Forget Cygwin or VMware, run coLinux | Hacker News Reader

Forget Cygwin or VMware, run coLinux

techanodyne.com

46 pointsiamelgringo11 comments

Tried coLinux. Had to go back to VirtualBox. I'm not sure what the problem was, but running network-heavy apps in coLinux caused my wireless connection to drop out in the Windows host. Never had that problem before or since with other VM products.

Otherwise, there were no problems and I felt it was right answer to the problem. Why bother running a full-on emulator, when the kernel is open-source and can be modified to run as a process within another OS?

The headline is clearly over the top designed to get a few clicks. You don't get the stability or performance of products that have been around for a while overnight. If trying out new stuff is all you do then this might be the thing for you.

Why should I forget VMware or any other virtualization product? They also give you 95% of native performance and a full-screen X on top of that.

With 2GB RAM becoming the norm and stand-by mode having replaced power on/off cycles, I have no issues running two systems side-by-side on my laptop at all times.

What is the difference between andLinux and coLinux?

http://www.colinux.org/

http://www.andlinux.org/

They seem to have similar logos and website...

"andLinux uses CoLinux as its core which is confusing for many people. CoLinux is a port of the Linux kernel to Windows.[...] Xming is used as X server and PulseAudio as sound server"

That seems to clarify things a bit. andLinux seems to take coLinux and add a couple of other utilities to give you a more seamless integration. last time I used coLinux I had to use VNC to connect from Windows to my running coLinux instance.

Yep - coLinux is the kernel plus a text console. Using coLinux is very much like having a headless Linux box on the network.

andLinux is coLinux and a Windows X server, all packaged up nicely so you can run GUI apps.

This article mentions three products with overlapping, but not identical applications. Suggesting that users should "forget" one in favor of another is overly narrow at best.

coLinux is great; have been using it for years, first on XP, now on Vista. The networking is a bit tricky to get going, but it's very convenient and feels "lighter" than VMWare. Have never tried VirtualBox though.

I'll stick with cygwin, thanks.

Cygwin is all you need if you want to compile and run UNIX command-line apps on your Windows box.

The cool thing about coLinux is that it's actually Linux underneath, so you can have a complete Debian install, with apt-get etc. Postgres, MySQL, sshd etc all work as you would expect them to.

Buy a MacBook!

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