I wonder if something like this might make a comeback for workers that are blocked from using wsl/hyperv on their corporate laptops. For me I've been using msys2 as an "alternative" since I'm unable to use wsl. It's not the same but it's all I got.
Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
21–30 of 97 posts
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#22coLinux was my go-to option back in the day, somewhere between my use of virtual machines. While not exactly the same, WSL eventually replaced it with a similar use case when I wanted to avoid VMs again.
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#23I used this back in the Vista times and it worked very well. Very similar to how people use WSL these days.
WSL1 is actually quite similar afaik. Unfortunately also development stalled here in favour of WSL2. I remember Co-Linux to be a a thing around 2005, but it never stuck with me as I was mostly happy with Cygwin until all the libuv and go (now rust) stuff popped up.
I don't think WSL1 development stalled in as much as Microsoft made the determination that it wasn't a viable path forward. I/O was piss slow and chasing syscalls NT API calls probably wasn't very fun.
Microsoft already knew Hyper-V quite well so a VM made sense, they just had to put some automagic management around it.
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#24I wonder if something like this might make a comeback for workers that are blocked from using wsl/hyperv on their corporate laptops. For me I've been using msys2 as an "alternative" since I'm unable to use wsl. It's not the same but it's all I got.
As a non-admin, you cannot access kernel mode in Windows, which this requires. If WSL/HV isn't appealing, this would be even less so.
https://colinux.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ#Q0._Do_I_need_Administra...?
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#25> Unlike in other Linux virtualization solutions such as User Mode, special driver software on the host operating system is used to execute the coLinux kernel in a privileged mode
That's unfortunate, is there a version of this that runs unprivileged like user mode Linux?
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#26Wsl2 is a pretty excellent modern alternative imo. I was even able to get nvcc/cuda working in wsl
What do you mean you were even able to make it work? It works out of the box with no configuration.
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#27I've been using this for years until early 2009, when I formatted my laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 and started running Windows in a VM. IE was still important back then and I needed to check web sites with it. I was running Rails and other web frameworks inside colinux. I switched after I made sure that everything I was running in Windows for my work did run well in Linux. I remember that those very same programs run faste…
I would run Ubuntu 2006 in a VMware Workstation VM then after a few months, wiped the system, installed Ubuntu 2006 then Windows in a VM (I think VMware Workstation was available on Linux Desktop then, otherwise I don't recall what I ran Windows in but it was in a VM), so very similar to your case.
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#28> Unlike in other Linux virtualization solutions such as User Mode, special driver software on the host operating system is used to execute the coLinux kernel in a privileged mode That's unfortunate, is there a version of this that runs unprivileged like user mode Linux?
You're not going to take over NT's control of the MMU et. al. without elevated privileges. To run as a non-admin, you either need a VM that leverages NT's built-in virtualization capabilities (requires admin to enable), a separate personality (requires admin to install), or a Win32 application a la cygwin, which isn't very good.
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#29I wonder if something like this might make a comeback for workers that are blocked from using wsl/hyperv on their corporate laptops. For me I've been using msys2 as an "alternative" since I'm unable to use wsl. It's not the same but it's all I got.
At work when I work on Windows (currently stuck using Mac for the first time in my career at work), but on Windows I would use https://gitforwindows.org/ which also uses msys2 and that is a very popularly supported free product using msys2 on Windows. If you ever forget the URL, search for "git bash for windows".
Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)
#30I think it's great that tools like colinux exist but when if ever will IT departments (System Administrators) figure out how to support Linux Desktop users on our machines instead of forcing Windows or Mac on us. Mac is a terrible OS for Java software development.