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WinOS+QEMU+Knoppix 3.8 = WinKnoppix!

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-klaus-you-hypnotize-me dept.

chronicon writes "As reported earlier Knoppix 3.8 was presented and CD's distributed at CeBIT recently. For those of us who were not able to attend, some kind folks have posted a torrent for all to enjoy. Now, here's where it really gets interesting. Using QEMU (processor emulator) chris-uk has posted a modified version of Knoppix 3.8 that will run under Windows if auto-played, or if you wish, you can boot the CD for normal Knoppix. You can find the torrent here."

10 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Great, But... by episodic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is the point? What is the point of art? What is the point of music? What is the point of climbing everest? What is the point of spinners? I digress. . . The point is well - hey it is cool! ( I think) :)

  2. hope for good performance by virtualone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i never tried out qemu, but i suspect it to be substantially slower than a native knoppix boot.
    on top of qemu comes the fact, that the whole system runs from a cd, which by itself has bad seek times.

    i hope that people won't get false implessions, because they will get that 'linux runs slower than windows' feeling.

    --
    Only morons moderate based on a sig.
    1. Re:hope for good performance by Anne+Honime · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Qemu is damn fast, in my experience ; I wouldn't dare quantify it, but running win 98 under qemu on a 900 Mhz Athlon is perfectly OK, and it is impressive, quality-wise. Moreover, if host and target cpu are identical, there's a fast version of qemu to avoid unecessary emulations - didn't try that one, though, because it segfaulted on my FC2, and I was happy enough with the regular emulator so I didn't bother to investigate the issue any further (I did the build from CVS, so I expected glitches).

  3. Re:Great, But... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because you can then let people try before they buy without even needing to reboot.

    It just removes one more hurdle. People aren't going to wipe out their system just because the local geek said "its ready for the desktop".

    People need some proof that it really is better.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  4. OP has a torrent by grendel_x86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Holy crap!!! the Poster actually linked a .torrent, maybe all the complaining actually got somewhere.

    Now only if others would follow.

    --
    Im glad /. isnt the real world, that would really suck..
  5. Re:Great, But... by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but in the case of naive Windows users, even asking them to reboot can be a scary concept for them.

    Hmm, I think you're exaggerating a bit... Windows users should (and I'm not even joking) be quite used to booting and rebooting their systems. Even my mom would understand the implications of restarting the computer.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  6. Are they insane? by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    QEMU is an EMULATOR. They want to demo linux to windows users running under a full blown emulator? I can see it now. "This lunix thing looks nice, but it's just so SLOW!".

    They're going to end up convincing dumb windows users that Linux is slow as hell!

    Before you say anything, keep in mind that they are running QEMU on windows, and the QEMU virtualizer is closed-source and linux only. So they can ONLY do full emulation.

    1. Re:Are they insane? by jhoger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      a) QEMU is all open source. A small part recently added is non-free but still open-source.
      b) QEMU is the fastest (99%) Free emulator, and QEMU is getting faster all the time. There is a strong emphasis on speed by Fabrice
      c) Yes Knoppix will run slower under emulation than natively, and Knoppix doesn't run as fast as a native Linux install. But there are obvious speedups laying around. This looks like a first cut by some developer.

      But I think there is one obvious case where this can be useful, in the particular situation where a machine is locked down so that you can't boot install CDs without a password, and the user does not have admin priveleges. Also, it may be useful for users who aren't willing to boot a Linux CD since they are afraid that it will wipe something out.

  7. Re:Login? Why?-is it illegal? by TheGavster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't the idea that a slashdotting is the best case scenario for a torrent? Provided, of course, that the traffic ramps up gradually so that there is a significant body of (different) data distributed.

    --
    "Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
  8. Re:Great, But... by Calroth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but in the case of naive Windows users, even asking them to reboot can be a scary concept for them.

    OK, people are asking why this is scary. Here's why:

    You reboot, and suddenly, all this small text in bright colours is crawling across your screen (at least, that's what Knoppix did, the last time I tried it). Your Windows environment is gone. You don't know if it's coming back, or even if it's reformatting your hard drive, that's what it's supposed to look like, right?

    Yeah, I know, this crap is irrational. But guess what, if the world was purely rational, Microsoft would have gone out of business ages ago...

    Having Knoppix run on the Windows desktop is reassuring. It lets you know that Windows is still there and you can return there at any time, and since all your icons are still on your desktop, your files must therefore be safe. Yeah, more irrational fears, sorry, but that's how many people think.