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WinOS+QEMU+Knoppix 3.8 = WinKnoppix!

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."

30 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can it run WINE?

    1. Re:Yes, but... by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 3, Funny

      So, the question then becomes, can wine then boot QEMU, producing a theoretical infinite amount of emulation. If only we can get it to wrap around somehow...

      I think my brain just exploded.

    2. Re:Yes, but... by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 4, Funny

      But, a beowulf cluster of these knoppix cds, running the sims, watching the sims watch tv... That would probably cause the universe to fold in on itself.

    3. Re:Yes, but... by ChairmanMeow · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm sure you meant to post this link...

      --
  2. Umm by Kethinov · · Score: 4, Funny
    from the oh-klaus-you-hypnotize-me dept.
    timothy, I think you need a vacation. ;)
    --
    You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
  3. 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) :)

  4. now all they need to do.... by oliverthered · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is import all the settings across from windows and you can tell you granny it's the latest version of the internet and your away.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  5. WinKnoppix! by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gesundheit.

  6. 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).

    2. Re:hope for good performance by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wrong. QEMU is a full system emulator. There is a processor module availble that virtualizes the CPU instead of emulating, but it is closed-source and linux-only. As such the windows version of QEMU is a full blown emulator.

  7. 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
  8. what about coLinux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the reports I've seen, qemu is VERY slow. Is there an advantage to qemu over coLinux? I've been using coLinux to give me Linux under Windows for about a year now, and there is a lot to be said for native execution speed. You also get networking, and recently easy access of the native Windows filesystems without employing samba-type file sharing.

    Of course, it's difficult to deny the power of running a gameboy emulator on a GBA emulator on a Linux emulator on a Windows emulator on your Mac...

    1. Re:what about coLinux? by cduffy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From the reports I've seen, qemu is VERY slow. Is there an advantage to qemu over coLinux?

      Sure, even when you restrict it to the presently relevant set of cases (x86/Linux inside x86/Win32): coLinux has no (non-experimental) framebuffer support; the experimental version that does exist has its performance measured in seconds per frame. The only way to run X is by having an X server on your Windows box, and you can't run Qt/E or GtkFB or such at all. If you want to do embedded systems development, this can be a substantial issue.

      If you don't restrict yourself to that subset of cases, then QEMU wins on account of having support for far more than just a custom build of the Linux kernel. (Want to play with FreeDOS? Test your new build of of GRUB? Run through the SLES9 installer? The first two of these simply aren't possible in coLinux, and the 3rd one requires a lot of work to make it happen).

      Also, COFS is so experimental/unstable I'm not sure I'd claim it as a feature yet.

  9. 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..
  10. Re:Time to try Linux (again) by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please try a few flavours of Linux. At least try Ubuntu's Live CD (GNOME based) as well as Knoppix (KDE based). To really love Linux you've gotta find the distribution that is "right for you".

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  11. VMWare by F1_Fan · · Score: 4, Funny

    I like booting Knoppix in VMWare! Same concept.

  12. Re:Great, But... by WarmBoota · · Score: 4, Funny
    [quote]but in the case of naive Windows users, even asking them to reboot can be a scary concept for them[/quote]

    Oh the horror of rebooting a windows machine!!! I'd say that it's akin to the terror of sleep, but sleep only comes once a day

    --
    90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
  13. What about CoLinux? by ZehFernando · · Score: 5, Informative

    CoLinux is also a very handy package for running linux on windows. It installs linux on a single file on your HD, then runs linux on it, and you can access it throught VNC. So you can have windows and linux sharing the same machine and HD, running at the same time, on different windows. Pretty handy.

    http://www.colinux.org

    You can use it to run linux from some other partition too. It comes with a version of debian built it, but there are other packages for other distros.

    You can also try topologilinux.

    http://wwwtopologilinux.com

    It's a bundled installation of coLinux and slackware with all bells and whistles.

  14. Re:They have something better: by oliverthered · · Score: 3, Funny

    'Seriously linux users, you're operating system wont make up for the fact that girls are repulsed by your bodies.'

    That's ok, I'm gay.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  15. 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!
  16. 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.

  17. Knoppix on Windows by jhoger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Following the QEMU list, this was done some time back by a Japanese developer Kuniyasu Suzaki I believe.

    Discussions ensued about how to make it faster... some patches are available to directly mount the compressed Knoppix volume so that portion doesn't need to be emulated. Also, the SaveVM feature was improved, so rather than boot knoppix, just keep a compressed VM ram image on the Knoppix CD. That makes it boot instantaneously.

    QEMU is the fastest thing going as far as Free emulators, given more improvements on the virtualization side, I think this will be *the* way to run Knoppix for Windows users that just want to try it out. The speed will come in time.

    Some of us pushed for features like User Mode Networking in QEMU just for this purpose. Windows users in larger corporations often do not have administrator level rights, so they can't install any special drivers. So Knoppix under QEMU can get right to the net on any Windows box that will run a .EXE from CD.

    -- John.

  18. Getting close... by smug_lisp_weenie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now all they need to do is add the following ability to make it perfect:

    1. Allow people to apt-get packages while the CD is running. Then...
    2. Import user files from Win into a Knoppix-side directory. Finally...
    3. (this is the important one) Press a button and presto! The system builds an ISO of original winknoppix+packages+userfiles that is a no-fuss super-customized knoppix CD!

    If they could make that... then a seamless transition to Linux goodness would finally be within reach for everyone!

  19. slowness /w BT ~= router lack of configuration by Phil+Urich · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's . . . very, very odd. I've often been able to max out my bandwidth with torrents (though not nowadays, considering that I'm at the university residence . . . faster even than my prior aDSL, true, but if I let it go, I'd break my weekly download/upload limits damn quickly!). There are many things that could be going wrong. One of the problems often encountered, which is the most likely cause since I've seen similar same symptoms on many a computer, is your router. Part of the reason I've never had to care is 'cause I've eskewed routers; I hate them, I reallly do. But if you're using one, and getting crappy speeds using BitTorrent, this may very well be it, so just read up on the solution here. Hope that works for ya.

    --
    I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
  20. 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".
  21. 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.

  22. Portable Virtual Privacy Machine by millette · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's another option, designed for a USB key. It runs Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. all in a virtual linux machine. The release is planned to work on GNU/Linux, ms windows and mac os x, although the current release candidate doesn't work on the mac. It also uses qemu, of course. More info: Portable Virtual Privacy Machine.

  23. my granny.. by govt-serpent · · Score: 3, Funny

    My granny was Admiral Grace Hopper, you insensitive clod!