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Operating Systems Software

Will Vanderpool Make Linux More Popular? 316

Posted by simoniker from the keeping-up-with-the-vanderpools dept.
Digitaldonkey writes "New Scientist is reporting that Intel's forthcoming multi-core processor architecture, codenamed "Vanderpool", could undermine Microsoft's dominance by letting other operating systems run simultaneously more easily. From the article: 'The chip will allow future machines to run, say, Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system as easily as today's Windows computers run Word and Internet Explorer simultaneously.'"
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Will Vanderpool Make Linux More Popular? More

Will Vanderpool Make Linux More Popular?

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  • MacOS? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by flatface ( 611167 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:18PM (#7146163)
    Sounds great, but "..Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system" -- I didn't know that Apple would be releasing MacOS for other architectures. And I'm assuming it's not going to incorporate the PPC archtype.
    • since when does internet explorer and word run easily together?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Word and IE? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by dillon_rinker ( 17944 )
          You're kidding, right? Or maybe you don't deal with Word and IE as much as I do...anyway, what you describe is, like many of Office's features, really nifty until it breaks. Once it breaks it's nearly impossible to fix. Recently I've had to deal with numerous systems suddenly unable to open links to Word documents inside of Internet Explorer. What changed? Don't know; I'm not the only guy who works here (there's about 300 others). What's the fix? Wipe the hard drive and reload? Seems rather drastic. Reload
          • We had a similar problem. For some reason, some machines stopped being able to open a straight linked jpeg file. It said no registered viewer. All the registered filetypes were correct, mimetypes were correct, everything. Inline jpegs worked fine, but do a straight link to one, and IE couldn't open it. Rather than screw around with it, we just set windows to open jpegs in the built in image viewer, and that worked just fine.
        • I haven't seen many programs work together better than Word and IE.

          A better example is excel and word.
        • One thing that's annoying me along these lines...specifically Outlook and IE and the clipboard--sometimes I just want the text data without all the stupid font and color changes...

    • Re:MacOS? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 )
      Yeah, it's that super secret X86 version Dvorak keeps calling for. Don't you know anything, silly?

    • Re:MacOS? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bhtooefr ( 649901 )
      Ever heard of Rhapsody DR-2? It's the last public release of Mac OS X on the PC. Apple actually keeps a Darwin x86 port somewhat up to date. They just don't keep Aqua up to date...
    • I run Darwin for x86 [monkeyvoodoo.net], you insensitive clod!

      Oh, wait. Is... is this a poll? Excuse me.
    • Please note the Darwin/x86 project, on Apple's web site.

    • There *was* an x86 OS X rumor... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mactari ( 220786 ) <rufwork.gmail@com> on Monday October 06, 2003 @05:46PM (#7147746) Homepage
      Quickly googled up a link from eWeek [eweek.com]:

      As Apple Computer Inc. draws up its game plan for the CPUs that will power its future generations of Mac hardware, the company is holding an ace in the hole: a feature-complete version of Mac OS X running atop the x86 architecture.

      There have been rumors of the move to x86 for a while. I'm not sure if I buy them -- that's a ton of QA overhead for a potential move down the line, and hopefully the G5 negates any reason for them to move. Not to mention if Apple swapped processors, all the AltiVec-optimized code would be worth creee-ap without having multiple processor *types* in each new, partially x86 powered Mac. And any way you cut it, Apple would still, I'd assume, stick some hardware dongle in there to do what Open Firmware does now: stop cheap generic hardware (or expensive hardware when you talk Pegasos [pegasos-uk.com]) from running OS X easily. Apple is a hardware company too, you know. Solutions, not just software, etc.

      But the point of the article stands, even if the author was overhyping. Anil (the author) really has two outs:

      Due for launch within five years, the chip will allow future machines to run, say, Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system...
      1.) ... providing Apple releases/creates its rumored-but-horribly-unlikely (imo) x86 build of OS X.
      2.) ... Darwin, which is an OS, just not a very popular one and not much of story. Though AbiWord [abiword.com] does run fairly well there with X11 installed. :^)

  • Cool (Score:5, Informative)

    by TykeClone ( 668449 ) <TykeClone@gmail.com> on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:19PM (#7146173) Homepage Journal
    Sounds similar to what IBM does with the AS/400 - allowing hardware subsystems to run different operating systems.

    • Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)

      by JJahn ( 657100 )
      Or like the DEC/Compaq/hp AlphaServers. Nothing revolutionary about this technology, but with that said, I would appreciate being able to run Linux and Windows simeltaneously. I currently run only Linux, and although WineX has gotten much better it still does not compare to the native Windows XPerience for games.
      • High end sun systems do it too, as do the high end SGI`s, infact pretty much every architecture does it, except x86... intel is just playing catch up as usual

    • Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Thing 1 ( 178996 )

      Sounds similar to what IBM does with the AS/400 - allowing hardware subsystems to run different operating systems.

      I actually had this on my original ($5,000!) IBM PC back in high school. We had Apple ][s at school, but my dad wanted an IBM because it was "business-oriented." So we bought the QuadLink from QuadRam (can't find it on google or ebay, so they must have gone out of business and nobody wants them any more).

      This card, which was an octopus -- it connected to almost everything in the PC --

  • No hard info (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jarlsberg ( 643324 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:19PM (#7146176) Journal
    New Scientist is a great magazine, but it's not really a tech magazine. That's why you get articles that says something like this:
    "Intel's new hardware, codenamed Vanderpool, is significant because it cuts down on the amount of such trickery needed. "Vanderpool doesn't eliminate the need for virtualisation software, but it's going to make it perform a lot better," says Mike Ferron-Jones, Intel's manager of advanced technology marketing at Hillsboro, Oregon. For the moment, however, the company is not saying exactly how it will redesign the hardware to do this.
    For the moment, however, the company is not saying exactly how it will redesign the hardware to do this.
    ...
    Such a hyper-OS would allow people using ordinary PCs to try out alternative operating systems, such as Linux, and the applications that run on them, without giving up Windows."
    (emphasis added)

    So we're looking at a chip that may be a reality in 2008-2009, but since New Scientist doesn't provide any hard info on the chip except for the funky code name, this is all very up in the air. Virtualisation software works pretty good today anyway. You can easily try out any flavour of Linux or BSD on your WinXP computer (or vice cersa) using VMWare today -- without having to "give up" Windows (or Linux).

    • And I believe they are missing something else.

      CPU virtualization isn't simple, either, but I guess coordinating shared access to dozens of brands of graphics cards, NICs, etc. from widely different operating systems still requires plenty of changes to operating systems, or a complicated monitor process implemented in software (maybe running on the third core? who knows). You can get both without multi-core CPUs today, so I don't see the point. In particular, I don't understand why someone would want to p

  • BSOD (Score:5, Funny)

    by rfrenzob ( 163001 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:20PM (#7146187)
    This doesn't mean that we will see Linux start generating Blue Screens Of Death does it?

  • Um... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:20PM (#7146188) Homepage Journal
    'The chip will allow future machines to run, say, Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system as easily as today's Windows computers run Word and Internet Explorer simultaneously.'
    You mean like WMWare [vmware.com]? Why would this require a hardware solution?

    • Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MarkJensen ( 708621 )

      VMWare uses a software redirection/emulation. The new chip would act (essentialy) like two separate CPUs.

      The problem would be in splitting up and/or sharing resources, I think. There would have to be some sort of delays for this solution, similar to the ones you might see in VMWare. For example, you can't read from two different sections of memory (or hard drive) at the same time. There would need ot be some sort of pre-empting and priorities assigned. VMWare's solution uses code in RAM. Intel appare

      • All they're essentially doing is redefining what ring 0 is. It used to be supremely privliged. Now it is just a virtual machine and they introduced a ring -1 of sorts.

        The next windows to come along will simply run at ring -1, making it incompatible with a managing "HyperOS" - unless such a hyperOS is embedded in the BIOS and renders such a version of windows irreparably unbootable.

        Why would MS do this? Simple - if you want to run multiple virtual hosts on a box you need to buy MS Virtual Windows XXP.

    • Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:33PM (#7146343) Journal
      Certain properties of the x86 architecture make it a hard chip to "virtualize" (sort of partition the processor into two virtual processors), which is what VMWare does. Chips can be designed specifically to be easily virtualizable, making applications like VMWare almost trivial to code while being much, much faster. If Intel does somehow retrofit virtualization capabilities onto a x86 chip, it could be a big boon for Linux. An open-source VMWare clone could be written quite easily, and it would run Windows almost as fast as it would run natively.
      • The PPC/POWER architecture is particularly good at virtualization.. look at MacOnLinux, and i believe OSX has a "classic mode" for running older MacOS apps...
        I wonder what other processors have good support for such virtualization, i have a number of non x86 systems that i would like to partition and run multiple virtual servers on.. and these are mid range servers, not high end sun/dec kit that`s designed for virtualization.. the choice is between a whole rack of 1u servers, 1 customer on each, each of the

    • Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:35PM (#7146359) Homepage Journal
      Why would this require a hardware solution?
      Speed and better transparency. Dedicating hardware to a process will usually relieve resources used by the system as well. Think of it like the advances in graphics. It used to be that OpenGL was rendered by software for most Windows NT users. I remember getting GLQuake to run at 12.5 frames per second and being stoked. Then along came the dedicated hardware (to the consumer at least). Suddenly 12.5 FPS was a joke and new and shiny features were added/enabled (GLQ runs at 300+ FPS on my GF2 card now and has blended shadows, colored lighting and fog).

      I believe that this architecture may do the same for virtualization and make it truly reasonable to run real-time apps under multiple OSs without the hickups of today. I could then theoretically run Apache/POP3/DNS on the very same box as Active Directory/SQL Server/.Net without many problems - great for a small test environment. Eventually, the hardware might become small/portable and you could start to think of hand-held devices with multiple operating systems or functionalities. The manufacturing and testing industries would love such a device.

    • Why do I need a floating point processor? Using integer math, I can emulate floating point operations. Why do I need protected memory? I could write software to do that. Why do I need hyperthreading? My OS already multitasks.

      Though all of the above can be accomplished in software, sometimes it's more efficient to implement a solution at least possibly in hardware. VMware is notorious for taking performance hits.
    • > You mean like WMWare [vmware.com]? Why would this require a hardware solution?

      No, not like VMware, like a CPU.

      VMware will not pass most hardware through to the guest system. It generally emulates hardware no less (NIC, sound, graphics) and thus if you cannot support vmwares hardware, or need to use hardware not in vmwares list, you are screwed.

      A real CPU will not have these problems.
    • You mean like WMWare? Why would this require a hardware solution?

      Hardware solutions are almost invariably faster. If you can natively run two OS's at once, why wouldn't you, compared to running one in hardware and putting a VM wrapper around the other? Whenever you virtualize hardware, you'll lose speed and, to a degree, incompatibility. For a trivial example, try gaming through vmware. As of 3.0, directX wouldn't even run (Win 2K vm in a linux host).

  • How much of an impact could this really make? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Eric(b0mb)Dennis ( 629047 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:22PM (#7146204)
    There are already ways to run Linux on a windows machine, and visa versa.. (VMware comes to mind)

    And with todays already beefy processors, it runs pretty good, albeit not perfectly..

    It seems this would only impact the share of people who are already using VMware to do this sort of thing..

    Who knows
    • Of ccourse you can run multiple operating systems simultaneously, though VMWare is kind of the amaturish application for it. IBM's Power systems and Sun's UltraSparc's can do this now, as can HP's Superdome. Intel is just looking to add a hardware acceleration effort to the Itanium so that systems like the Superdome (which now uses Itaniums) can do this a little bit better.

      Running multiple partitions has become a rather important feature for high-end systems, and how well a system handles this is definit

  • os/390 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deputydink ( 173771 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:22PM (#7146205)
    Sounds a little like how those big iron mainframes run - virtualized os's playing together managed by hardware to a certain degree.


    Seems like another case of technology history repeating itself. Still, the idea is fantastic although i don't see how a company like microsoft in the article can really benifit from it.

    • Re:os/390 (Score:3, Informative)

      by macemoneta ( 154740 )
      Mainframes, using Logical Partitioning (LPAR) or the z/VM operating system, use a microcode facility in the CPUs called SIE (start interpretive execution) to run multiple operating systems concurrently.

