On Thursday, September 19, 2002, at 06:55 AM, Peter Montagner wrote: IIRC, this would be a fair bit of work. Loading an environment off another /Users directory shouldn't be that hard. Getting Unix privileges right could be a lot harder. Suppose the second OSX install has a user that the boot install doesn't have. What happens? That user wont be in the netinfo database or anything. You could try merging multiple netinfo databases on boot, I don't know if that's possible (not an expert in netinfo). Also, what if a user on one install has the same UID as another different user on another install. Privileges would be pretty broken. OTOH, if you have the requirement that only users on other drives also on the boot system appear, it may work. But, AFAIK that would only work if the UIDs were also the same (ie. you created them in the same order). I'm not saying any of this is impossible but I think Mac OS X would fight you every inch of the way, unless you make some restrictions. Actually, none of the restrictions are that bad. I think the main point was to run different versions of OSX, right? In that case you'd really have to run off a different /System folder and possibly put the kernel into some kind of old version compatibility mode. I'd just restart ;-) LOL. It sounds like you would rather not even think about the problem. :-) Some of what you are saying sounds like authenticating a user from a different system to run on "this" system. That is not what I was thinking. I was thinking of using a single login panel as a way to log into other system. Think of it as booting "this" system, picking a user on another system, restarting, autologin to that user on that system... without the restart and the autologin. :-) The best (only?) way I can think of avoiding the restart is to run the other system off of the currently loaded kernel, drivers, etc. It is really just a convenience feature for the users (and us who probably switch between systems more than average users). The current method forces us to pick a system (thru Startup Disk) first, then a user. If we could pick a system and a user at the same time, we would be more productive, we could work hard and faster on our killer apps that would propel the Mac to the top! (Hint, hint, Apple :-) BTW, so, do we currently have a kernel that can emulate older versions? And drivers, etc.? -Bernie Peter On Thursday, September 19, 2002, at 08:35 AM, Bernie Zenis wrote: Hi, Is everything before the login panel Open Source? I want to know because I am trying to think of ways that Apple might implement an idea. The idea is to have a single login panel allow you to login to any account on any Mac OS X version on any disk/partition in your Mac. At first, this seems really hard because the OS is partially (or fully?) loaded by the time you get to the login panel. However, if everything before the login panel is Open Source, then it seems more possible. Or would it not really be possible because too much earlier software might not work with the latest kernel, etc.? Thanks, Bernie _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.