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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."
Can it run WINE?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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) :)
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.
Gesundheit.
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.
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
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...
Holy crap!!! the Poster actually linked a .torrent, maybe all the complaining actually got somewhere.
Now only if others would follow.
Im glad
I like booting Knoppix in VMWare! Same concept.
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.
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.
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!
Following the QEMU list, this was done some time back by a Japanese developer Kuniyasu Suzaki I believe.
.EXE from CD.
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
-- John.
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.
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!
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".
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.