      This allows the CPU to schedule and dispatch a virtual system (in its chosen architectual mode and configuration) with a single instruction. Execution under SIE continues until the end of the dispatch timeslice, or intervention is required from the hypervisor. This dramatically simplifies the operation of

  • And I thought... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:23PM (#7146222)
    they couldn't make graphics drivers any more instable. Trying to make ATI/NV cards run on Linux and Windows simultaniously is like watching a quadrapalegic juggling.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:23PM (#7146224)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Anyways, the only way I can see the ability to run Windows and Linux simultaneously actually making Linux significantly more popular is in the workplace where the admins want to switch everybody over to Linux, but there's that one critical app that only runs on Windows...

      Right, and that's a hell of a lot more common than the reverse. And until Linux eclipses Windows in popularity, anything that facilitates running multiple OSes can only help Linux.
    • 90 percent (ballpark) of desktop machines run Windows.

      Linux has FAR more to gain by being added to a chunk of that percentage than Windows does by being added to the much smaller chunk that doesn't.

  • No (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 )
    Clustering, servers, dual-booting, emulation, dual-OS, blah-blah, and other geeky stuff isn't going to make Linux popular. It is just going to keep it alive in specialised applications. To become popular, geeks need to stop looking down on the average user and start treating them as a customer and design things even an idiot can use.

    • Re:No (Score:2)

      by tuffy ( 10202 )

      To become popular, geeks need to stop looking down on the average user and start treating them as a customer and design things even an idiot can use.

      Just like Macintosh did in 1984. And just look how many people swarmed to its easier-to-use machine.

      The fact is, easy-to-use doesn't buy you much. People use an OS for the apps, and Linux needs some sort of "killer app" that's either best on Linux or not available on Windows to entice desktop people to switch in great numbers. Apache, Oracle and friend

      • Re:No (Score:2, Informative)

        by Raffaello ( 230287 )
        "Just like Macintosh did in 1984. And just look how many people swarmed to its easier-to-use machine. "

        Umm, pretty much everybody. You appear to have not been around in that era, but the vast majority of users at that time used a command line shell (DOS or *nix), and openly laughed at the whole idea of a GUI.

        What are they running now? That's right, a GUI, copied pretty much exactly from the Mac OS.

        And, no, the Xerox Alto did *not* operate like the Mac OS - have you ever seen one in use? Apple paid Xerox

        • Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)

          by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @04:37PM (#7147020) Homepage Journal
          Umm, pretty much everybody. You appear to have not been around in that era, but the vast majority of users at that time used a command line shell (DOS or *nix), and openly laughed at the whole idea of a GUI.

          So why did everyone accept a GUI from Windows but not a Mac? Is it because all the IBM PC users were morons that didn't see a better GUI was available? No. It's because something superior to Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect and Word weren't available on the Mac at launch, and apps just as good didn't appear until much later. The graphical arts folks appreciated Macs, but the general public had no "killer app" to make it worth the switch.

          No matter how easy (or hard) an OS is, it takes apps to make it a success.

    • I have to disagree. Dumbing things down to give more appeal to the "unwashed masses" almost never ends up being beneficial in the long run.

      I'm not saying anyone building and offering a product is wise to "look down on" potential customers.... but designing things so "even idiots can use them" isn't the answer either.

      To be honest with you, I used to think so. But more and more, I see what really happens. The people who complained before that a product was "too hard to use" won't use the "new, easier to
      • While designing an OS so that even an idiot can use it may not be bennificial, neither is keeping a system so complex that only an expert maintain it.

        The fact is GNU/Linux is not user-friendly. It is almost user-hostile.

        I have mastered Linux and am computer enthusiast. But, you should not have to be "a real computer enthusiast" to use an operating system effectively.This has nothing to do with appeasing "Windows zealots". It have every thing to do with a crappy static device system, arcane commands, a bol

  • Suddenly all this news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by geeveees ( 690232 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:24PM (#7146238) Homepage Journal
    One more to add to the list:

    1) hidden 64bit abilities
    2) 5-7 ghz processor
    3) multicore cpu

    All this to make people delay their purchase of an athlon64?
    • I believe you're mentioning Intel's forthcoming Prescott, [theinquirer.net] which should be released in 2004? Or at least in the semi-near future, where as the New 'Scientist' article is talking about an architecture due to launch five years from now. Prescott is the one I believe that has the above mentioned qualities.
    • It's not like it hasn't happened, the PIII chips were rumored to have Jackson technology (Intel's internal code name for Hyperthreading) in it somewhere, simply not enabled. If it is there, they aren't saying anything.

