I enjoyed the format of PC World’s recent OS Smackdown. Rather than doing a smattering of tests that many of us have seen before, the publication asked four experts on four operating systems, respectively–Linux, Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows XP–to expound on why their operating systems beat the others. Not surprisingly, superlatives such as “all you need in one dynamite package” rose to the top of the arguments. But there was surprisingly little consideration given to running many operating systems concurrently.

In this post, I’ll defend this idea. For several reasons, it seems like the time is more right than ever, and the issue is relevant to web workers.
The tools for running multiple operating systems concurrently are widely available, of course. There are people on this blog who run Windows on a Mac using Boot Camp. Likewise, virtualization tools can make it a snap to run Linux on Mac or Windows systems.
If you go the virtualization route, of course, the emulation you’re depending on calls for adequate system resources so you don’t end up with compromised performance. However, I suspect most readers of this blog aren’t working with stripped-down hardware. If you’re not, you can expand the number and types of applications you use tremendously through virtualization and multiple operating systems.
Beyond these solutions, though, I’ve come to use multiple operating systems on multiple machines over the years. At home, I have a MacBook, several PCs running various versions of Windows, and an Asus Eee PC running Linux–all hanging off a Wi-Fi network.
The Asus system is a good, lightweight machine for browsing, e-mail and writing all around the house. I tend to use the Mac for graphics- and video-focused tasks, and I keep PCs around because I have more background with applications for Windows than I do for any other platform.
The bottom line is all these platforms are useful. How many do you use?
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