So many operating systems, so little time. Plenty of people want to experiment with BeOS, Windows 2000, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, various Linux distributions, and other Intel-compatible systems. The problem is, most can"t afford an extra computer for test-driving operating systems, and can"t tolerate losing access to bread-and-butter applications (probably running on Windows 98 or Windows NT 4) either. Multiboot systems, which allow a user to choose which of several installed systems to run at start-up time, are the answer. The Multi-Boot Configuration Handbook spills the beans on getting more than one system to run on a given computer. The book takes a very detailed look at what happens multiple operating systems are installed on a single computer, and offers explicit advice on how to get various combinations of systems to coexist peacefully. It also goes into considerable detail on the utilities for setting up multiple partitions (including Microsoft"s Fdisk, Linux"s fdisk, and PowerQuest"s PartitionMagic) and others that manage the selection process. More importantly, The Multi-Boot Configuration Handbook explains the operational similarities and differences between almost a dozen popular operating systems, focusing especially on their file systems. Readers can learn which systems can access data on which other systems" partitions, and find out about utilities that work in multiple environments. With its extensive technical detail and solid grounding in the text"s example experiments, this is the definitive work on building and maintaining a multiple-boot system. --David Wall Topics covered: Creation, maintenance, and expansion of multiple-boot systems on Intel-compatible personal computers. The attractions of multiboot systems, utilities for disk partitioning and system selection, and the process of installing various operating systems consecutively are explained. The also book outlines the differences and similarities in operating systems" file systems and other infrastructure, plus utilities and adapters that allow diverse systems to share files and otherwise work together.