      It wasn't until the Northwood P4 that it was really put in, and only enabled later except for the Xeons. So there's a section of the die of a lot of P4s that was deliberately not used, for marketing and possibly legal reasons.
  • but if MS gets a hold of the bios like a recent article has stated they are trying to do, MS can lock out any OS they want with their "trustworthy computing" initiative. We all know that "trustworthy computing" is a metaphor for complete and utter lockdown by MS so your machine will only run Windows in the way MS says.

    Let's hope that Intel can buck the MS trend and do something like this.
    • Or what if there's another Windows virus like CIH that gets the bios overwritten. Will this new system prevent it, recover from it or still be just as vulnerable as any other unpatched/secured Windows box? Questions that Intel will hopefully ask and answer before they ship the new processor.

  • OS Relevancy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thoolihan ( 611712 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:29PM (#7146287) Homepage
    This could really cut out the relevance of application support behind an OS. Any application not supported by your current OS could be built in with the app and booted separately almost like a Knoppix CD.

    Thinking particularly of games and multimedia, this could really shake things up.

    -t
    • the only thing that would do is remind me of ye ole DOS days when you had to reboot the computer to get your memory settings set right to play your games.
      I know I'm not alone in saying that rebooting is an old, old paradigm that needs to be done away with asap.

      now if you're talking about just running the app in a virtual shell of an OS, that would be a nifty idea... ooo!
      wait! I'll be right back!
      *runs to patent office and runs smack into Jeff Bezos*

    • Re:OS Relevancy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      This could really cut out the relevance of application support behind an OS. Any application not supported by your current OS could be built in with the app and booted separately almost like a Knoppix CD.

      Ah, someone else who sees the bigger picture, rather than the trivial idea of making virtualization just a bit faster...

      Rather than viewing a program build as bound to a particular OS, each program can act as its own OS. I see this as a fairly logical extension to the idea of multitasking in general -

  • Article like this misses the whole point... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:31PM (#7146309)
    For the vast majority of people, the problem is not being able to try the new OS. The problem is getting them to want to try the new OS. People like things that are familiar. They use Windows at home because they use Windows at work. Add to this the clones at CompUSA say to buy Windows.

    Does anyone think their mother or father would switch because of what this article discusses?

    Conversely, is this going to get businesses to try a new OS? No. If a business wants to try a new OS, in general, they can afford a machine dedicated to the new OS to try it out.

  • Will it make it easier to use Linux on a Windows machine? Yes.

    Will my grandmother switch to Linux because of the new processor? No.

    Same old, same old...
  • welcome our new multi-core processing overlords.
  • All Intel is doing is making their CPUs virtualizable (like the IBM S/370 mainframes) so that there will be cheaper and faster competitors to VMware. As others have pointed out, anything you can do with Vanderpool you can also do with VMware, just more slowly.
  • Even if it does happen, will it matter? This really isn't relevant in the server world, where cheap x86 systems provide the benefit of separation-of-function, which will usually outweigh any savings one gets from piling apps onto one big machine. Putting all of those OS and application eggs into one basket seems like a pretty bad idea to me-just as it did to all of the old mainframe companies that switched to running numerous small systems.

    As yet another toy for the desktop world it could be neat, as an ea

  • "The virtualisation software sits between the hard drive and the OS and must calculate how much free memory is allocated to that OS.
    ---
    Intel's new hardware, codenamed Vanderpool, is significant because it cuts down on the amount of such trickery needed."

    Clearly Intel's new technology will give user programs direct hardware access. What fun! I can't wait 'til this is deployed on a larger scale. (on other people's computers, that is)

    And could someone please inform them that their computer will run mu

  • MS bios control (Score:5, Interesting)

    by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:40PM (#7146404)
    this may be the reason for earlier story about MS wanting to control the BIOS too. So now the competition is between MS and Intel. This looks an interesting fight as both are titans and closely interdependent. Having killed other CPUs by promising a lot and delivering little, MS has put itself in a tight position. It can't fight with intel in the same way it fought with Digital. This is one of the reasons, why MS won't release 64 bit OS until intel gives go ahead (according to some newsgroup articles, people had seen 64-bit windows demo in 1997).

