On Wed, Jun 22, 2005 at 05:15:43PM +0200, Zeljko Vrba wrote:
> Does this idea I've just written make any sense? Is it at least
> theoretically possible to do? If not, why? Has it already been done?

Yes. Yes. See below. Yes and no.

The problem with this approach is that most architectures and hardware
devices completely lack virtualisation support. That means you can't
enforce that the OS running on CPU #2 only accesses the memory it has
been assigned. You can't ensure that it can't program e.g. the ATA
controller to read / write only its assigned memory. That means the
second OS can run havoc and kill your first.

The situation is different e.g. on IBM's AS400 or S/390 platforms
(i-series and z-series in new speach). There proper hardware support
exists and you can run with (almost) zero wrapper OS support.
Search for logical partitions for more details.

Joerg