http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/beginners-guide-run-linux-like-any-other-program-in-windows.html

Have you tried this? I am still trying to understand it.

Trout,


OK, It seems pretty straight forward. Basically what you are doing is running a Linux on a Windows PC suing what is called emulation software. In this case the emulation software is VMWARE.

This allows you to try out a Linux distribution without having to reformat your machine. If you decide you like the Linux flavor you installed (On your Windows PC) you can later reformat to and install it permanently. There's pros and cons to running Linux under emulation software on a windows machine.

As a Pro: You can try out different flavors of Linux without actually reformatting your Windows machine. When you find a distribution you like, you can then reformat your machine and permanently install it doing away with windows completely.

As a Con: Windows tends to fragment files and although you don't have to worry about things like disk fragmentation with native Linux, when you run Linux under emulation (with Windows), you will still get fragmentation.


Many people who choose to run both operating systems create a dual-boot system where you have an NTFS file system and windows on one partition and a EXT3 file system on another. When booting up the user will have a choice of what operating system to use and each system (Linux or Windows) will operate in it's native environment (without the need emulation).


I really don't see the need to ever install and run Linux in manner described in the Wiki but if you want to give it a shot and keep it simple, check out: http://wubi-installer.org/ This will allow you install and try Ubuntu Linux on your windows machine without reformatting. Should you decide you don't like it.. there is a simple one click uninstall option.

Alternately:
You may want to download a Live CD and try out Linux that way.
It's quick, easy and doesnt require any work. You just plop the CD in your PC and boot up. Everything will run in RAM and there will be no changes to your hard drive at all. If you like what you see you can then later do install the software onto your hard drive. Keep in mind that Linux will run a better/faster in it's native environment versus running under any type of emulation.


After permanently installing Linux on your PC if you run into a situation where you need to run a windows program because you are unable to find a free Linux alternative simply install WINE or another windows emulator and run the program that way. Afterward, if there's a windows program you really miss and cant find a free Linux alternative, you can always download a windows emulator like WINE and run you windows program using windows emulation.


If you have any questions or if there is something I can do to help out just let me know.


Kind regards,
Richie

Great stuff Ritchie_NY_69!
I just couldn't resist the urge to add, though.

> Keep in mind that Linux will run a better/faster in it's native environment versus running under any type of emulation.

That includes running from a live cd. It's a great way to play with a linux distro but is much slower than having it on the hard drive.

Another con to emulation on windows is poor memory management. If your emulator starts swapping, it's going to be painful.

Good luck and have fun, RainbowTrout!

IMHO: I agree, live CD is the simplest way...

you may also want to checkout www.virtualbox.org.... as an alternative to VMware...

Have fun! :)

I am running Ubuntu 10.4 on one hard drive and Windows XP on another hard drive. I like both operating systems for different reasons. This is the part that interests me:

Sharing files between Linux and Windows
Using Linux on Windows will be much more helpful if you can share files between Linux and Windows. This process is really easy to set up. The first thing you need to do is to create a “New Folder” on your Windows desktop. Right click on the folder and choose “Sharing and Security…”. On the following screen, choose “Share this folder on the network” and “Allow network users to change my files.” This will let Linux read and write to the folder.

In Linux, go to Places >> Network Servers and you should see your computer. Double click on your computer and you will see all your shared folders. Any data you would like to be used in both Linux and Windows should be saved into this folder.

If I already have Linux and Windows do I need the vmware to share between the two operating systems?

This isn't always true - the running linux from a liveCD is slower than a harddrive. I don't have references, and don't remember exactly which versions support this - but many distros use a bootloader that supports the "load entire disk into memory" feature. After the initial boot up, the OS runs far, far *faster* than running off of the hard drive.

Of course, this depends on having enough extra ram for the purpose...but since the live *cd* is limited to 700 or so mb, and most computers these days have at least 2gb ram, this is often not an issue.

Some live CDs so nice and light they work even on ram challenged machines.
Rehabbed an old coppermine dell laptop with puppy for my kids to
use and it runs great for them out of about 256 meg!

I'm sure there are many other similar stories/flavors.

What's nice about puppy is it comes with flash enabled seamonkey,
runs youtube and graphics oriented kids sites, runs some decent
sound and is easy as pie.

Life was never the same since Knoppix.

VMWare and Virtualbox are virtualization systems allowing you to run a operation system over another operation system. LiveCD is good way to test out Linux without touching your hard drive. You can also install linux distributions like ubuntu from windows just like any other application, this just creates small partition for the linux and then you can boot into either the windows or linux system.

Virtualbox is a new one on me. Thanks. I am checking that out. About the only thing keeping me having XP on the one hard drive is the downloader on RealPlayer. I am glad this Ubuntu 10.4 is almost dummy proof. I only had to reinstall it once. The best gift my dad ever left me was this anvil. I have had it ten years now and I still haven't broken it. Its even has passed my best hammer test.

This sounds like what we used to do on Macs in OS 9 ... create a 'RAM disk' that ran on Virtual Memory. Helluva lot faster than the internal HD, but if you didn't save your work to the PHYSICAL hard drive, you were screwed so bad ... As for the 'emulation' thing, I've never known software to run as well in 'emu' mode as it does in 'installed' mode ... it's just more of a problem to 'uninstall' if it doesn't come with its own uninstaller ...

ur virtual machine will still be windows

I would recommend running it from ur cd drive or putting on either an internal/external secondary HD - u wont need much space for linux and since it's free the 2nd is ur only cost

plus if u dont have a 2ndary HD for file back ups, you should

doesnt matter

I would recommend running it from ur cd drive or putting on either an internal/external secondary HD - u wont need much space for linux and since it's free the 2nd is ur only cost

plus if u dont have a 2ndary HD for file back ups, you should