[OFFTOPIC] Solution for school lab

[Chris Whitehouse]

On 30/10/2011 10:01, Peter wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am about to setup a small PC lab for teaching operating systems. Since
> computers will need to be used for teaching
> Windows/Unix(FreeBsd)/Linux(Novell) I need to find a way:
>
> 1. Systems to coexists on the same hardware
> 2. Easily restore system images to the initial state.
>

1) A very robust if slightly more expensive way is a separate disk for 
each OS. Many more recent (last 3 or 4 years?) motherboards have an 
option during POST to choose a boot device so you don't need to go into 
the BIOS setup screens.

This system has the advantage that OS's are completely separate from 
each other.

2) Clonezilla.

(Not very relevant aside... Back in the day of pentium 1's and 2 dual 
channel IDE controllers I solved this same problem with 3 hard disks, 
each set to be master, on a home made IDE cable with an extra connector 
so the three disks were plugged into the primary controller, and a 3 
position rotary switch so only one disk would power up at a time. It 
took a bit of experimentation to find three disks that could coexist but 
it worked really well as long as one didn't switch over while the 
machine was on. I think I had FreeBSD, Windows and Netware).

Chris