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andLinux: Seamlessly Run Linux Applications on Windows

  Submitted by rhyder Linux 11 Comments

“andLinux is a Linux distro with a difference. It’s based on a port of the the Linux kernel to Windows coupled with an X server and other software. In short, it allows you to run Linux software seamlessly on the Windows desktop without recompiling it or using a virtual machine.”

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Thom Holwerda

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11 Comments

  1. 2011-09-06 9:53 pm
    churlish_Helmut

    “… and it is old. Stoneold. With its last release in 2009”

    I hope the developer will work on this project, when they see this small article here ;)

  2. 2011-09-06 9:56 pm
    tsurugi

    soooo.. coLinux?

  3. 2011-09-06 10:39 pm
    Delgarde

    Nice trick, but does it have real-world use? I can’t think of any piece of Linux software that I’d like to run on Windows, and doesn’t already have a native Windows port. The article uses Firefox as an example, while their website uses the KOffice suite and a few other KDE apps – all of which already run natively on Windows.

    • 2011-09-07 12:12 am
      jack_perry

      Some important Linux programs don’t work as well natively on Windows as on Linux, and some run only through a virtual machine. The Sage computer algebra system is an example.

    • 2011-09-07 6:22 pm
      FunkyELF

      They have a screenshot showing that Perl performance through AndLinux is better than native Perl on Windows and better than on Linux through a virtual machine.

      Last I checked, it may be different now, but Git support on Windows wasn’t that great.

      For some reason, I like using the NEdit text editor which has no Windows port.

  4. 2011-09-07 12:58 am
    transputer_guy

    For multiple platform app development between Windows, Haiku, Linux (several), OSX the usual options are Multi booting, Multi PCs, Multiple VMs or perhaps Wine on Linux for Windows apps.

    All of those have various issues of their own so this looks like a useful reverse sort of Wine option. Will need to get back into Qt for this to work for me. Will try out the 2 versions just out of curiosity so I hope it doesn’t get abandoned.

    Curious if anyone has had good luck with KDE for Windows, it barely worked 2 years ago, and my last recent try the installer was kaput.

  5. 2011-09-07 5:04 am
    Magma

    All I need… On every windows box.

    • 2011-09-07 7:38 pm
      bbarker Silver Supporter

      That may be fine for you and I do enjoy cygwin, but there is a place for andLinux/coLinux, as Jack Perry pointed out. Some things, particularly SAGE (which is a lot of things all in one) are pretty difficult to port to any platform (including Cygwin).

      As someone else pointed out, there may be actual improvements in performance as well.

      Sadly, coLinux has only worked in 32bit windows installations for quite some time. I haven’t followed the project enough to know when or if this will change.

  6. 2011-09-07 11:26 am
    ferrels

    Works great for me except that it’s such an old distro that you can’t update it from any of the existing repositories…..apt-get update or upgrade just isn’t happening….

    Maybe someone here can show me how to do an offline update?