.

Hadn't heard this, but then I know very little of Linux. (The # I had heard
before was 2 partitions, one of which could be logical. There was said to be
some issues re which OS went where, and in what order. I'm just paraphrasing
from memory some old threads among techie types on Compuserve.) The per Hard
Drive limit is 4 *Primary* Partitions, which seems to be what you were getting
at. Even that may not be an absolute barrier: I've been told that one of the
competitors to System Commander (BOOTIT, I think) has a nifty trick that gets
around this, probably by altering more of the H/D landscape at boot selection
time than do the other such utilities.

Jordan