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Windows Operating Systems Software Linux

Announcing Cooperative Linux 321

Posted by timothy from the it's-real-friendly-like dept.
evilmf writes "Well... I was on my daily "relaxing" read of the LKML when I've found an interesting announce about "Cooperative Linux", in this message from Dan Aloni. It allows you to run Linux on an unmodified Win2000/XP system, just launching another app. Dan says that Cooperative Linux is 'is stable enough (on some common hardware configurations) for running a fully functional KNOPPIX/Debian system on Windows,' and provides some screenshots in the project homepage."
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Announcing Cooperative Linux More

Announcing Cooperative Linux

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  • Cool (Score:5, Funny)

    by slash-tard ( 689130 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:06PM (#8083134)
    Now the stability, Awesome user interface of windows, and games combined with the myriad of useful GNU/Linux apps!

    • Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BoldAC ( 735721 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:50PM (#8083362)
      What?

      The power of this is that it will allow people to try and experience linux without complicated duel-booting or format/installing.

      More and more people started using linux when bootable stand-alone versions were developed. This will support this boost many times over.

      Think about it. Hack kiddies hear that linux is the way to go. They install it over/within windows... and god forbid, actually realize that linux is a great tool. When I was growing up, I had to limp along with my OS-of-the-day box while my dad was protective of his little system. With this system, future linux kiddies and parents can live in harmony.

      If people believe that they can do their daily activities with their linux programs, then a proportion of these will dump the windows portion to get the performance boost.

      This allows users to ease into linux.

      Brillant.

      AC
      • Heh, like my parents would have let me do that. There was a product called WinLinux that would install on a 9x/ME system, and let you reboot into DOS mode and start it. They wouldn't let me install it because they were afraid it would mess things up. I threatened them with a RedHat 8 CD set I had just burned... didn't work.
        • Thus the joy of this installation. You just tell them that it's a program. "Program" sounds so much nicer than "OS."

          If they won't let you do that... then you have to go old school. You must convince your parents that they need a newer and better system so you can run the Maestro [telascience.org] java simulation to enjoy and learn from the current Mars experience. Suggestions like "I wanna be an astronaut, dad!" work well.

          After they buy their new screaming P4 system, you take the old system and abuse the hell out of it

      • Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)

        by ArsonPanda ( 647069 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @08:08PM (#8084272)
        duel-booting?
        So, you press the power button and whatever OSs are installed on your system fight to the death to see which one gets to boot? I like it. Does it have an interactive stat up mode too? I can see it now, on old hardware it would be a 2d mortal combat type thing, and on my new opteron server it would have DOA 3d thing going on. The only question is which charicter do you use for windows, and which for linux?

      • Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Spy Hunter ( 317220 )
        I think the promise of this approach may strech beyond people trying out Linux to helping people install Linux alongside Windows. I can imagine a new Linux install process that doesn't require booting from a disk or CD. Instead you download a giant executable which starts a coLinux system. Once it is running it can cooperate with part of the installer still running as a Windows process to resize the main Windows partition, create a Linux partition, and install Linux there. (I think it's possible in Windo

    • Re:Cool (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MrBlue VT ( 245806 )
      You can already run many, many apps that were written for linux by using Cygwin [cygwin.com]. As long as the program is userspace, it can usually just be compiled for cygwin. This has the advantage of producing a windows binary and is pretty speedy. I've got KDE and all its applications running just great in cygwin on a Windows 2000 platform. They have XFree86 that you can use, but since I already owned a copy of Exceed, I can just use that.
    • I am currently downloading this. The lack of documentation is a bit annoying, but hopefully it should compile well.

      This is, as far as I can tell, a MUCH better idea than the MS Virtual PC image we were supposed to download from our school's server for use in our C++ course (which we are basing in Linux, we're banned from using .NET for it, which I think is pretty cool).

      It'll also be my first time compiling the kernel (though a slightly older version), which should be interesting as well. I hope this pro
    • Think of it this way:

      Eventually, someone will come up with a kick-ass IDE for developers to write once, run anywhere. A linux application will merely need a DirectLinux layer to run under Windows. As hardware gets faster and faster, the Linux layer will become seamless. The world will be without Windows and we'll all live happily ever after.

