how to concurrently multi-boot XP, 7, Ubuntu?

[pianoplayer88key]

Ok, I primarily use XP (Home, SP3), which is why I posted in this forum, but I also have Ubuntu (might have 7 or 8, I can't remember, plus an 8.10 live CD, and want to upgrade to 9.04) installed, and have downloaded the 64-bit RC of Windows 7, but haven't yet installed it.
I had the beta of Windows 7 installed, but only booted into it like twice, in part because my parents also use this computer, and XP right now is their primary OS.

I currently have a multi-boot configuration set up which will basically allow me to choose Windows 2000 (which was our previous OS and I never use anymore - it's still there, but was originally used on different hardware so I've never booted into it recently), XP Home, 7 (Beta, which was uninstalled (by formatting its partition) yesterday), and Ubuntu (probably 7 or 8 I can't remember right now). However, I cannot run multiple OS's at the same time right now. When starting the computer, first I am presented with the GRUB boot loader, where I choose between Windows and Linux. Then, upon choosing Windows, the choices are Earlier Version or 7. Choose earlier, and I'm presented with 2000 or XP. (They're set so that by default the computer boots into XP if there's no user intervention.)

Someone (don't remember if it was on a forum or where) had recommended I try VMWare for simultaneous multi-boot. Thing is, I really don't want to buy any software, and can't figure out how the VMWare Player and Server (or whatever is the free one) work (not to mention I haven't tried installing them. Recently I was hearing things about VirtualBox, and am wondering if that would be one I should try? Thing is, though, I was reading the docs on it, and they say you have to install each OS you want to multiboot inside the virtual machine, but I already have the OS's installed in different partitions, and would just like to use those.

What I would like to have / do includes:
* choose between XP, 7 and Ubuntu on bootup, for my primary OS to start (I already can do this, but it takes like 3 bootloader screens to actually start XP, and I'd like to consolidate it down to 1)
* load multiple OS's concurrently (i.e. boot Ubuntu while XP is running), and switch back and forth
* have as close as possible to near-native performance of a "virtually running" OS (which is partially why I put that in quotes - when I say multi-boot, I mean multi-boot, not necessarily running one inside the other
* in companion with the above one, if system resources are starting to get a bit squeezed, I'd want the maximum resources possible dedicated to whichever OS is currently focused
* improved crash recovery for whatever OS's I'm running (another reason to have a bare-metal or whatever it's called install of the software, rather than have it run inside of an OS), so if it crashes / I have to shut down / whatever, I have as good of a crash recovery as Firefox and OpenOffice have. Also sandboxing would be nice.

So is VirtualBox the way to go? Or is there another free option? I've already told you what OS's I want to run, but here's my hardware, in case it might help tell me what I should use:
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H
CPU: AMD 64 X2 4000+ (2.1GHz Dual Core). I believe it supports hardware virtualization, because there's an option for it in the bios.
RAM: 4GB DDR2-800 (4 1GB sticks, dual channel)
HDD 1: 80GB WD800JB (this one will have the OS's installed
HDD 2: 250GB WD2500JB (this is an older data drive)
HDD 3: 750GB WD7500AAKS (this is my current main data drive, and my parents' data is also on here on a separate partition)
HDD 4: 1TB WD10EADS (my recently acquired backup hard drive, in an external enclosure, only to be plugged in when I'm actually backing up or restoring, currently unplugged.)
Video: on-board ATI X-1250 (acceptable for the games I currently play (No, I don't have Crysis 4 lol), considering I used to play Half-Life / Team Fortress Classic several years ago at 5-10fps at 320x240 resolution (when that was an option way back when) on a 56k modem). I'm mentioning this because my brother gave me reason to be concerned with video performance, or rather lack of being able to do it at all, when multi-booting, and I would like as near as possible to native performance. Audio is built-in Realtek ALC889 HD.

