Star Portable Ubuntu for Windows
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 4th Apr 2009 16:36 UTC, submitted by Accident
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu Using CoLinux, the Xming X server, and PulseAudio for Windows, the boys and girls behind the Portable Ubuntu for Windows project have turned the entire Ubuntu distribution into a executable that you can run within Windows. You can see some screenshots, and download it from their web page.
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fretinator
Member since:
2005-07-06

This pulseaudio stuff is exactly the problem with linux! Look at all the arguments/debate it's caused in this one comments area... What on earth is all this needed for anyway? Alsa, OSS, Phonon (or whatever it's called, I don't follow linux very much for this very reason), and Pulseaudio???? It's stupid, look how easy this is in Windows - install your sound driver, and oh hang on a minute, is that it?


I don't think it is _quite_ as complicated as it sounds. Really, the "official" sound api is ALSA, as this is supported in the kernel. Older apps may use OSS, so ALSA also provides a "backward-compatability" mode for OSS, so apps shouldn't have to worry. As far as I can tell, PulseAudio, etc are frameworks on top of lower level frameworks like ALSA. If I am wrong, someone can correct me. This reminds me of graphics frameworks in Windows. There is GDI, DirectX, WPF, etc. Sure, your graphics card may work with your driver, but your driver must support GDI and DirectX. I think WPF is built on top of GDI, but I am not sure. People run into this problem when a game requires DirectX 10 but the card only has a DirectX 9.0c driver. Even sound has layers under Windows. Is the app using Win32 calls, MFC calls, DirectX calls, .NET calls, etc. There are more frameworks in Windows than you the end user may realize.

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