Thinkpads Forum

http://www.andlinux.org/

Please dont badger me for posting this - running linux on windows seems like a crazy idea, but sometimes I am in windows and I dont want to reboot to do something in linux and reboot again to windows. Virtual machines are another option, but this is just as nice (virtualization, not emulation).

It is probably worth a try. I would observe, however, that VMware is not an "emulator" as the article suggests. It is a true virtualization application done in software (rather than newer virtulization hardware which I have not yet used). So either this way or VMware should do what you want. VMware is how I run Linux (a half dozen flavours of it for comparison), and then any other Windows system (to provide a complete application suite other than XP in order to support clients). ... JDH

Thanks Sri!

Although not the same but there is another way of running Ubuntu on a Windows machine without risking the Windows installation. This method installs Linux OS as a single loopmounted file in the Windows and boots the machine into Linux.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/install.exe

Now I wish some group would port KDE desktop to Windows as well.

I agree with JD that virtualization works well. I like virtualbox. it works fast, it's stable and it's free. It also has a few features the competition doesn't like virtual RDP.

hmm this seems quite interesing, im gonna give it a try. for some reason i never liked VMware, maybe this is going to change it. hopefully there will be a way to install linux applications as well...

VMWare Workstation uses the hardware extension provided by newer intel processors. I use it on linux to run Windows (this way windows doesn't have hardware access to my machine )

ah ok, it's based on colinux. yeah, a few years ago it was realized that since you can run just about any crazy thing as a driver in ring 0 (this is just so wrong and unsafe, thanks ms!) why not run a linux kernel. there is also some interesting tie-in to wine/reactos*.

as for hardware extensions, any machine I have tried with vanderpool or pacifica actually slows down virtual environments with them turned on! virtualbox is good stuff in any case.

kde4+qt4 definitely runs on windows & mac. oh how I will love to see konqueror running natively in xp... not to mention k3b, digikam, ktorrent, etc...

*man, some day I would love to run only a 64-bit reactos and never again ms windows... of course, on that day wine will do all you'd ever want too...

Let me preface this with the comment that this will be my first foray into the world of Linux, but it appears that I have a need for it and I don't want to dual boot with Vista 64-bit, which I'm currently running.

How does this walkthrough seem to the more experienced Linux users here?

It gets Ubuntu 6.10 running on Vista using MS Virtual PC 2007, doesn't seem to take that much system resources (I have 4 GB RAM and a 7K200 so I should have enough), and allows room for upgrades and installation of applications. Also fixes the color depth incompatibility problems, and it seems to be a pretty comprehensive connect-the-dots style guide for the real Linux tyro like me.

Here's why I need Linux running in Vista:
I need access to some 64-bit optimized programs for work, so I'm running Vista 64-bit finally (the programs aren't available for other OS's yet). However, the particular provider of our VPN client will not release a version for Vista 64-bit anytime soon, so I'm out of luck as far as remotely connecting to my research networks/resources goes.

I want to install Linux on the Vista Virtual PC, and get a supported Linux VPN client running on that to connect, and also be able to finally try out Linux. Does any of this sound reasonable? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated, and forgive my ignorance.

I'm currently downloading the necessary install files, and would like to give it a try tomorrow, unless someone points out that this is patently absurd. Otherwise I'll post my results soon, hopefully.

Well I decided that I'd rather run XP Pro 32 as a virtual PC on my machine, rather than Linux. Most people in the kind of environments I work in run XP as opposed to Linux, so this gives me greater flexibility to test out applications, as well as retain full backwards compatibility. VPN seems to be running now without a hitch, so I guess my problem is solved.

It worked very well for me, andLinux is a great tool for those of you that must use Windows.

I just can't go to sleep with Windows running directly on my hardware, it sucks.

tylerwylie wrote:<snip>
I just can't go to sleep with Windows running directly on my hardware, it sucks.

Please say why? Windows has not failed me, crashed or broken in nearly 10 years. And that now includes Vista (although I like XP better).

Why do you people always say Windows sucks when there is nothing wrong with it?

I mean, if you just don't care for it, that's fine. But you make it sound like you cannot make it work.
... JDH

I got it to work, if you can call it that.

It took a lot of tweaking, to get it to not shorten the lifespan of my hard drive, etcetera. Vista is a step in the right direction, but I never understood why XP was so hard to maintain the same level of performance as a fresh install, or why it was lacking lots of basic security features before SP2.

I do say this as I have spent much more time on a computer using Linux instead of Windows though, I'm more familiar with it and it's little quirks, and much prefer the VMWare Workstation solution to accessing needed functions in Windows than relying on it to drive my whole PC. This is just my perspective. Someone more familiar with Windows might say the opposite, and to those people I do recommend andLinux if they want to get a taste.

carbon_unit wrote:I agree with JD that virtualization works well. I like virtualbox. it works fast, it's stable and it's free. It also has a few features the competition doesn't like virtual RDP.

+1