write state to swap for multi-os boot

[Bill Moran]

Eric Kjeldergaard <kjelderg at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > Has anyone considered or accomplished allowing FreeBSD to write it's
> > > current state (including window manager, windows, etc) to swap and
> > > allowing a subsequent reload of the system to last state? This would be
> > > sort of like the sleep mode of a laptop, but would allow the user to boot
> > > into another OS (like Winblows) briefly and then resume their FreeBSD
> > > system state. I'd love to use FreeBSD as my primary desktop, but there may
> > > be times where I'll need to boot into Windows for apps that don't run
> > > under Wine. Since I tend to have a lot of application windows open, it's a
> > > PITA to have to reload everything on boot. Thoughts?
> > 
> > This isn't a direct answer to your question, but you might want to have
> > a look at vmware.
> 
> vmware and qemu (open source semi-alternative) are good ways to
> accomplish booting Windows from inside of FreeBSD.

Actually, not really, as I've been unable to make modern versions of
VMWare work on FreeBSD.

But it's a great way to boot Linux under Windows, or FreeBSD under
either, or have multiple OSes running simultaneously under a single
computer.

>  What you want,
> however, is something that has been on the wishlist for a little while
> now.  Suspend-to-RAM has been around and works fine for a while, but
> Suspend-to-disc (which Linux currently has) is yet to be written. 
> There have been suggestions of saving the RAM to swap space and
> shutting down.  I hope to see someone put this into action soon.  It'd
> be a great feature.  (Especially for mobiles)

I agree that it would be a great feature.  I was just offering a potential
alternative until it's written.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com