Cupertino (CA) - With the rollout of the new Core Duo-based iMacs under way, and MacBook Pro notebooks close behind, a new preoccupation among some developers is how to make it run operating systems other than Mac OS X 10.4.4.

In a recent statement to CNET News.com, a Red Hat spokesperson confirmed it is working on a build that could be installed on the Mac OS. Whether the build is intended to be deployed in a dual-boot environment, was not revealed. But one might wonder, what would be the advantage in rendering a Macintosh incapable of running Mac OS ?

In our interview with Apple’s Tom Boger last week, it was confirmed the company is not opposed to anyone running Windows or any other operating system running on their new computers. They’re a little puzzled as to why, but they’re not going to stop people from trying. One of the roadblocks to experimenters installing Windows, for instance, in a dual-boot environment on a Mac, has been said to be the fact that Macintoshes don’t have a BIOS - a point which we touched on last week. Instead, Apple uses Intel’s Extensible Firmware Interface technology, originally designed for use on Itanium systems.

However, it’s worth noting that there are versions of Windows that do run on Itanium systems. Granted, they expect Itanium processors, but they do prove that not all Windows versions require a BIOS.

Adding some fuel to the fire for the dual-boot challenge, a blogger named Colin Nederkoorn has offered a $5,747 cash reward (when last we checked) to the first person who successfully installs Windows on an Intel-based Mac. There are several reasons, Nederkoorn says on his blog, for wanting a computer to run two operating systems. He needs Windows, he said, to be able to utilize a Microsoft Access database (an industry standard), and also to be able to take advantage of Windows file sharing. Frankly, that will be difficult on a dual-boot system anyway. But one reason he wants to also run Mac OS ? So he can run XWindow in an emulator. Perhaps the Red Hat spokesperson can help him solve that problem, and maybe even save the six thousand bucks.