If I may say, there was a stupider idea. UMSDOS filesystems. Remember those? You could install a Linux system without disrupting your DOS 6.22/Windows 3.11 setup! The big problem was performance. It managed to be disc-bound for the simplest tasks on an 80MHz 486DX2 with a modern (ca. 1997) 3Gb EIDE hard disc. The small problem was I seem to recall that DOS didn't love the deep paths it tended to create. -----Original Message----- From: Jim March <1.jim.march@gmail.com> To: Main PLUG discussion list ; Tucson Free Unix Group Sent: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 9:50 am Subject: Why Wubi is the stupidest idea in Linux history... Quoting: --- Wubi is an Ubuntu installer for Windows that lets you install and uninstall Ubuntu from a Windows desktop. Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the Windows file system (a loopmounted partition), this file is seen by Ubuntu as a real hard disk. That way the hard drive does not have to be repartitioned before the Ubuntu installation. The resulting Ubuntu installation is a "real" Linux system, not just a virtual machine. Wubi makes it easy for Linux newbies to play around with Ubuntu. --- Source: http://www.howtoforge.com/wubi_ubuntu_on_windows The problem here is that if anything goes wrong with the Windows bootloader process, both Ubuntu and Windows are toast. And what do a lot of virii infest? Yeah. The bootloader. Basically, a real Ubuntu dual-boot setup will protect against many forms of virus/malware that Wubi can fall victim to. In the event that you're running Windows when it gets infected, it's *possible* the boot sector will get so fried that GRUB fails to load either Ubuntu or Windows, but in practice this is vanishingly rare. In most cases Windows malware will choke on and be unable to affect the GRUB-based Ubuntu-altered boot process. An even better option from a malware-protection point of view is to run a pure Linux system and then do a Windows virtual machine under that. Hardware needs aren't that bad - most P4s with a gig or more can do it, and my $500-six-months-ago Best Buy special laptop (Dell 1525) with 2gigs RAM does great. In this model it's Windows that sits on a file in the Linux disk structure, rather than exactly opposite as in Wubi. If Windows gets itself hosed (again) just restore one file off backups and you're up again. And via the internal networking between host Linux OS and guest Windows, you can store all your data elsewhere on the Linux disk so that if Windows is toast, you can still get to the same files within Linux. Wubi is the worst possible implementation of Linux. Period, end of discussion. It uses the Windows standard boot process, so if you already have malware you're working off a portion of the system *likely* affected by malware and hence unpredictable as a crack addict with a bazooka. Jim --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss