[CentOS] virtualization on the desktop a myth, or a reality?

Thu Mar 3 17:27:06 UTC 2011
John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>

On 03/03/11 4:10 AM, Phil Savoie wrote:
> When booting a system with multiple operating systems, it is true that
> only one operating system may be in use at one time, however, those
> other  operating systems are installed on the disk in partitions.  These
> partitions may be mounted like any other filesystem, hence the ability
> to use them while a single instance of an operating system is running.
> It's all done via the /etc/fstab and through mount options.

I am not a fan of multiple booting.

Multiple OS's can make a mess of file system permissions if you're not 
careful.    For instance, if you have multiple linux installs, you'll 
need to go to some troubles to ensure their /etc/passwd stays in sync or 
they'll make a mess of each others ownership.. and mapping linux user 
numbers to Windows user ID's for NTFS is non-trivial.

Computer security overhead is multiplied times the number of OSs.   If 
you haven't booted that windows system for a few weeks, expect to spend 
a good hour with Windows Update, Antivirus updates, web browser & plugin 
updates, adobe, etc etc before using it next time.   A network 
configuration change would have to be made to all the different OS's.  
etc etc.

and, when all is said and done, your system's bootstrap sequence becomes 
a rather fragile house of cards.