How many OS's?

[sagnik]

Hi,
I started using linux about five months ago (mostly because I am strongly anti-windows), I started of with sabayon but then it's crazy, the number of distros which exist. I ended up trying to install every every version of linux I could lay my hands on (It's just too tempting) but of course I didn't succeed in installing more than 4 os's. I would like to know how many os's it's practically possible to install. I have 160GB of space to spare. Thanks in advance.

[techieMoe]

Well, let's just do some quick math. An average full-size distribution needs between 2 and 5 gigabytes for the root partition. Assuming you shared one swap partition of 1GB (more than enough for most any system), you could in theory install around 30 distributions.

Now you'll likely run into a hardware limit on how many partitions your harddrive will let itself be divided into well before that. I guess my question would be why on earth would you do it? You can't possibly make use of 30 distributions on one machine unless you just swap to a different one every day of the month and carry your personal files around on a USB stick.

[carlosponti]

there was a posting or two going around where a guy installed over 100 OS's on one PC. The Os's Generally involved were Windows Linux and Unix. But I think he had to do some trickery to get all the OS's to get along.

[sagnik]

Why on earth I would do it? There's no good reason actually. I was just a little crazy about the whole thing and wanted to try all the distros to find the one I liked. As you said my hard disk didn't allow more partitions and it caused some trouble. I think I'll just be happy with sabayon (it's still my favourite). Thanks for the information.

[sagnik]

Man, I wish I could do that. But as TechieMoe said, it doesn't make much sense. Thanks.

[oz]

I was just a little crazy about the whole thing and wanted to try all the distros to find the one I liked.

Welcome to the forums!

Better in my opinion to try them one or two at a time rather than load your box with 20 or 30 different distros at once. Just my opinion, though.

Hope it turns into a great adventure for you.

[sagnik]

You bet. But I actually never managed to install more than four OS's at a time though I had saved the space for more and I screwed things up after that. I'll partition my disk more sensibly now that I've learnt my lesson! Many thanks.

[carlosponti]

or you can do it for the challenge same reason people do alot of nutty things just because it was there to be done.

[sagnik]

Shouldn't have used the word 'challenge', you've got me going again. I'll reply back once I've got about 25 OS's installed.ha ha.

[elija]

Don't use primary partitions, use and extended one and divide it into multiple logical partitions. That gets round the four partition limit