the way i understand it hibernating an OS dumps ram to a file and powers off, so could it be possible to run two OSs “simultaneously” by alternating between hibernations?
Probably easier to just run one, or both, as a VM.
i know i was asking if it was theoretically possible
It would seriously stretch the meaning of the word “simultaneously”, but yeah, sure.
in theory, I think you would also need a shared component that enforces the alternating “rules” that both OS understands.
that component also needs to be always awake so it will facilitate hand overs like an OS of OSes.
I think that would just be a hypervisor
They sold laptops with this feature at one time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5M0TwnkWUM&list=PLec1d3OBbZ8IBeFODHXLy0m0okuZhqJnT
This entire series by Cathode Ray Dude is a wonderful dive into the world of PC boot sequence, for the folks interested in a touch of embedded architecture. His delivery is also on-point, given the complexity and obscurity of the topics.
From this video alone (41:15):
The way this worked was: they installed Xen hypervisor on your PC, put Hyperspace in a VM and Windows in another. Now, you either know what a VM is – and I don’t need to explain why this is terrifying – or you don’t and I need to make you understand so you never independently invent this.
And (43:59):
This is just a bad idea, ok? Virtualization belongs in data centers. Putting some poor bastard’s whole OS in a VM is a prank. It’s some Truman Show shit. It’s disassembling the coach’s car and putting it back together inside the gym. It’s not remotely worth the trouble and it probably didn’t work.
Its not something ive come across but its almost like youre describing hotswapping Operating Systems?
Someone else mentioned this, but your likely best bet is to have virtual machines instead. If you need windows on occasion but use linux as your daily driver, use a VM on the linux host?
If its more for like gaming and such, youll be able to do VMs still but you will likely need an additional GPU - a bogstandard one just for video output for the host, and then the main GPU is “given” to the VM to use
You would be basically making virtual machines at that point.
Isn’t that basically what passthrough does?
VFIO is your friend here.
