Hello,

Arent you tired of seeing high number of cycles of the CPU just to run DOS/windows 95/windows 98 under Linux (like qemu,virtualbox, vmware...)?

Cannot we let them both cohexist in the memory/ram and halt one, to get normal speed. Linux has its kernel, but we could maybe boot up both systems at the same time.

Linux takes almost nothing and windows 98se either, as ressources.

--
Be Clever, choose Linux !

I think that it isn't possible. W98 stands relatively close to MS-DOS, and both(Win/Lin) of them need direct hardware access (irq, etc) at some point. And how are you going to keep them both from overwriting each other's memory?

I think that best solution in this case would be using multicore CPU - give one core for the host OS, and other core/cores - for guest OS, where guest OS run with help of emulation software. So first core is busy with system tasks and emulating hardware for the guest, while guest will take full power of other cores. This would be more realistic, IMO.

EDIT:
Also, as I know, certain CPUs have some kind of support for "virtualization". Also, several virtual machines (VMWare, at least) offer some kind functionality, where CPU isn't emulated by machine but somehow used directly, so emulated OS will work faster. Last time I've tried this feature, though, it didn't work for me in neither VMWare nor QEmu (I've been trying running older DOS protected mode games, because they were way too slow in DosBOX. They all kept crashing if "virtualization" was enabled). I must say that this was quite some time ago (a year, at least) so situation might be different now.

so wine won't do ?

Wine doesn't work well for DOS applications.
And he wants to run both OS'es at same time on single machine without emulation software (IF I understood question correctly).

yep
Using that old windows98 that takes very few ressources, somehow in parallel to linux.
(wine is a crashy guy)
Maybe we could "hibernate" the linux when using the windows 98 so that the CPU remains 10pct for simple use ... like at normal spped wihtout "emulation"

Personally, I could not install standalone Win98 on this box as it does not understand the SATA drive.
If you are seeing high CPU usage using Win98 under VirtualBox, install the Rain 2x 2.0 program http://www.majorgeeks.com/download430.html. This implements the CPU halt instruction under Win98, which will cause lower CPU usage for the system.

Isn't Windows 98 no longer receiving security updates from Microsoft, and doesn't it have only administrators (no limited users)?

yeah but who cares, it is just to run old cdroms of games and encyclopedia ... and stuffs and dictionaries

There is also a version of windows for old machines, caldera no? I dont know. I just would like to have alternative to wine & virtualbox, that simply works with old windows 95/98 type and dont eat my CPU (my fan makes more noice now, dont know why on that old notebook 1.5ghz centrino)

WINE = Windows 32/64 programs
Dosbox = Perfect DOS emulation (if configured properly with the right system) for higher end DOS games on lower end system use DOSEMU.

You don't even need to use the programs either, if you configure the misc binary support and tell the kernel where the interparater is for each file format you can call the program just from a shell.

And with what can I install cdroms of encyclopedia, microsoft office ... ?

Forget crossover/wine, it is buggy as crap and a big loss of time ...

Let me explain.
At lowest level OS communicates with hardware via Interrupts and/or port I/O. And OS assumes that it is the only sole thing that has access to hardware, since such communication type is most low-level, most direct, and nothing should inerfere with this process.
You ask for a way to install two different OS'es on a single computer, where they both will have low level access to all hardware. I.e. they'll try to read disks at same time, they'll try to draw on the screen at same time, they'll try to access RAM, keyboard, etc at same time. As you can imagine, this won't work (and even boot). So I'm certain that the only way to run many OS'es (at same time) on a single machine is using "emulation sofware", and there is no other way to do it. You can't simply "hibernate linux so that CPU remains 10pct for simple use", since that requires a process scheduler ("task manager"), which is a part of operating system, and two different systems (especially combo like MS-DOS + Linux)won't be able to use same scheduler, because they work in completely different ways.

Exactly my point. In fact an emulator will do a much worse job than these two programs.

That's not true anymore. It used to be true, but not anymore. Wine has advanced a whole lot recently. Have you tried it ? It's almost 1.0, in fact by the time you read this it will be.

Virtualizers, such as Apple's BootCamp, VMWare and so-on, do have the ability to run arbitrary operating-systems as "guests." They employ special hardware features of the later-generation x86 microprocessors, and therefore (of course) require processor-models that include them.

In a virtual-machine environment, most operations occur natively on the hardware and therefore at native hardware speed. The virtual-machine monitor (VMM) can be as specific as it wishes in determining just what (if any) actual hardware can be "seen" by each guest.

Having said that, though, Windows-9x is a bad system to run these days, simply because it was designed and built for processors that are by-now very old. Modern processors waste a lot of time running them.

And Windows-98 itself "wastes a lot of time" because it busy-waits: it sits in an endless loop waiting for things to happen.

Basically... it's time to shoot "ol' Dobbin" and start using a more modern horse. Really. It's time.

Old operating system sometimes contain software that some people still need but unable to run anymore - especially favorite games. Running things like "Blood" or "Daggerfall" often means trouble on both real hardware (fpr example, new audio chips often don't have MIDI support, which was often available on older sound cards) or emulation software (I wasn't able to run Blood/Daggerfall with most "emulators" until I've upgraded CPU to dual-core. And even now performance isn't smooth enough).

Also, old systems like MS-DOS are still used in some places. (Mostly not in the Home PCs but as a simple OS for certain specialized devices).

Yep, at my old work gagers used to use and MS-DOS program to keep track of parts and other data like if one parts needed to be remachined..etc