So how would I go about doing a multiboot? I really would like to be able to test out Windows 7, and use Ubuntu, but I don't want to have to shut down programs and reboot when my parents want do work on things in XP, for example.

[tehboris]

I'v tried setting up VirtualBox and VMware to boot a other OS from the hard drive that it is currently 'physically' installed on and not had it work. For Windows to work like this is basically not going to happen. The hardware of your laptop and VMware/VirtualBox will be too different. At least it won't work as smoothly as you would like. You'd have to remove the drivers you used on the laptop every time you wanted to use Windows in a VM, even so it may still not work.

My experience doing this with Ubuntu is that Ubuntu will just lock up half way through the boot process for some reason (using as much CPU as you gave it). Other Linux distributions may work (the latest versions may actually work, who knows). The hardware differences aren't really an issue for Linux but disk access for the VM will always be a problem (since the OS normally has 'direct access', but now has 'virtual direct access').

Getting all three installed and boot able is easy:
Install XP, install Vista, install Ubuntu, done.

[computoman]

You can not use multiboot to run several operating systems concurrently(i.e. at once). All multi boot allows you to do is just boot the one os you want to use. Though there is software that will allow you to run linux under windows. that is really just a speciallized virtual machine. We have not had the problems that MR. tehboris has had using virtual machines. That being said Microsoft did pay Redhat (RedHat/Fedora linux) to get info on how to allow virtual machines to work on Mswindows better. You could just as well use programs such as virtual box, vmware, MSVm, or qemu. to run more than one os at a time in a hosted environment to do the same thing. Under linux and osx there is a program called crossover office that will allow you to run windows apps natively (sort of) on those systems. Wine (the freedom version of crossover office) will let you run some MSwindows programs natively (sort of) under linux. It has already been shown that w7 will not run xp on certain cpus depending on the version of w7 you are using. I highly recommend doing some research first. We no longer use MSwindows, because of all the freedom software availble for linux. Most of the standard apps are availabe for all platforms. Having to run multiple operating systems is a thing of the past and if not soon will be. My brother teaches Microsoft software for a living and is the ultimate MS fanboy. He is now converting to linux for all his personal stuff.
I used to really get into multiboot, but it is more of a pain than anything else. Microsoft has changed the way systems boot and have abandoned the tradition boot.ini. There is a free program that allows you to manipulate files that boot.ini used to do. I forget the name, but it has been talked about over in the computer forums.

[pianoplayer88key]

I'v tried setting up VirtualBox and VMware to boot a other OS from the hard drive that it is currently 'physically' installed on and not had it work. For Windows to work like this is basically not going to happen. The hardware of your laptop and VMware/VirtualBox will be too different. At least it won't work as smoothly as you would like. You'd have to remove the drivers you used on the laptop every time you wanted to use Windows in a VM, even so it may still not work.

My experience doing this with Ubuntu is that Ubuntu will just lock up half way through the boot process for some reason (using as much CPU as you gave it). Other Linux distributions may work (the latest versions may actually work, who knows). The hardware differences aren't really an issue for Linux but disk access for the VM will always be a problem (since the OS normally has 'direct access', but now has 'virtual direct access').

Getting all three installed and boot able is easy:
Install XP, install Vista, install Ubuntu, done.

I'm not sure that I follow you, tehBoris. I do have the OS's installed and bootable (well not 7 right now, as I deleted the beta and need to install the RC. Also I need to update Ubuntu. Should I install 7 first THEN ubuntu, or Ubuntu first then 7?



