LXer: Novell's open source migration progressing slowly
 

Published at LXer:

Novell may be passionately evangelising Linux and Open Office on the desktop but more than half of its own employees can still boot Microsoft Windows and Office if they wish. Ron Hovsepian, Novell’s president, speaking at a press event in Sydney, conceded that "about 2,000 employees right now out of 5,000 are single-boot only, which is Linux only, the rest are dual-boot." He said that a project to migrate the 3,000 dual-boot workers to open source is likely to be completed over the next year or so.

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I liked that article. It did not mention one thing that may become significant. I understand that Windows Vista will be structured in such a way that you cannot dual boot. Therefore, as XP goes the way of the dodo bird, people will be forced to use Windows, MacOS, or Linux but not Windows/Linux dual boot.

"...Windows Vista will be structured in such a way that you cannot dual boot." Where did you get that fact?

I read it somewhere, although it will take me a while to find the original reference. (I do not pay close attention, since I have zero interest in ever installing a copy of Vista.)

They can't possibly stop us from using multiple hard disks and a hard drive bay thing (like we have in some of the computer labs on campus--some machines have a bay where hard drives in a hard drive carrier can be inserted like a removable disk). The idea is install one OS on one hard drive, and another on the second, and switch them out fairly easily as necessary. Or not. Hackers will find away around this, if it is indeed true. If Linux can be installed on an Xbox, and M$ can't make an OS without security holes, then it wouldn't be too hard to tear into Vista and make it allow dual-booting.

OK--I have not managed to run across the original information, but I did spot another post by LXer today that refers to the "anti-dual boot" nature of Vista here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=439417

I agree that dual boot may not be impossible (given enough time with a computer, almost anything may be possible), but it does appear to be dramatically more unfriendly to dual-boot than previous Windows releases.

People should still be able to install vista (why?) on one hard drive and Linux on another and switch between the two of them with a hard switch. That's how I do my win98se and Fc5.