Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
Anybody know about WinLinux?
kjg:
Not the lindows - this one purports to have a complete Linux distro that installs without partitioning and can use Windows GUIs
http://www.winlinux.net/2001/features/
From their home page:
quote:
Linux is one of the most powerful systems you can have on your PC. Linux was made for the Internet by the Internet and it is a standard choice of Internet Service Providers around the world. Besides that, Linux is a full Open Source system that comes with a handful of applications, development tools, games, Internet applications and more.Click for additional features...
Why would you choose WinLinux?
All that power usually demands a complete reconfiguration of the software on your computer and that can be very difficult if you are not experienced with PC hardware and software. WinLinux is a complete Linux system and it is the only one that installs directly on your Windows PC just as any other application. Just point and click to set up.
--- End quote ---
One thing that looks attractive is that it says it can be installed on 500MG (that's a minimum, of course, but since I only have a 4 Gig TOTAL harddrive with about 1.7 gigs free... well, you get my point.
SEEMS like the perfect "transition" program... what's the catch? (OK, I've been known to be cynical sometimes.)
Has anybody heard anything - good or bad - about this?
Karen
lu666s:
Kinda virtual machine layer. If you do not run NT/win2k/xpee, then this may be just the thing for you to get your feet wet. It does not use windoze GUI, though, it is a selfcontained OS that you run from within windoze. That may be a bit flaky, rather than the opposite when someone runs windoze on a vm from within linux.
[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: lu666s ]
voidmain:
I have heard of this one but I don't know of anyone who has actually used it. I just browsed around their web site and I have a few thoughts on it:
[*]You can't get a free download of the distro and I'm not going to pay the $10 to download it.[*]It appears to use UMSDOS and install right on your FAT partition. It's been a few years since I did a UMSDOS install but there are problems with this type of installation, I personally would never use it.[*]I assume it's stripped down version of RedHat 7.0 (since they say it is compatible with RedHat 7.0).[*]The software is outdated: old Linux kernel, KDE 2.1 (2.2 has been out for a while and 3.0 should be out soon), StarOffice 5.2 (6.0 is out, and OpenOffice is the Open Source version), Gnome 1.2 (2.0 is out), XFree 4.0.3 (RedHat 7.2 comes with 4.1.0).[*]How easy is it to upgrade? Looks like they only put out one release a year and I don't see anything about upgrading. Upgrading is easy on all the other distros.
[/list]
Now the only thing I can see that would be different than any other distro would be the things I mention above and the fact that they have written a Windows installer program which is really no different than the Linux installer on any of the newer distros (actually it's much more limited).
I can see too many problems with it without even trying it. I would suggest Mandrake far ahead of this and Mandrake won't cost you a penny.
P.S. I see there actually is a free download that they claim is a cut down version. I have started a download and will attempt to install it and give you a better review. This outta be good, I'll install it on my Win98 VMware session which is running under RedHat 7.2.
[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
Calum:
It reminds me of the BeOS version for windows.
You install this version of BeOS, which sits there as an icon in windows, then when you run the program, all it does is kill windows dead, and loads BeOS.
voidmain:
Yep, that's exactly what it is Calum.
Here are my test results:
Went to the WinLinux web site and filled in "Bill Gates" and "[email protected]" in the form so I could download the free cut-down version for free. It was a single *.EXE file of about 180MB. I clicked on it and it brought up a Windows installer and proceeded to do a basic UMSDOS installation just as I had suspected. I was actually getting my hopes up as things seemed to be running pretty well and I thought that yes, this might be a good sampler.
It finishes installing the the packages in C:\Linux\winlinux and then popped up with a registration box where you again have to type in a name and email address so again I filled in Billy boys' info. It just sat there for 30 seconds or so and then timed out and the installation exited. It did create the ICON on the desktop and the start menu with the appropriate configuration utility (but you can't run the configuration utility without registering your name and email address).
I realized that the reason it could not register is because I have outbound port 80 blocked at my firewall to force going through my proxy. Now I'm thinking, there is no other Linux distro that I am aware of that forces you to give the distro maker any of your information so I began to get a bad taste in my mouth.
Ok, I decided to try it out without running the config utility so I just clicked on the WinLinux desktop ICON (which just bootstraps the kernel with LOADLIN.EXE, something I used to use years ago, nothing special). Then I begin to see the familiar "RedHat" bootup sequence with the only difference being the red "RedHat" was changed to a yellow "WinLinux". The other difference is the first time you boot it, it must set up the UMSDOS filesystem and install the KDE packages etc so the first boot will take a little while.
Then it just brought me up to a console login prompt, no graphical login, but I expected that since I couldn't run the configuration utility to set up X. So I stuck "root" in at the prompt with no password and was able to log in, create an ID etc.. It had no idea what my network card was and I tried to run xf86config to set up X but didn't have any luck on my first try so I just said that was enough for me. Maybe I'll try again later by temporarily allowing outbound port 80.
So I have mixed emotions about whether to recommend someone else try. As I said, I don't like having to give up any information to them to use a half baked product. But if after entering that information if everything else went as smoothly as the initial setup it might be worth a try for those who just want a "taste" of Linux without repartitioning etc. I would assume you could install RedHat packages on this distro since it appears to actually be a stripped down RedHat.
Other things I can think of that might be better for just a sampler is install Mandrake or RedHat on a UMSDOS partition, it's the same thing without the Windows installer and without having to register. And doesn't Mandrake have a version that you can install using a Windows based installer?
[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
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