You can not use multiboot to run several operating systems concurrently(i.e. at once). All multi boot allows you to do is just boot the one os you want to use. Though there is software that will allow you to run linux under windows. that is really just a speciallized virtual machine. We have not had the problems that MR. tehboris has had using virtual machines. That being said Microsoft did pay Redhat (RedHat/Fedora linux) to get info on how to allow virtual machines to work on Mswindows better. You could just as well use programs such as virtual box, vmware, MSVm, or qemu. to run more than one os at a time in a hosted environment to do the same thing. Under linux and osx there is a program called crossover office that will allow you to run windows apps natively (sort of) on those systems. Wine (the freedom version of crossover office) will let you run some MSwindows programs natively (sort of) under linux. It has already been shown that w7 will not run xp on certain cpus depending on the version of w7 you are using. I highly recommend doing some research first. We no longer use MSwindows, because of all the freedom software availble for linux. Most of the standard apps are availabe for all platforms. Having to run multiple operating systems is a thing of the past and if not soon will be. My brother teaches Microsoft software for a living and is the ultimate MS fanboy. He is now converting to linux for all his personal stuff.
I used to really get into multiboot, but it is more of a pain than anything else. Microsoft has changed the way systems boot and have abandoned the tradition boot.ini. There is a free program that allows you to manipulate files that boot.ini used to do. I forget the name, but it has been talked about over in the computer forums.

I would prefer to use actual simultaneous multiboot, but I guess I could use VMs instead. Thing is I want to be able to have the VM use an OS that's already physically natively installed, so I don't use the extra hard disk space, AND i don't have to reinstall it inside the VM.
Which free VM software do you think is best? Virtualbox, VMWare (if there are any free solutions), MSVm, qemu? I'm almost thinking of leaning toward VB (probably the non-open-source version cause it looks like it has features the OS version doesn't have that I will need, including but not limited to USB and SATA related support / etc)
Also which computer forum are you talking about? This one is (for now at least) the only one I visit on R3.

And, if I have to just boot one main OS, then install the rest in a VM, which do you think would be the best way to go? I'm personally thinking have XP be the main install, then run VMs of Linux and Windows 7 inside it. Also is it possible to run a VM of an OS inside the same OS (i.e. a VM of XP inside XP)?

Also does it make any difference whether or not my hardware supports virtualization?

I personally would like to divorce ₥i¢ro$o£₮, but quite a few things I and my parents do that require Windows, including, but not limited to, Steam (Team Fortress Classic, Fortress Forever, etc), Microsoft Office 97 (they use it, I use OpenOffice 3 and my mom really doesn't want to switch), and other things. (Not to mention several websites I visit on occasion do not work properly in firefox or chrome, but are fine in IE. (I'm in firefox right now though.))

I posted my current hardware config in my first post on this thread, so I won't repeat it here.

[tokenuser]

I would prefer to use actual simultaneous multibootThat might be your preference, but that not how it works - ever.

Your only option is virtualisation.

[tehboris]

I was referring to trying to load (for example) the same install of Ubuntu installed on the machine in a VM. This nearly works but not quite.

[pianoplayer88key]

Virtualization is OK with me. Just how would I get it to be as best performance as possible (of course not expecting any better performance than it would if it was running natively)? For example, would there be a way to set other OS's (including the host) to ultra-low priority, and focus the system resources on whatever one is focused?
Is there any possibility that in the future it would be possible to multiboot with multi-core CPUs (for now a maximum of 1 OS per core), or are there other changes that would need to be made?
For virtualization... is there some way I could install something small / lean / whatever, that would be just basically a bare host (maybe not even with much of a GUI, maybe that uses few enough resources that it by itself could run on a computer built 20 years ago), then virtualize ALL my OS's on top of that?
And about what tehBoris said, does that really mean I HAVE to use the extra disk space? I really don't have extra space to spare - i.e. I don't want to have 6 OS's installed on my computer at once, unless they're 6 different OS's.

[tokenuser]

Windows will be the most resource intensive, so keep that as your base OS. Ubuntu should run in a VM there.
Don't make Win7 the primary OS - since it is a time restricted release candidate.

[pianoplayer88key]

Ok, so keep XP as my base.
EDIT: On second thought, I'm wondering if it'd be best to have Ubuntu as my base, as that would be the least likely to crash (and bring everything else down with it)?

