Novell: Ask Microsoft About Windows/Linux Desktop Co-existence

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-02-25 18:08:21 UTC
Modified: 2009-02-25 18:09:30 UTC

Marionette attitude

Novell marionette

SINCE his appointment [1, 2, 3], Sean McCarry has had a couple of opportunities to speak to the British press. He last did this a week ago when he was asked hard questions and this week he faces some more questions, some of which are harder to address than others. For example:

If you create a dual boot Microsoft/Linux desktop, by installing Windows then Linux, Linux will recognise the Windows OS, if you install Linux first and then Windows, Windows won’t recognize Linux, do you think that will change at some point?

I can't comment on the desktop, but in the datacentre Novell SLES can act as the host or the guest operating system for Windows Server 2008. So I think we're really strong in the datacentre with the Microsoft relationship, but you'd have to ask Microsoft about their desktop strategy for Windows/Linux co-existence.

Nothing has changed. Vista 7 sabotages GNU/Linux-installed MBRs (master boot records). Microsoft just refuses to live in harmony with competition. So why is Novell so gullible that it walks into Microsoft's badroom[sic]? ⬆

“This is WAR, and in that regard, I believe we should design Janus such that if this multiboot partition (has a unique partition number (11)) is found, we should warn the user a foreign OS has been detected, give them a chance to exit and read the docs and possibly make a backup, and then repartition the disk, removing the multiboot partition. This way, we disable OS/2 2.0 in *all* cases.”

--Microsoft [PDF]

Comments

Myfraudsoft

2009-02-25 18:56:36

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi This is the fighting stage.
Dan O'Brian

2009-02-25 23:29:51

This isn't the "fighting stage", this is the way installing OS's has always worked. They've always overwritten the MBR (even Linux does this).

You guys act as if it destroys the Linux partitions (it doesn't).

The difference is that Grub/LILO give you a boot menu (whereas bootloaders for most other OS's don't).

You guys make mountains out of mole-hills.
Myfraudsoft

2009-02-26 00:05:36

But I am not worried at all by Vista 7 joke, because it is still vapourware and it will continue to be so during this and the following year. Maybe, only maybe, MS will release it in 2011. On the other hand, Linux is here now, and it is usable, and it just works.

Novell: Ask Microsoft About Windows/Linux Desktop Co-existence

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