      This is huge for Linux. Now if we could get the desktop situation sorted out, we can start implmenting Linux on the desktop.

  • Embrace and extend (Score:4, Funny)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:06PM (#8083135) Homepage Journal
    I always thought that linux assimilating windows was better than windows assimilating linux.
    • Assimilation is like mergers. Who is doing and to whom it's being done isn't really that clear. As long as GPL code is spreading, I'm happy.

  • This is quite possibly the greatest thing 2 happen (Score:5, Informative)

    by pardasaniman ( 585320 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:08PM (#8083145) Journal
    Way back when I wanted to try linux. (now 2-3 years ago) I searched far and away to find this ability, because my dad would have gone bonkers should I have installed/booted another OS.

    I get the question quite alot. "Can linux run in Windows"... To which I must roll my eyes and explain that it's another OS.

    This is going to be very helpful in convincing people to run linux.

    I can just picture myself booting knoppix to make my (Anti-PowerPoint) presentations at school.

    Gr8 Stuff!

  • Windows users can now use more free apps! (Score:5, Funny)

    by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary&yahoo,com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:08PM (#8083146) Journal
    That's a good thing, IMHO. Too often, I have needed some tool or other while working on Windows machines, and there are no free alternatives. If Windows users can use really free software, they may be less inclined to download horrific ad-ware and spy-ware, too. I wonder how easy it is to share data between Windows and Linux apps? Guess I'll go RTFA now...

    • Re:Windows users can now use more free apps! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:18PM (#8083207) Journal
      You could almost get away with this using VMware, but now with this Cooperative Linux project, it doesn't matter anymore!

      If this gets the attention that I think it deserves, this could literally shake apart the entire foundation of the folks who continue to decry Linux. Now a savvy admin who wants to use the Linux versions of Windows crapware can do so, without reinstalling the OS and incurring the wrath of the Microsofties. He gets the best of both worlds: high-quality free software running on top of the "sanctioned" OS. The only drawback to this thing, IMO, is that it may stifle the efforts of people who are trying to port some of the more sophisticated Linux apps to Windows, and may simply give up when they hear that because of this, no porting is required. But I doubt that will be a major issue.

      Here's to hoping this project goes somewhere!

      • Re:Windows users can now use more free apps! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:22PM (#8083224) Journal
        people who are trying to port some of the more sophisticated Linux apps to Windows, and may simply give up when they hear that because of this, no porting is required

        Look at it the other way : if great linux apps are not ported to windows, but instead are delivered with an easy install of colinux+a small distro (the keyword here will be easy !) then more people will learn to know linux. And one day perhaps install it as 2nd OS on their machine, from which the step to primary OS is a small one !
        • You are absolutely correct, of course - if CoLinux is eventually surrounded with a distro dedicated to this sort of thing, it may actually help in legitimzing OSS/Free software in the eyes of the skeptics.
        • I think the easiest setup would be if you could emulate linux apps in a window without having to boot up the whole disto. either way I think it will be more of a good thing for OSS than Linux because most users will think of linux as just a program that allows them to run OSS software.

      • Windows users, repeat after me: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary&yahoo,com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:27PM (#8083251) Journal
        Crapware is the issue here. You do not need help setting your system clock. Bonzai (sp?) Buddy is not your friend. Real is not a good streaming media player. If you need help filling in web forms, use a browser that can do it for you! You do not need to sell your soul to some marketing devil in order to download music. $40 is not a bargain on CD burning software, nor is it a bargain on a good text editor. There are in fact decent mail-readers that won't bork your system and aren't spyware (cough *eudora* cough). I could go on, but you get the picture.

