From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 30 23:03:05 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C9D2106566B for ; Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cwhiteh@onetel.com) Received: from april.london.02.net (april.london.02.net [87.194.255.143]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BBF918FC19 for ; Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muji2.config (87.194.237.233) by april.london.02.net (8.5.140) id 4E261E7203556C0A for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:52:06 +0000 Message-ID: <4EADD515.7020800@onetel.com> Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:52:05 +0000 From: Chris Whitehouse User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100924 Thunderbird/3.1.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4EAD2070.3020903@aboutsupport.com> In-Reply-To: <4EAD2070.3020903@aboutsupport.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] Solution for school lab X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:05 -0000 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