Does dual-booting an OS require a dual-core processor?

windows-7 ubuntu mac unix operating-systems

5,148

Solution 1

Your friend does not know what he's talking about.

Dual booting can be done on any computer regardless of CPU.
And dual or triple or quadruple booting will not slow your computer down, it only runs one OS at a time.

Dual booting is when you have multiple OS's installed on the same computer and you choose what OS to boot when you power it up.

The only way dual-booting affects the OS running right now is that the other OS takes some disk space. As long as you have enough disk space for both, you're done.

Solution 2

Your friend is incorrect. Dual booting has nothing to do with anything except the boot commands written to the hard drive.

It doesn't matter how many cores your CPU has, physical or virtual. It doesn't matter how many hard drives you have.

Technically, you can run more than one OS even on the same partition, though this usually only works with OSes of the same type, as in 2 versions of windows.

And if you dual-boot, your computer will not slow down. Installing another OS results in more hard drive space used up, but so long as you have sufficient capacity on your hard drive to fit the other OSes, you won't experience any slowdown related directly to the dual-boot configuration.

However, if you're talking of virtualization, which is where some software "pretends" it's another computer an an OS runs inside that software, yes, a multi-threaded, multi-core cpu is much better, and you'll experience a slowdown.

I recommend you do a little research on the OSes you want to run and why you want to run them, and then decide the best way to go about doing it.

Solution 3

The number of processor cores/register sets (HT) cores does NOT in any way determine the number of OS'es you can set up in a multi boot configuration.

As long as the OS can run on a single core, it wont make any difference.

Solution 4

Central Processing Units (CPUs) which are the processors, or the brains, of your computer. Pretty well everything that is processed in your computer, with the major exception of the video processing, is done inside the CPU. That makes the CPU a very critical part of your system. Generally speaking, the faster your CPU can process the data, the faster your system responds and the less time you spend twiddling your thumbs and watching the hourglass.

There is no relation of dual boot with the dual core. In our institute there are still P4 processor are available and still we use Windows XP and Linux on them.

Users will notice a serious increase in speed when they go to dual-core, even when running applications that are not "multi-threaded". One core will be dedicated to only running the application and the other core will run all the background functions.

You'll see faster response time and generally have a happier computing experience. The only thing is that the processors can increase the performance of software and can boot fast.

Solution 5

Your friend is wrong. In my work laptop I have 2 OS, windows and linux and I access any file in the computer from both. It has no impact in performance. Just have to take care that if you mount a partition in one you or your OS has to unmount it before you move to the other OS or it will inaccessible.

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5,148

user913233

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

user913233 almost 2 years

My friend claims that dual booting, using two different OSes, requires a multi-core or multi-threaded processor. Is this true?

And if I install additional OSes, will my computer slow down any?
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  Please read up a bit on what dual booting is. I think you are mixing up dual boot with virtualization
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  And even then Virtualization does not require you to have more than one processor, it can be done with a single core processor but heavy usage in the virtualized system will affect the host and vice versa.
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  For the "slow down" part, see: Will my computer slow down if I install multiple operating systems?
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  user913233: If one of the posts below answers your question, please mark it as the correct answer using the Checkmark icon just below the vote up/vote down buttons for each post.
MBraedley almost 13 years

Still, for virtualization, it is not necessary for the computer to have a multi-core processor. You'll just have an extremely bad experience.
phihag almost 13 years

+1 for the shortest explanation (i.e. the first sentence)
Konerak almost 13 years

-1 for the first sentence. It is uncalled for.
Sebastian Godelet almost 13 years

how very nice and kind you are
Kibbee almost 13 years

+1 for the first sentence. It's completely true. People should not state things as fact (like requiring dual core for dual boot) if it isn't a fact. I don't even know where someone would have come up with the idea.
user almost 13 years

Actually, "extremely bad" sounds overly harsh. I occasionally run Win7 in a VM on a Debian Linux host, with a single-core Athlon64 CPU, and it's quite workable. It isn't fast, but I wouldn't call the experience "extremely bad" either.
Lie Ryan almost 13 years

are there any OSes that doesn't run on a single core?
Akash almost 13 years

None that I know of
fluffy almost 13 years

What operating system did the Thinking Machines CM-5 run?
ta.speot.is almost 13 years

Extremely bad is an exaggeration.
JdeBP almost 13 years

Dual booting between two operating systems using a single volume isn't restricted to operating systems of the same family. For example: OS/2 had a dual boot mechanism that simply swapped the VBR of a FAT partition between OS/2's own bootstrap program and another operating system's bootstrap program, whatever that happened to be. It didn't matter what the other operating system was, as long as it was capable of running the utility that swapped the VBR programs back again (or had some other tool of its own for doing so).
user913233 almost 13 years

question about accessing file from the other OS, how, easy as 123??
ssube almost 13 years

@user913233 It varies by partition format, but usually there are no problems and the system handles any oddities for you.
ssube almost 13 years

@Heineken Not sure what you mean by needing to unmount partitions before you boot another OS, where is that mentioned in the filesystem/OS requirements? Never had to do that.
Akash almost 13 years

An improper shutdown in Windows 7 sometimes causes NTFS partitions to be inaccessible in Ubuntu for me.
Akash almost 13 years

Assuming that the OP is using consumer grade OS'es would be a valid assumption.
100rabh almost 13 years

You use Linux, not Unix. WTH is dual layer?
avirk almost 13 years

Oh sorry I mistype it and not mind on that thanks for remind me.
avirk almost 13 years

@sathya dual core is also called dual layer.
100rabh almost 13 years

dual core is also called dual layer [citation needed]
avirk almost 13 years

Oh really sorry I was talking about a DVD which could be dual layer its Dual Core. Don't know how was I so wrong to provide this wrong Info. Really apologies .
avirk almost 13 years

@sathya fixed it. If there is anything more to fix you can tell me. Thanks for mentioned me my mistakes.
Ravindra Bawane almost 13 years

@u913233 If this is the best answer, please indicate so by clicking the checkmark next to the vote buttons.
Sverre Rabbelier almost 13 years

+1 for mentioning virtualization, which might have been what his friend was referring to
Saloukai almost 13 years

yes, when a system doesnt propper unmount the partition there are flags that prevent it from other mount.
Konerak almost 13 years

@Kibbee: notice that my comment was at 19:00, which had first line Your friend is an idiot.. The Community Moderator changed this at 19:41 to Your friend does not know what he's talking about, and your comment at 19:44 probably reacted on that. I do agree that people should not state things as a fact if they are not sure, but that is still no reason for namecalling :)