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    Linux on Windows

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by mattireland, May 30, 2007.

  1. mattireland

    mattireland It used to be the iLand..

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    Quoted from Peter Butler, Senior Editor CNET Download.com:

    The alternative, open-source operating system Linux has been making news recently. Last week, Dell began shipping PCs with the Linux distribution Ubuntu pre-installed, and on Friday I took a look at Wubi, free Windows software that lets you install and run Ubuntu on your Windows machine without creating a boot CD or partitioning your hard drive.

    According to recent stats from W3Counter, Linux still holds only a tiny fraction of the personal-computing market share (slightly less than Windows 98!), but there's definitely a convergence going on within Windows, Mac, and Linux software development. The excellent personal-finance software GnuCash was recently ported from Linux to Windows, and the Lina project plans to soon release software that will let Windows and Mac users run Linux software on the OS of their choice.


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    Uber cool don't you think????? :)
     
  2. Paul

    Paul Mom! Hot Pockets! NBR Reviewer

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    Some people in the Ubuntu community were working on this during the Feisty pre-release stages. I personally wouldn't trust it. It's actually not Linux on Windows or inside Windows; it simply creates all the partitions and installs from the .iso file within Windows. This is why (AFAIK) it doesn't work with Vista yet, since you'll need full admin access for the program to work.

    And by the way, any count of Linux market share is going to be skewed for one basic reason: Linux is generally free. Most counting methods come from number of licenses sold (where Linux is only slightly behind Mac OS X), but if 90% of your operating system's uses are free and downloadable, it's kind of hard to keep track of how many people are really using it. You can do the math. ;)
     
  3. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    I thought they counted by checking the OS behind a browser.
     
  4. Gintoki

    Gintoki Notebook Prophet

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    That would be an invasion of privacy. I always though they did it by counting the amount of downloads they have. I think that if Mac and Linux worked together they could over power MS. Otherwise Linux/Mac will always have .03% of the market each. =\
     
  5. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    I don't think it would be an invasion of privacy, since you already send that info out, together with you browser id and your ipaddress (like those signs you can add to you sig that tells you all those things)
     
  6. BigV

    BigV Notebook Deity

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    yeah... your browser header already sends out the OS you use to every web server you connect to.
     
  7. mattireland

    mattireland It used to be the iLand..

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    Oh right. Thanks for your posts. It would be a bit stupid if you did have to pay for Linux and it is a bit of a big jump. Yeh - thanks.