Linux under Windows

Recently I wanted to run some Linux software on my PC and was wonder how to do this without having to boot a different OS, i. e. leaving Windows.

I came across Cygwin, which does not do the trick, it is only a port of useful Unix tools to Windows. Anyway, for those who like the standard Unix commands and like working in a shell, this is great!

Next, I installed CoLinux, which is basically a virtual machine, which can run any bootable image. It works fine, speed is great, you can even run XWindows and connect to it via VNC! There are, alas, some limitations like having no access to sound, bluetooth, etc. Whatever hardware is locked by Windows is not available to an OS running under CoLinux.

So what about using a Windows program instead. VMWare Player did it for me, now I have Ubuntu running in a separate window and can easily work with Windows and Linux at the same time. I still have to figure out how to make my (Windows) harddrive available to Ubuntu, but it worked for my CD-ROM, so I am sure there is a way.

So now I have the best of both worlds combined :-)

Thanks to all the people who put instructions in the web. I found the following extremely useful:

CoLinux: http://faif.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Skydev/Howtos/colinux.htm

VMWare and Ubuntu: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/11/07/vmware-player-ubuntu-installation.html

Free OS Zoo: http://www.oszoo.org/ Download images of different OSes that can be run in VMWare Player (however, I prefer to create my own images off the installation CD)

Cygwin: http://cygwin.com/