Possible to have 32bit and 64bit OS installed at the same time?

[Ravioli]

Right now i have 32bit XP installed, but i was thinking of installing either 64bit XP or Vista (so i can use the full potential of my processor). I would prefer Vista because of DX10 but is there any difference between Vista and XP when it comes to 64bit?

Also, i dont want to delete my current OS, so is it possible to install 64bit as a separate OS? I heard that people can choose which OS to boot when they start their PC, can someone explain more on this?

Also, i have two 80gb hard drives, does each OS have to be on a different hard drive?

thanks, hope you can answer these questions.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64bit 3.0ghz 6000+

 

[Kyorisu]

I'm sure you could install on the same partition but that's probably not a good idea. You can either install Vista on the other HDD or onto a separate partition (google is your friend). When vista installs it will detect the other windows instance and set both up in the bootloader.

 

[DevgruSeal]

I have Windows XP Home (32-bit), Ubuntu 7.04 32-bit, and Sabayon Linux 64-bit installed on my hard-drives.

Actually, XP is on one drive, and Ubuntu and Sabayon on 2 consecutive partitions on another hard-drive.

So yes, it's certainly possible to have different bit-versions installed on the same machine.

I would suggest starting with an empty drive, and setup a partition. I've not done much partitioning with existing data on the drive much, so I don't know how well the outcome turns out doing it that way.

Then install the 64-bit version operating system on that partition. It will usually create it's own booting data. I would say to add in the XP loading information from boot.ini, but Vista uses a different boot loader than XP does, so it's not as easy to add XP to Vista's bootloader, if I recall correectly.

..That's my explanation, anyway.

 

[Kyorisu]

Ah Sabayon the lazy mans Gentoo. Recompiled the whole system yet?

 

[DevgruSeal]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Firstly, I'm a linux newb. Secondly, I'm just trying it out to find which distro I like best.

 

[Kyorisu]

We'll I'd just suggest sticking with Sabayon as it is basically Gentoo which is for Ricers so your set. The main difference;

Sabayon Linux differs from Gentoo in that instead of installing the entire system from source code, the initial install is made using packages which are pre-compiled and bundled with the source code. Sabayon Linux currently supports the x86 and x86-64 platforms.

Sabayon Linux uses the Portage system from Gentoo for package management, meaning that all updates and base characteristics are in sync with Gentoo's portage tree and other mechanisms; thus a user can follow guides and articles written for Gentoo users. However, "world updates" are discouraged for beginners or those new to the parent distribution, as the structure is a little different and requires a slightly different method of execution. A guide has been written by a Sabayon Linux developer on how to do global updates and recompilation of all packages.