Hello everyone, today while visiting download.com i found http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-...tml?tag=bubble which is about Wubi, a program that allows a user to use linux inside windows, my question is this, how does this affect us linux users that use linux primarily, is this going to make Windows users see linux as a little toy, a program they use in windows>? also something called Lina project will allow Windoes people to use linux programs on mac or windows, so does this mean that linux is going to be abliterated, become obsolute? after all what would be the point from a windows user point of view to switch to linux if, they can run linux from windows, and user linux programs on windows, this even make me question linux's capability? Do i just have a lack of faith in linux, or is there actually a problem, truth in what i am saying?

Maybe people will see how much faster it is even under Windows. :-D

is it possible for it to run faster than windows when running under windows?

it will be laggy and buggy, and every one will downplay linux because of it

^ at least i think this has more chances of happening than what phantom said ^^

I use a combination of Windows and Linux. Linux is great for my file server, it just sits there in the background supplying my network. And it is great for my media machine... sucking files off my file server over an nfs share. I run Windows on my laptop because I cannot connect to my employers network without it. I can run Linux in Virtual PC 2007 if I really want. I never found a use for a virtualised Linux environment, with plenty of physical environments around.

When is someone going to create the reverse setup... running Windows in a virtual machine under Linux. I can't afford VMWare! Wine won't run the work Nortel VPN client and the work Citrix web base VPN client simply rejects Linux.

if the ware works in win9x it may be possible to run 98se under dosemu, probably need to copy a working install to your linux disk to do it though.

Unless I've totally misunderstood your query, there are already open source and/or free alternatives to VMWare. Xen, KVM, Qemu, VirtualBox...there is tremendous, recent growth in this area, with Fedora 7 supporting a bunch.

cheers,

I think virtualization and emulation programs help Linux a lot. Not only can Windows and Mac users become familiar with Linux. People are more adept to switch to Linux if they can run their favorite Windows programs. I know gamers who like Linux, but use Windows because their games don't run on Linux. Better virtualization and emulation means that switching to a different OS is a lot more convenient.

We are talking about a windows user emulating windows, as well as running linux programs on windows, how can that help linux, if this in my opinion, or frame of mind, just makes people "downplay" linux and its programs b/c they can do it all on windows. I'm wondering if this is what other people think, and why or why not. Emulating windows from linux is a whole different story, as it helps linux b/c you can use the musts of windows on linux.

+1 to mitchell, why switch to linux if you can use it from windows if you really have to ?

but @makai : better virtualisation of windows under linux won't help the players at all, unless they play to very old games...
wine or cedega can help, but again most recent won't play at all or be buggy, so unless more game makers decide to make their games work with OpenGL as well as Direct3D, windows will be superior than linux for gaming...

Don't you know then that windows originally ran on (MS)DOS? Did that make people believe that windows was simply an application for DOS? On the contrary.

And where is DOS right now? Dos got ditched!

Emulation is getting better. So people can play new games on Linux or Mac OS X. It is not perfect, but it is getting better. And if gamers switch to Linux because their favorite game now can be played on it, then eventually companies will realize they have a lot of gamers on Linux machines that they want to buy their products. Then more games will be designed to run on Linux. Also people are surprisingly tolerant to bugs. If someone wants to use Linux, they maybe be fine with bugs in the games. If someone prefers Windows, then there is no reason for them to switch.

People will not quit switching to Linux just because of virtualization. The reasons that most people switch to Linux doesn't have much to do with the type of programs, but more so with the community, price, customization. Switching OSes has a bigger package then just switching to different programs in most cases. Individual programs tend to be important to companies who spent a ton of money on software, software setup, the training and/or hiring IT, retraining staff, etc.

I feel something running natively is far better than a virtualization, so I think most people will chose the OS or OSes that is/are the most useful for them to run natively.

I like the point that MakaiDenka made in his second paragraph but in the eyes of the average person is it really worth it when the computer they but comes with windows anyway?... I know i'm sounding like a windows advocate here, but what REALLY make linux better than windows? If windows is soon going to be able to deal with linux programs, and even run linux itself if you want?

Average users tend to not use Linux and don't plan on switching. Average users are the type that use the most common computers/OSes/programs. So your common user has a Dell/HP/Gateway/Whatever PC with Windows XP or Vista and run MS Office or whatever word processor came by default. Average users aren't going to be using virtualizations. They bought a computer for the internet, class assignments, or something that there are easy to use programs for. Also, if you say Linux to the average user, they will have no idea what you are talking about.

+1 to MakaiDenka on his definition of average users.

The average user will have no need for virtualization. It will be folks who want to experiment with new software and OSes, and organizations who want to find the best way to manage their servers and money who will find benefit from virtualization.

Many of the state departments I am in communication with have some sort of virtualization in place for their server infrastructure. Not surprisingly, in most cases, the host OS is Linux and they have virtualized their Windows servers with the plan to migrate everything to Linux. This shows that, at least a large scale, departments are looking around for alternatives to the long-monopolized Windows servers.

We shouldn't be scared of new virtualization software. Virtualization gives people the ability to try new things without worrying about what it will do to their current OS. Then they will be able to determine if an OS like Linux is suitable for them.