        Users of Windows, you have nothing to lose but your chains!
    • This is great for Linux people who are stuck at companies where everybody is required to run Windows on their PC... they can just boot Windows, double click the "Cooperative Linux" icon, maximize the Linux window, and forget about Microsoft for the rest of the day :^)

  • great for n00bs ! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:11PM (#8083162) Journal
    for linux noobs like me, this is greeat news ! this will allow me to run a distro at work where xp boot is obliged. i hope they come up with an installation tutorial & extensive documentation soon (no docs for now on th website)

  • Windows Services for Unix... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SwansonMarpalum ( 521840 ) <redina@nosPAM.alum.rpi.edu> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:11PM (#8083163) Homepage Journal
    ...just got a whole lot less useful. ;)
    • ...just got a whole lot less useful. ;) SFY 3.5 is a deficient product, and probably made so. It won't uninstall cleanly (leaving files only deletable by SYSTEM, making it a pain to remove them), and the shells (ksh and chs) misses tab-completion in emacs mode. I use Cygwin mostly for it's shell and utilities, and SFU is no replacement for this.
      • Personally I think the big win with SFU is NFS/NIS integration for Windows.

      • OT: Re:Windows Services for Unix... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Chops ( 168851 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @08:42PM (#8084517)
        SFY 3.5 is a deficient product, and probably made so.

        I'll second that. I installed SFU to try it out, and found it to be so bad as to be endlessly entertaining. The high points of my interaction with it were this (the first line indicates my discovery that tab completion didn't work):
        $ tar xfz ../mutt
        usage: tar -{txru}[cevfbmopwBHLPX014578] [tapefile] [blocksize] file1 file2...
        $ tar xfz ../mutt*
        usage: tar -{txru}[cevfbmopwBHLPX014578] [tapefile] [blocksize] file1 file2...
        $ zcat ../mutt* | tar x
        tar: Failed open to read on /dev/rmt8: No such file or directory
        zcat: ../mutt-1.4.1i.tar.gz.Z: No such file or directory
        $ cd ..
        $ gunzip mutt*
        $ cd src
        $ tar xf ../mutt*
        ... and the time I typed
        vi `which startx`
        ... only to have vi attempt to open
        C:\SFU\X11R6\bin\startx^M
        ... which, as you might guess, didn't work (it choked both on the C:\ and the ^M).

        Good times, good times. Also it broke cygwin's emacs-style line editing (presumably by changing some terminal-related DLL) and WinCVS (by setting EDITOR=vi systemwide). Fortunately both of these problems went away when I uninstalled it.

  • Nice, but not ideal (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ideally, people would be running Windows on top of Linux. Otherwise, eventually we will have Linux... requires Windows Longhorn or higher on newer computers.

  • Unfourtuantely (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hal The Computer ( 674045 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:11PM (#8083170)
    Well this is definitely Really Neat, after reading their homepage, I see that In its current condition, it allows us to run the KNOPPIX Japanese Edition on Windows. Unfourtunately as far as I can tell, that's all it can run without modification.
    Also, coLinux currently lacks documentation.
    If you don't speak Japenese, you might have some difficulties using this software to it's fullest.

    • Re:Unfourtuantely (Score:2, Insightful)

      by richard_za ( 236823 )
      Well it is early days, and the success of projects such as these depends on community participation. For example it probably needs some volunteers for the documentation.
    • From the site:

      "Since coLinux uses the same binary format for user-space executables as native Linux, coLinux can load and run an existing unmodified Linux distribution concurrently with the host OS."

    • Re:Unfourtuantely (Score:3, Informative)

      by jaxdahl ( 227487 )
      Looking at the sourceforge site, someone says he's successfully installed an almost-unmodified Debian distro with this thing. here [sourceforge.net]
  • Granted I haven't read the article, but how is this different from doing an UMSDOS Install?

    • Re:UMDOS (Score:3, Informative)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 )
      Because the kernel has been ported directly onto the Windows API, this means that the kernel looks like a Windows program, yet is actually an encapsulated Linux system. This means that you can use whatever filesystem you wish. How they intend to solve the issue of getting data in and out of the encapsulated OS, I don't know - they aren't very clear on the website.
    • A UMSDOS system can not run simultaneously with Windows; you must reboot into Linux.

