Sometime on Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 07:37:35PM +0530, Rony Bill said:
What is being done is simply multi-tasking. Any OS is a set of tasks that the cpu is carrying out and 2 OSs means the resources are shared by two sets of tasks (OSs). This jugglery is carried out by the RAM which loads two seperate OSs in its space and uses the necessary swap space on the HDD for extra resources.
Multitasking is when a kernel makes the processor perform multiple tasks. Here the problem is to run two instances of different kernel at the same time, and each of the kernel should be able to multitask their own job.
Thats what the latest systems can give you. The motherboard will have to be special type that accomodates atleast 8 PCI slots that will contain low cost multifunction cards that have VGA, PS2 Keyboard and PS2 Mouse outputs and for more elaborate ( $$$ ) ones, a LAN and 56 Kbps modem with it too. This provides capacity to run 8 Monitors, Keyboards and Mice for 8 operators. The BIOS will be more advanced with a facility to create 8 RAM partitions with each partition getting a quota of max 400 MHz of CPU speed and 100 MHz. of BUS speed. This prevents viruses or runaway programs from one OS upsetting the whole system. When installing any OS, it will ask which RAM partition is to be utilised, just as we select HDD partitions.
What your scheme is, to insert 8 individual computers into a single cabinet! But actually the there should be just one CPU, one RAM module, one network card.
From what i've read, this issue can be resolved to some extent by
using the Hurd. One can run 2 instances of two kernels at the same time. And the scheduler would do a context switching between two kernels running in user mode. This is not exactly like the original idea, but somehow the two kernels can be made utilize the same network card and RAM. Note that i do not know this can be implemented.
Anurag