The Triple Boot System

Keetz posed the idea of installing three operating systems on a single Intel-chipped box.

I have reprinted the entry here:

The Big Three? On One Box? Consider the Possibilities... The triple boot system
With the latest, or a couple months ago, Apple announcing that they are going to the Pentium processor, will this make a TRIPLE BOOT SYSTEM possible? Would it now be possible to have Microsoft, Linux, and now Apple on one home system? Everything that I know and the other people in the industry I have spoke with say yes. This brings me to the waiting release of Vista and will Microsoft try to do something to prevent this? Or will Jobs try the same? Or is it really that big of a threat? I would guess that a Microsoft or Apple warranty will soon have a clause that states if the other one is detected on the system that it is void. This is all just a guess and straight out of my strange head. If you know more about this subject PLEASE COMMENT and let me know. Also I have not found any articles on the subject, if you know of one please send me the link.

Keetz

The following is my comment on his postulation:

Before I begin, I have encountered many non-Mac folk talking about “Oh-Ess Ecks.” That really gives a person away as being an ignorant outsider. Just so none of you gentle readers find yourselves in such an unlikable category, the correct pronunciation of the Roman-numeral operating system OS X is: “Oh-Ess Ten.”

Now, several articles provide useful clues to the future of a triple boot system. According to the Mac on Intel site, “Apple is not porting OS X to the PC.” Nor are they likely to anytime soon. What Apple IS doing is porting OS X to an Intel chip running in a Macintosh. To ensure this a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is apparently being added to Intel-based Macs. If the installer and/or OS does not detect the module, further progress runs into a brick wall. Hackers have already broken this tactic for developer editions and installed OS X on plain vanilla PCs. The production versions are likely to be more robust, however, perhaps even including a variation on Windows’ and Adobe’s online activation scheme.

A ThinkSecret article gives a first look at the development hardware already in use and even shows a photo of XP running on the Mac hardware. More links are collected at another Mac on Intel article.

John Siracusa, the Ars Technica contributor who has written the best in-depth OS X reviews imaginable, adds his two cents about Macs on Intel in Picking up the Pieces and in Empire .

Finally, Mac on Intel ran an article which led me to a guide for setting up a developer Mac which will boot Mac OS X, Windows XP and CentOS on the same box. That guide has been removed at Apple’s request.

What does all this mean?

Triple boot systems will be the sole domain of hackers and uber-geeks for many years to come. Until Apple feels it can make the same profits without selling hardware, the situation is unlikely to change. My opinion only. Worth what you just paid for it, more or less.