      This runs simultaneously.

  • Interesting to watch this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by richard_za ( 236823 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:22PM (#8083225) Homepage Journal
    When I wan't to use *nix tools under Windows I've always trusted Cygwin [cygwin.com], but I can see how this project can provide a good alternative to Cygwin XFree86 [cygwin.com] as suggested in the roadmap [colinux.org]. This could also provide an excellent solution for developers to test interoperability between Internet Explorer and Linux webservers - especially if they are limited to one computer. It could also be used to educate people on using Linux, it is a perfect match with Knoppix [knopper.net] in this respect.

    Wine [winehq.com] developers could use this compare apps running natively and those running under wine side-by-side.
    • Cygwin can't run a lot of Linux apps directly. Most of the time they need porting, because libraries are not the same. Both try to be POSIX complaint, but both aren't, so the work is usually fairly minimal, but it's still work to be done. CoLinux allows it to all happen transparently with no source code changes. As such, it's much more useful.

      Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.
      • Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.

        Erhm, is SFU more or less POSIX compliant than Linux? You make it sound as a POSIX defficiency is a good thing ;-)

    • To run coLinux right now, you still need the Cygwin XFree86 server. All coLinux can do is essentially a text-mode virtual console. This is okay, since running the X server as a native windows app is potentially faster. I frequently use Xnest in Linux as the display for my VMWare machines because it's so much faster. So there's no real need or hurry to get virtual graphics card support for coLinux, in my opinion.
    • Talking about Cygwin, I remember trying to copy a file from Windows to a Linux computer via the network. It was pretty big, and I didn't want to waste time using SSH's encryption. I tried netcat (they have a Windows version), which worked quite neatly, but it was damn slow.

      I had a Linux system (not the target system), where I could smbmount the Windows share, read the file from the SMB share, and netcat it out to the target computer. Fascinatingly, transferring it this way was a lot faster.

      The point? Wind

  • Stability? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by greyguppy ( 413383 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:23PM (#8083227) Homepage
    I saw this on LKML about an hour ago, and it interested me then.

    What I am wondering about is quite how stable it is possible to get something like this.
    We all know how Windows assumes it is the only OS installed, when dealing with things like disk partitions, MBR's etc. How does the Windows NT kernel like sharing Ring 0 with Linux?

    Overall this is an excellent innovation for Linux to move forward. I suppose you could chart the increase of Linux "market share" as follows.

    1.) Linus and his friends
    2.) Early Distributions
    3.) Redhat makes inroads
    4.) Live CD's (Knoppix et al)
    5.) CoLinux

    You have gone from experimental boxes only, to dual booting to Live CD's to try Linux out (very slow...)

    If this can come close to Linux alone in speed, then this is a major step forward.
    No more lengthy installs with dual booting etc.

    If a linux fan wants to show a Windows user what its all about then they can hopefully download one EXE and go.

    Pity I haven't got a windows partition so I can test it.

    • Re:Stability? (Score:3, Informative)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 )
      According to the website, they've written special core drivers for the host OS which modify the way the host OS receives notifications from the hardware - to make the long story short, it allows both OSes to coexist peacefully and run at a decent speed as well.
    • I haven't looked at the implementation, but I suspect Linux is running more as a Ring 3 (much like User Mode Linux runs under traditional "kernel mode" Linux) with appropriate layers to forward interupts and virtualise devices.

    • Re:Stability? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @06:16PM (#8083501)
      We all know how Windows assumes it is the only OS installed, when dealing with things like disk partitions, MBR's etc. How does the Windows NT kernel like sharing Ring 0 with Linux?

      That should be no problem. Vmware already locks partitions or even serial and USB devices for it's own use. Obviously you cannot share these partitions or devides with both operating systems, but one at a time is no problem at all.

      You have gone from experimental boxes only, to dual booting to Live CD's to try Linux out (very slow...)

