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Will Linux For Windows Change The World?
An anonymous reader writes "A month ago, a trial version of a little-known Linux application called 'CoLinux' was released that is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. It's the work of a 21-year-old Israeli computer science student and some Japanese open source programmers; in Israel, analysts are already saying it could help transform the software world." (CoLinux is short for Cooperative Linux; we mentioned this project in January as well.)
Whats the difference between this and Cygwin? Or (though I haven't tried it, MS SFU). Cygwin seems to run extremely fast and reliably already. Of course, Cygwin doesn't run executables other than standard Windows EXEs, but what isn't available for Cygwin (or natively on Windows) already? This seems like a project to run Linux for the sake of Linux
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It's about time someone thought of doing this.
The NT(2000/XP) kernel has had the ability to run other native applications for a while.
It sounds like they are going the same way that Win16/WOW, OS/2 and Posix apps currently get run in Windows. There's no reason not to add Linux to this list.
Seems Like what apple has done with Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X
So, the next time your manager is afraid of having a Linux server on the production network, use CoLinux instead?
"As the trend is for Linux to take a more important role in organizations," Shemesh continues, "Aloni's development is extremely interesting. The question is how Microsoft will react and whether it will allow support for Windows systems if they have Linux systems installed on them."
Hmm.. there's an interesting question. Can Microsoft really refuse to support your windows installation if you're running Linux (as an application, even?) Or is this guy just trolling?
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Now imagine a world where you can do the same thing, but it takes 15 seconds to boot, and you don't have to exit the person's applications, log them out, shut down their internet daemons, etc. Walk up to virtually any computer, and you have the full comfort of your standard environment.
With the tiny micro ATX computers available today, you could have two or three machines and a keyboard/video/monitor switch in the space of a standard desktop case. Then you really /can/ run all the OSes you need to, without them comingling. Now that I'm used to having 4 PCs with different OSes handy (FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris x86, Windows), I couldn't imagine running only one computer. What happens when one of them goes down, anyway? It's nice to have backups.
Sorry, you missed out on what I think would be your #0 ...
... and you know what, as long as they support it I don't even care that I don't have the source to the ATI driver).
0.) Driver support from the vendor side
Even if we had directX compatibility we would still be missing video drivers, storage drivers, etc. All of those items, to be a sustainable resource, have to come from the horses mouth (as in I can get my Radeon working with the Open driver, but to get 3D acceleration I need the binary driver from ATI
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Therein lies the problem. To make the situation reversed, where the NT kernel was made to run on top of Linux, one would need access to the source code for the NT Kernel.
What they (i think) did with coLinux was hack Linux to run within the parameters of a loaded NT enviorment. It's like a low level multitasking dance where NT leads and Linux follows.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
User Mode Linux hacker and all-round-cool-dude Dan Shearer has previously mentioned he's interested in porting Linux to the JVM. This would enable you to run native Linux apps on anything than can run a JVM, and also allow you to have multiple OSs on those machines.
Its pretty hard tho - the JVM is nowhere near a complete hardware platform, but it would be possible.
Perhaps if DirectX actually was inferior, and if it wasn't the primary or only API for 90% of the games out there, you'd have a point.
DirectX is great for PC Games - but for real scientific/commercial work it *SUCKS*.
Whenn Boeing dows the next 7E7 fly-though in DirectX, give me a call.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Yes but then it would only run Linux alone. The beauty of this system is that it provides both a social as well as technical solution to the Open Source problem.
The technical solution is that it will allow native Linux applications to run in Windows without the massive overhead of emulation.
The social solution is when some Pointy Head Boss who is taken in by MS FUD about the evils of linux and wants you to write an app in that runs in Windows for a task that you know Linux can preform better.
So what do you do? With coLinux, you can still write the app to run in Linux, then run it on the windows machine with coLinux. So it makes the PHB happy by giving the impression that it's running on Windows, but Linux is actualy doing the work and at the same time you gave Linux a foothold on Windows' terrortory.
So down the road, when MS decides it's time to "Upgrade" you can propose that instead of spending millions on new MS licences, you can show that all the applications that were written to run the business runs perfectly and exactly the same under Linux, and it's time tested since all this while Linux was doing the work, thereby justifying ditching MS altogather.
Why this is good is that it provides a bridge between Windows and Linux. You can demostrate without leaving the Windows enviorment, the power of Linux and at the point where you eventualy make the transition, re-education needs will be minimal as employees will already be familier with using native linux apps.