    If bios is under MS control, and if MS OS is pre-installed, what are the chances that it will allow people to install other OS? Today, most pre-installed XP machine create single partition covering the entier the disk (many people think this is dangerous specially if the partition goes bad, you could loose all data). This effectively prevents installing linux atleast to non-hackers.

    Still you can't discount Intel. Although MS can cotrol many PC manufacturers, most MB manufacturers will side with Intel and leave BIOS out of MS reach to be monopolized.

    MS can play some dirty tricks too. If MS-OS detects that you are running some other OS too, then it can create some random fault in MS-OS and crash it which may give user the feeling that the other OS caused it. Anyone old enough to remember DR-DOS being incompatible with Windows warning?
    • Anyone old enough to remember DR-DOS being incompatible with Windows warning?

      Yes, and that's all it was, a warning. A justified one as well, given the numerous compatibility problems DR-DOS *did* have with software that played down and dirty with the OS (cutting edge games being the other notable example at the time).

  • From the 5th paragraph:

    The virtualisation software sits between the hard drive and the OS and must calculate how much free memory is allocated to that OS.

    My gawd - where do these idjots come from?

    Did the idjot ever hear of dual boot or booting from the CD?

  • ...as easily as... (Score:5, Funny)

    by eth1 ( 94901 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:41PM (#7146423)
    ...as easily as today's Windows computers run Word and Internet Explorer simultaneously.

    We're doomed.

  • Intel TSS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:43PM (#7146431)
    Intel processors have supported the TSS (Task State Segment) for years. This is an architectural feature that enables true task switching in the processor. No OS or other software I'm aware of has ever used this feature of the architecture. The stated reason why it's not used in Windows is "performance". I can see why that would have been a concern 4 or 5 years ago, but it's not very well quantified. I have no idea at all if Linux makes use of the TSS in a way that differs from Windows.

    • Re:Intel TSS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iebgener ( 592564 )
      Linux used TSS to do task switching in older version like 2.2. The switch to software has been made because : * you can check the data between task switching (E.G. segmentation registers), which cannot be done with far jmp * the time to switch task is about the same, but I it easier to optimize software than hardware...

  • Wow! Hyper-OS REWLZ! (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by TexVex ( 669445 )

    Such a hyper-OS would allow people using ordinary PCs to try out alternative operating systems, such as Linux, and the applications that run on them, without giving up Windows.

    Wow. If hyper-OS lets us do such wonderful technological feats, we should all bow down and worship Intel now!

    Or instead we could go back to some really freaking old technology called a "boot disk" to accomplish the same thing. Oh, wait, Knoppix and Lindows, among others, already allow this. Today.

    Seriously, guys, when you're wr

  • I would love to have a system like because I'm a Linux newbie but pretty experienced with Windows. I could have Windows running with Internet access so that I could access the Linux troubleshooting sites and read the how-to's while getting the Linux side of things up to par.

  • Mainframes for home (Score:5, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:52PM (#7146524)
    Perhaps we are going to be able to go back to multi-user computers. This would actually be a real benefit for many people. An AS/400 for the home, replacing all the boxes with a single central box again. Thin clients with wireless networking around the place. If a virus hits OS Instance 1, bring it down and fix it in the background while work is transferred to OS Instance 2. One user can crash and burn without anyone else knowing or caring. Load sharing means that the heavy and light users can peacefully coexist. And small businesses are going to love it. Life was easier in the 80s when they had a single Unix box and half a dozen dumb terminals. Life is going to be easier again when there's a single big reliable box with all the external connections and massive storage, and a few screens and keyboards around the place. No fun for case modders, but then for those of us who believe computing should be as ubiquitous as plumbing, and as unobtrusive, case modding is deeply sad.

  • Real value would be running multiple Window OSes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xyote ( 598794 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:57PM (#7146561)
    Microsofts security lacks somewhat and this would allow sandboxing via virtual hardware. So I could have one virtual machine running IE in slut mode and my critical apps safe on another virtual machine.


    This will have interesting implications with Microsofts licensing mechanisms. All the virutal machines *should* look the same, and Microsoft shouldn't really care if I run multiple copies of their workstation version on the same desktop. That way, I can clone the OS, apply the latest patches, see if they work without blue screening the system, and then put that system into "production". Just like how they use VM on mainframes.