What about the installs of 7 and Ubuntu in VMs? I should note that I have partitions dedicated for them - any way I can use those? (The 7 partition is currently empty because i'm between the beta and the RC, and the Ubuntu has an older version on it which I'll be updating / reinstalling anyway.)

Also what VM software would you recommend? Should I use VirtualBox, or is there a better free one?

Also, is it possible to run XP in a VM inside of XP, so I can have better crash (BSOD) recovery, preferably as good as that in FireFox or OpenOffice? (If I do that, then the only thing I'd be running insde of the base OS IS the VM software.
Also, if/when the base OS (Windows XP I'm thinking in this case) BSODs, what happens to any running VMs? Does VirtualBox have good crash recovery like FF and OO?

Also I should note that there are multiple XP user accounts on this computer.

[tokenuser]

You are not running a "server class" machine, so running XP as a VM within XP is just doubling up on resource utilization.

Seriously - how often to you BSOD XP? If its regularly, then you need to make sure your machine is fully patched ... from the BIOS and drivers through to the OS.

[pianoplayer88key]

Ok, so I guess I won't be doing XP inside XP... (but what about if the host is only running bare minimum software, and I do all my main computer use inside the VM?)

As for the BSODs... they ARE fairly rare, at least compared to the Windows 98 days.. ;) Now I can usually have the computer running for a few weeks at a time (where most of the restarts are self-inflicted, and maybe one BSOD every few times or so), but I remember times back when I was running 95/98 when it would BSOD (and I mean the type that REQUIRED a hard reboot) several times a day.

Speaking of BSODs... several times I've had Nero BSOD on me when opening it or double clicking on a .ISO file. Is there something I should do about that, or is that a topic for a different thread/forum?
My OS is pretty much patched, and running SP3. Not sure about all the drivers / BIOS, though... any idea on a good one-stop-shop way to check up on that? (I had found one that almost looked promising but it turns out it's a pay site, and if the drivers themselves are free, I don't want to pay to be told that I need x, y, z, etc. drivers.) Side note re: paying for software... My Windows OS pretty much takes up almost all my software budget, which is usually a small fraction of my hardware budget. Also I don't like paying for a program that specializes in doing one little thing. Is the $29.99 program, for example, really going to be 29.99 / 0 times better than the free one? (I don't mind paying a nominal fee for jack-and-master-of-all-trades programs, and other things, hence my willingness to pay for Windows rather than pirate it (which I DO personally know a few who have done it that way, I've just chosen not to), for example.) Over the years, on the research I've done, if I went and bought every little pay program I've researched / whose existence has come to my attention, that would do something I was wanting to do, I would probably singlehandedly make someone as rich as Bill Gates by now, but I really don't like paying more than an average of $100/year on intellectual property, for lack of a better term. My budget just won't allow it - the vast majority of my digitally oriented budget is dedicated to physical hardware.
Speaking of buying the RTM version of Windows 7, what's the best way to get a good deal on it? I'm not sure if I'd run Ultimate, or just Professional maybe, yet. Should I buy it at the same time I buy another hard disk later this year, if it's out by then?

[computoman]

Reactos though still under development has a much smaller footprint than xp and works great for running ms windows software in a vm. I used to run it in qemu on my ppc based macs when I needed to run somehting mswinders.

[pianoplayer88key]

ReactOS won't work for me, because: it needs FAT partitions (which I don't have), doesn't support my 64-bit AMD CPU, requires an IDE HDD to install (I have 2, but will not be buying any more, and will retire 1 (or both) when I get a new internal HDD)).

So, for now, should I boot XP, and virtualize Ubuntu and 7 under that, or should I boot Ubuntu and virtualize XP and 7 under that, or is there a third option?

Also, when/if I eventually buy the RTM version of Windows 7 64-bit, would it be possible to have support for 32-bit hardware by using XP 32-bit in a VM?