Finally, a technological fix for a social problem.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
I've seen a number of scattered reasons (above) for running coLinux but here is the scenario I have for using coLinux.
The need to run a linux Distribution from within a Windows box not the need to run Linux applications on a Windows box:
First I want to point out that cygwin will get you a secure shell, gcc, and a number of other biaries, as ported from Linux. But it will not natively behave the same way that Linux does. The primary difference I'm referring to is hardware support and native binary support. It is for this reason that Cygwin will never be as useful to the Linux world as other distributions are. (Contributions back to Linux from Cygwin are not practical.... [Mozilla aside, there are no other good examples of OSS projects where there is a large number of developers porting their software from a Cygwin environ back to Linux]). There are several interesting cases of Linux software being compiled for windows (Xine, Gaim, X, etc) but these programs are not sufficient to be considered a "linux distribution within windows" instead should be considered, Linux apps for windows.
Consider now, my personal usage example, I have had a Linux dist sitting idle on my drive because I sold my second box (power is expensive!), and I needed to develop in MFC (Direct X 9.0) for a course that I was taking (leave linux on one part, install XP on the other). Right now there are several applications and other things that I'm missing from when I had primarily booted Linux, but I can't move away from Windows and still continue my studies (and btw, dual-booting is not an option I'm eager to go back to [takes forever, and I always want that one windows or linux app when I'm in the wrong boot]). So, after this project matures, I will hopefully be able to mount my existing Linux partition, boot my kernel, and access my applications and settings as I left them before, without disturbing my continued study with MFC and Direct X.
A few final points:
1.) XP is not as unstable as everyone here seems to contend, I have had weeks of uptime on my computer at work, as has the other developer who works with me.
2.) Cygwin does not allow developers to comfortably develop Linux apps on windows, and is limited inherently by Windows (terminal width constrained to less than 72 characters, X Windows loads slowly, etc).
3.)There are a number of practical uses for virtual machines but the speed of these systems, their somewhat limited application (hardware) support, and the price of the software ($$$ you would pay a heck of a lot more for VMWare than for Windows XP, buddy) tends to leave something to be desired from that corner of the market.
In conclusion, yeah, coLinux may not change the world, and it may not even turn a few heads, but it certainly could be useful for a number of people such as myself who are looking to get a little bit more Linux out of their Windows boxes.
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
No Windows version.
Can't compile in Cygwin.
Enter coLinux... finally a way to run GnuCash on my Windows laptop.
I am sure there are other programs like this.
It is even possible to run Linux programs in rootless windows so that they appear to be native Windows applications.
DirectX is great for PC Games - but for real scientific/commercial work it *SUCKS*.
Is there a reason why it sucks for such work? I've only done experimental game-related graphics work with both APIs, and although each has its own unique style, I don't really see any major problems of either that would prevent work of any type from being done using it.
I think the real reason why DirectX isn't used for scientific work is because it only works on Windows, and it hasn't been around for as long as OpenGL.
I have a film scanner. The nearest equivilent which *might* have linux drivers is over $1000 more. So, you can see why I don't just buy a different scanner.
So, why not just boot into windows, do my scanning and get out?
Because scanning a roll of film can take hours of off and on work. I don't want to to be stuck with Windows that whole time.
Wine (when it works at all) is of no help. It runs only apps, not drivers. Even VMware, when the host OS is Linux, is of no help.
And I might add that it seems to work too!
/.'ing for once...). There are two distributions "images" available from coLinux, and it sounds like the changes to get any distribution working within coLinux are quite minimal (I think it's mostly setting up the virtualized hardware drivers...).
I happened to be playing with coLinux for the first time this afternoon (beating the
It works easier than I expected. And it really does use regular binares. For instance, I've just installed X and KDE from the regular Debian package repositories.
I tend to think of this as a specialized, i.e. Linux Only, alternative to a VMWARE for Windows license. Free, and moderately easy to install - I'm sure that in time, it'll be a lot easier to setup.
Whaddya bet that MS changes their EULA to make running another OS concurrently a violation of said EULA? I can see that happening judging by their history.
That'd be dumb, since then they'd prevent xbox developers from doing work. It would prevent pocketpc developers from doing work.
If they made an exception for MS OSes, it'd be a very obvious anti-trust move.