  • ...the way an IBM 360 from the sixties could run OSes over VM?
  • New MP architecture. Cool. Can't have enough of that.
    Runs multiple OSes? So what?
    Do they really think that any application scenario I need MP for leaves me hanging with the question wether I use Linux, Irix or LoseXP? If I'm gonna get myself a 4 CPU workstation I'm shure as hell *not* gonna waste it buy running Mickeysoft next to Linux or Zeta. No friggin way. If I get myself an MP system it's for reference grade industry strength Ooomph requirements. With me that would be either serious 3D/NLE/Compositing
    • Runs multiple OSes? So what?

      How about running multiple copies of the same OS? Let's say that I'm running a 24/7 application like a webserver. It can run on it's own OS because it always has to be on. It can run totally isolated from the other copy of the OS.

      I can run another copy of the OS on the other virtual CPU to do my daily work. If I happen to screw up something on my work CPU and I need to reboot, I can reboot the work-CPU, leaving the webserver happily running along on the first virtual CPU.
  • Disclaimer: I work for Intel.

    Vanderpool is the codename for Intel's hardware virtualization technology. It is independent of and different from Intel's plans to put multiple processor cores on a single die. You do not need Vanderpool technology to have multicore, or vice versa.

    I do not speak for Intel. My opinions are not necessarily those of Intel's.

  • The limiting factor in virtualization is that two different VMs cannot get access to the same hardware seamlessly, the drivers just aren't designed that way. You would need your drivers to either be based around a client-server architecture such that one OS ran the server, and a client, and others just ran the client, or to have the hardware support some kind of context switching and locks so that only one OS could get access to the video card at a time, and when you switched between them, the video card w

  • The chip will allow future machines to run, say, Windows XP together with Linux or the Apple operating system as easily as today's Windows computers run Word and Internet Explorer simultaneously.

    Nevermind the fact that to pull off such a claim, you would need to duplicate or time-share every other resource in the system, such as video card, sound card, hard disk, motherboard chipset, yadda yadda yadda. It's just so much easier to wave your hands, get people excited, and claim that this new chip can si

  • Once you start running GNU/Linux you will have no reason to run Windows. Who would want to run Windows along side Linux ? If a business is going to make the switch to GNU they will not keep Windows around for some legacy apps, they will port them (or get equivalent software) otherwise why switch to Linux?

    I can see having diferent divisions run GNU/Linux and Windows, but on the same Machine? IT would not be happy, and you would get NONE of the cash savings.

    Now the home user is a different story. the

  • I saw a demo... (Score:5, Informative)

    by stevel ( 64802 ) * on Monday October 06, 2003 @05:00PM (#7147288) Homepage
    Disclaimer: I work for Intel (in an area having nothing whatsoever to do with Vanderpool), but the comments here are my own personal opinion. That said...

    I saw a demo of Vanderpool at Intel Developer Forum last month. In the demo, the system with a single processor was simultaneously running some version of Windows playing a media clip (a Simpsons episode) while at the same time on another monitor, another copy of Windows was running and was rebooted in order to update a device driver. The video clip played on.

    My take on this (having never heard of it before I saw the IDF demo) was some sort of hardware-assisted VM. It is definitely nothing to do with multicore, as another Intel compatriot noted here.

    You can read the transcript of Paul Otellini's Keynote where he presented Vanderpool at http://www.intel.com/idf/us/fall2003/conf_info/key notespeakers.htm#tuesday

    I don't know if there were specific presentations on Vanderpool Technology at IDF - if there were, you'll be able to find them at http://www.intel.com/idf/us/fall2003/index.htm after November 2.

  • Not necessarily Multi-core (Score:3, Informative)

    by akuma(x86) ( 224898 ) on Monday October 06, 2003 @05:16PM (#7147439)
    Vanderpool technology is not tied to a multi-core implementation. It's a set of extensions to x86 that make virtualization easier.

    Currently, programs like VMWare need to play some extremely ugly tricks to get virtualization to work due to various issues with x86. This technology will make life easier for those wanting to virtualize the CPU.

    So, just to be clear... Vanderpool and multicore are completely orthogonal.

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