      I don't know about really slow. CDROM are definately not _that_ slow anymore. My Dell laptop has no problem at all running knoppix, including sound, firewire, networking, usb support. As long as you have enough memory (256 at least, 512 mb runs great) it is not slow after startup either. And compared with a complete installation of linux it takes a lot less time. Upgrading is easy too :)

      If a linux fan wants to show a Windows user what its all about then they can hopefully download one EXE and go.

      That I must agree with. It would take a bit of pain out of that process. And they can still keep their freakin' MSN messenger running in the background.

  • I spent about 20 hours trying to get my NTFS partition on my new toshiba laptop (Has XP) in some kind of order to run NTFSresize, but I couldnt I finally bailed and got my hands on a copy of Partition Magic to resize it. I looked around for things to do this, I cant rember the names now, but there used to be a version that would do this years ago. I finally repartitioned and installed Fedora.
    I wish I would have come accross this aboput 2 damm weeks ago.

  • sweet (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sPaKr ( 116314 )
    Great All the bugs of windows, and the Linux User Interface. jebus sometimes we should not ask 'can I' but rather 'should I'.

  • Let's get this over with... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jaymzter ( 452402 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:25PM (#8083243) Homepage
    Yeah, but does it run on Windows?

    Finally, installing Linux takes only one click!

    In the future, please refer to it as GNU/Windows...

  • inter-OS communications (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:31PM (#8083269)
    When you send data to 127.0.0.1, which OS picks it up? This boggles my mind.

  • BORG Linux? ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:32PM (#8083274)
    ... Windows will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

  • OEM (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ugmo ( 36922 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:33PM (#8083280)
    If this ever becomes stable and useful, OEM's who now have contracts with MS that requires them to pay so much per box to MS whether or not Windows is installed can now start providing Windows + a Linux distribution of choice, at the factory as an option.

    The can advertise their box as coming with hundreds of free software programs by throwing in a knoppix cd.
    Best of both worlds for the OEMs

    • Re:OEM (Score:2)

      by Molt ( 116343 )

      Umm.. no, I think this would be a bad thing from the perspective of MS, and hence through market manipulation the OEM suppliers.

      If this happened then people may consider Linux to actually be a viable alternative to the Windows preinstalled on this machines. Personally I don't think Linux is getting there quite yet, for home use games and such are just too influential for Linux to stand a chance (And yes, I've played Nethack.. almost finished it.. nowhere near KotOR).

      Businesses in themselves won't be sway

  • Predictions, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:42PM (#8083327) Journal
    We've had Slashdot stories about how many operating systems someone has got on one machine (by multi-booting).

    We probably need a sweepstake for predicting when Slashdot will have the story on how many operating systems have been run virtually on one machine.

    Linux running vmWare'd Windows which in turn is running a Debian distro under coLinux, which in turn is running Fedora as a user-mode Linux instance, in turn running FreeBSD as a Xen virtual machine instance... oh, the horrors :-)
  • Am I the only one a bit freaked out by seeing the Windows logo in the yin/yang icon?

    Good idea, this distro. I was thinking about this just a few hours ago (no joke) that someone should make a distro that installs on a Windows system. That is, everything is kept in a Windows directory (c:\linux\) and thus you can dual boot a GNU/Linux system without having to mess with your system. The only thing that would be touched would be your bootloader. Would help a lot of people dip their toes into GNU/Linux that no
    • Am I the only one a bit freaked out by seeing the Windows logo in the yin/yang icon?

      I'm sure Microsoft's legal department will be. CoLinux is going to have to change that MS-Windows(R) icon to a more generic 4-color window icon.

    • In days before currenty 2.5/2.6 kernel versions, there was a filesystem called UMSDOS, that allowed you to run from within a DOS file system, entirely. My router does that (it's running 2.0.35 still), and it works fine. Except that when it powerfails, it has to run SCANDISK completely before booting, which sometimes runs into something where it wants a keypress, and there's no keyboard or monitor to do so.. which takes the network down until the roommates acll me and say "come home please help"

  • Serious Doubts... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lkaos ( 187507 ) <{sw.yeknomedoc} {ta} {ynohtna}> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:43PM (#8083334) Homepage Journal
    Why this does seem quite cool I want to offer a warning before you go and install this on your non-backed up mission critical server.