[davmoo]

If XP is what you use the most, then XP needs to be the base OS that is installed. Put Windows 7 and Ubuntu inside virtual machines hosted on XP. You're wasting resources if you do it any other way.

As for wanting to run multiple OSes simultaneously without virtualization...well...I want a weekend with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kate Beckinsale, and I'm not going to get that either. There is no system...PC, Mac, or Linux...that I am aware of that allows multiple OSes running on the bare hardware. And on the off chance that there is some obscure package that does it, it won't be free and it won't be open source.

[computoman]

ReactOS won't work for me, because: it needs FAT partitions (which I don't have), doesn't support my 64-bit AMD CPU, requires an IDE HDD to install (I have 2, but will not be buying any more, and will retire 1 (or both) when I get a new internal HDD)).

So, for now, should I boot XP, and virtualize Ubuntu and 7 under that, or should I boot Ubuntu and virtualize XP and 7 under that, or is there a third option?

Also, when/if I eventually buy the RTM version of Windows 7 64-bit, would it be possible to have support for 32-bit hardware by using XP 32-bit in a VM?

I would not run reactos native, I definately would run it in a virtual machine, so you do not have to reformat or repartition the drive. I would say too that xp should be the base os as long as M$ supports it. Though I probabsly would do linux instead. I try to avoid mulktiple operating systems like the plague. It is wasted disk space to me to have more than one os on the drive. But if you play a lot of games I could see where someone might want more than one os. hopefully that will change soon.

[pianoplayer88key]

Ok right now I'm using XP as the host, and have Linux and 7 as guests....
(I have 4GB physical RAM installed in the computer, with 256MB reserved for video RAM (on-board ATI X-1250 video))

Virtualization SW: VirtualBox 2.2.2
Host: 32-bit Windows XP Home, reports 3GB physical ram
Guest 1: 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 (Linux)
Guest 2: 64-bit Windows 7 RC1 (Windows)

I haven't yet figured out how to point the vbox guests to actual partitions on my hard disk, so alternately I'm using virtual hard disk images for now.

I'm still not sure whether or not I want to use Linux or XP as my host. (for now I've ruled out Windows 7 as host.)

A couple reasons to use Linux as host include: ability to save state / recover from where I left off in case XP (as guest) crashes while I have a bunch of things running (besides firefox and openoffice, which have good data / crash recovery), also with a 64-bit OS I have full access to my system's physical RAM, minus what's being used for video RAM. (Even though I may have a 64-bit OS in a guest, if I'm running a 32-bit host, I am still under the 32-bit limit even with the guests running.)
Reasons to use Windows XP as the host would include: it's the OS I use the most, game performance (the two I play the most are Team Fortress Classic and Scorched 3D) would likely be the best.

Anything else I should consider? (I'd like to also virtualize Mac OS X, but 1 - don't feel like buying it now, and 2 - idk that my hardware / virtualization software combo supports it.)

Another thing. I may want to buy a copy of Windows 7 when it comes out, but I'll want to get the OEM version. If I understand correctly don't you have to buy some hardware at the same time when you do that? I'm thinking about (in the not near, but not that distant future) possibly getting one (or more of) a faster CPU (probably a Phenom X3), a bigger hard drive (1.5TB minimum, hopefully 2TB will come down by then to a more reasonable price/GB ratio relative to other sizes like the 1 and 1.5TB currently are), a blu-ray burner if their prices are cut to 1/3 of what they are now, an LCD monitor (minimum 1680x1050 resolution, preferably 1920x1080, 2560x1600 would be nice if I can get a good one under $400 by then), and/or maybe one or two other things, when I buy Windows 7 (probably Ultimate, unless I discover I don't need some of the ultimate-only features), and at this point I don't expect to be one of the first early adopters for Windows 7. (Chances are I'll probably wait until the RC is about to expire.)