[Utilizer]

with so many flavors of Linux I am surprised someone hasn’t come up with a way to allow a family to use the same computer with each having their own OS.

That is what is known as a "Thin Client". Quite useful, actually. Running a 486DX2-120 over ethernet to another machine with a Sempron 1.8GHz running Mepis as the main server. Simple, one of several hooked up to that server, and each machine has its own custom interface with varying levels of access and write capability to the main machine.

[GeronL]

I think it should be possible on the same machine without having to worry about partitions.

[Utilizer]

Ooops! That should be a “486DX4-120”. Then again it could be that one ‘-160’ I was experimenting with... have to open it up and temporarily remove the fan to find out for certain.