    Many projects have attempted to achieve this goal. It's taken quite a bit of time so far. This project has taken a short cut though by simply letting the Windows kernel and Linux kernel run side-by-side in kernel mode. Traditional approaches don't allow this.

    That's because if anything goes wrong in the Windows kernel, you risk trashing your Linux kernel the same applies for the Linux kernel trashing the Windows kernel.

    Before you go and so Linux never crashes or Windows never crashes, what you're relying on is that this particular project has enough of an understanding of both kernels that they can cover every circumstance where there would be a negative interaction.

    I'm not saying this can't work, I'm just saying I'd be very careful about running it on anything I cared about.
    • before you go and install this on your non-backed up mission critical server.

      Phew - that was close. Thanks man - I could have had a catastrophe on my hands tomorrow.

  • Porting to other platforms like OS X and solaris (Score:5, Interesting)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:47PM (#8083350)
    According to the web site, the architecture of the software that makes this all possible is very portable and could be ported to Solaris, for example , allowing the running of Linux/Sparc on top of it, at full speed. I would love to see this ported to OS X. I love my powerbook and I like OS X, but running linux at the same time would be a huge benefit for me. I'll be following this project closely.

    Emulation and virtualization are the coolest technologies I've ever seen.
  • Clusting with something like MOSIX just got easier.
    Joe

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Isnt this kind of like what the BeOS did back in the day with its personal distro? Im thinking R4 and 5.

    ive always wished i could run linux like this, it made trying the BeOS that much easier, and now it runs as the only os on my P1 ThinkPad.

    • Isnt this kind of like what the BeOS did back in the day with its personal distro? Im thinking R4 and 5.

      Kind of, but it's different too. What BeOS did was overwrite the running Windows OS image, so that after you double clicked the "Launch BeOS" icon, you had a machine that was running BeOS but not running Windows anymore. When you launch Co-operative Linux, on the other hand, you end up with a machine where both Linux and Windows are running, concurrently.

      (FWIW, the BeOS overwrite-the-host-OS trick

  • anyone with compiled binary? (Score:3, Informative)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @06:32PM (#8083596) Homepage Journal
    *Release Name: 0.5.1-2.4.24

    Notes:
    This is a very preliminary source-only release.

    It is mostly for peer review, but with some effort it can be compiled and run.

    Please note that Cooperative Linux is not yet stable on some processors and hardware configurations.*

  • sorry, couldn't resist :-)

    Try to imagine beowulf of linuxes inside the single instance of Windows. (I can't)
  • It's a bit disappointing that this won't run on older Windows boxen. After all, one Linux advantage is how some distros will keep older systems useful for years to come, and free users from the continueous upgrade model beloved by MS of late. This runs the risk of becoming Linux yoked to that model, unless its creators specifically preserve Win 2000 compatability, and given how disappointing 2000 was, what are the chances of that? 2 versions down the road, this will probably only run with Longhorn.
  • It looks just the same as Cygwin. What is/are the differences?
  • This has the *potential* to be a very cool project. Right now it's at 0.51 release status, source only, with no docs. Only a small percentage of users will be able to get it up and running in this form. Once it hits 1.0, or even 0.9 and is stable enough, I'll be more excited.

    - Greg

  • hmmm (Score:2)

    by XO ( 250276 )
    Now, I've read almost 200 comments on this thread.. (that's all there is so far).. but has anyone actually seen this operating?

    Call me skeptical, but I just don't see it working well.

    I see the points (good and bad) for it all, but I just don't see it working well.

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by blkros ( 304521 )
    That's my question. To me this make Linux look like just another app that you can install on windows, and have fun playing with.
    I think that stuff like this actually sets Linux back, and doesn't move it ahead. Linux is an OS, not an app.
    The real work to be done is to make Linux better than windows, in every way, and make it easy for people to use. Linux doesn't need more apps, it has most of the ones that normal users would need, and DTP and Graphics progs are getting to be on par with windows and mac.

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