Ulteo Virtual Desktop: run a virtual Linux environment inside Windows
Description: Ulteo Virtual Desktop installs a virtual Linux environment inside Windows. This free program shows up as a panel inside the Windows desktop and allows you to access Linux applications within Windows with little effect on performance, enabling users to run both Windows and Linux apps simultaneously and to switch between them at will.
For those who would like to run Linux inside Windows “Ulteo Virtual Desktop” provides a virtual Linux environment inside Windows. Ulteo is based on Debian Linux and comes pre-bundled with a wide range of Linux apps, including Firefox, OpenOffice, KPdf, Kopete, Skype, Thunderbird, Enigmail, GIMP, Digikam, Inkspace, Scribus, and many others.
Why run Linux in Windows?: I am assuming that you have a need to access both Windows and Linux apps or, like me, you have the desire and/or curiosity to run Linux applications. Or perhaps you would like to learn Linux or want to use it because you are looking into it as a replacement for Windows. Having the Linux environment inside Windows will save the time spent switching between operating systems and will circumvent the need for messing around with partition tables and other technical details (and, of course, let’s not forget the sheer coolness factor!). Here are more notes on this program:
- Downloading/Installing: once you get the 500 meg installer downloaded installing it is a breeze; however it will take up some 6 gigs on your hard drive, so make sure you have the space for it. Once installed (does not even require a reboot), the program will show up as a panel on top of your screen, and you can simply run the application you need to use from the Ulteo panel and its window will show up like any other Windows application.
- Performance: is very good, from my experience, but of course this is difficult to measure objectively. The Developers state that this software doesn’t run “traditional virtualization software”, and that instead they built it using “a special Linux kernel patch called coLinux that achieves great performance, close toa native installation on the PC”.
- The virtual file system: this is a 5 gig virtual file system that lives in a file (C:\Program Files\Ulteo\Virtual Desktop\os\vdisk ). What you see as a user is a Linux file system that can also access the root (C:\) and “My Documents” folders in your Windows filesystem. You can thus easily transfer documents back and forth across the two OS’s. Also note that the Linux vdisk can be both resized or mounted into Windows (see the FAQ for info on this).
- Access to your computer’s resources: Ulteo virtual desktop supports sound and is able to print from your regular printer. The Linux apps can access the internet (no proxy support but it’s promised), and I am assuming that they can also use the other hardware resources (e.g. CD/DVD drives, etc.)
- Creating an Ulteo user account: you will find that this software will ask you to do this, which involves creating an account and supplying a working email. The creators of Virtual Desktop have a number of projects going on including a so-called “online desktop” platform also based on Linux, and they apparently want to be able to integrate these by having users access them using the same account login and password.
A note on installing your own apps: as someone who is interested in free software I am often intrigued by the growing number of free Linux-only programs that I come across. This, in fact, is probably my main reason of wanting to install a Linux environment, but alas as things stand right now installing Linux apps into this environment does not seem possible. Here are some notes on this.
- The Ulteo Desktop FAQ states that installing additional software other than the many apps provided is possible through using “dpkg -i as root” (for .deb files), but that they do not recommend it because “it will break the consistency of the system when your system will upgrade from the net to more recent version of libs and apps”.
- I tried, in fact, to install a program using dpkg -i as mentioned above but was not successful; I got a message that I did not have “superuser privileges”.
- The developers of Ulteo Virtual Desktop do however state that they are “looking for ways to circumvent this issue”.
The verdict: as someone who wants and is actively searching for a way to run Linux apps inside Windows, Ulteo Virtual Desktop is probably (as of this writing) the most complete and well rounded solution out there, and probably the easiest to work with (although I am keeping my eye on similar projects such as andLinux and Lina). Having said this, I sincerely hope that the developers will be successful in enabling the free and unrestricted installation of Linux apps on this platform, because, to be honest, I find the usefulness of having a Linux environment that does not accept installing my own apps quite limiting (if I wanted this I might just as well use a Linux live CD). To conclude, I would definitely say that this is a program to keep an eye on.
Version Tested: beta2
Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista.
Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 500 megs). ’
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Why not use free VMware Player at http://www.vmware.com/products/player with a free pre-built actual Linux OS applicance? Your favorite Linux flavor of course - see http://www.vmware.com/appliances/. Or JeOS, or gOS, or Solaris… looks like there are hundreds ready for download. Did I mention it’s all free?
If you don’t mind slightly slower-than-native performance, give QEMU-Puppy or DSL-Embedded a try. Neither supports deb or rpm packages, but each has a decent selection of available software, and you can add a Slackware installer to Puppy.
Access to your windows folders requires a workaround, however - either network sharing or an ftp server.
I’ll stick to VirtualBox…
@offhermeds & EP
Ulteo is much more like Paralles on Mac (where you can run native Windows application inside OS X). Please correct me if I’m wrong. With VMWare & VirtualBox, you need to load “the entire” OS to launch the app.
The problem is: (IMHO) there’s no “killer” linux application that can’t be run on Windows. We already have GIMP, blender, and so on that can be run on Windows.
Interesting, but not too usable (IMHO again).
VirtualBox. Complete (actually VirtualBox is not complete, processor is not really virtualized unlike VirtualPC and others) virtualization does come with performance hit but doesn’t restrict what you can do, what flavour of linux you can install and what apps you put on top of it.
VirtualBox with guest additions, which makes switching between host and guest system easier, seems pretty good to me.
I’m not limited to one OS (I prefer Ubuntu though), I can have on “virtual HDD” as much virtual disk space as I want.
I have read that CoLinux focuses on performance, but I have no complains about Virtualbox performance on my current system with AMD dual-core CPU and 2 Gb RAM.
VMWare is WAY too slow but it *does* work. Sun’s VirtualBox performance is great, but the Linux guest is a nightmare to configure for shared folders & USB (and the OSE VirtualBox doesn’t even attempt USB support). Linux is difficult enough to work with (what with having to drop into the terminal mode & issue a bunch of gibberish commands to do much of anything) without adding the virtualized problems.
This, on the other hand, is a fairly clean solution.
Hey Samer,
How does this stack up against previously posted WUBI? Better or worse.
For me, the most painless approach for adding Linux to a windows box is Wubi, that adds a dual boot ubuntu using NTFS (so you don’t have to mess with repartitioning your drive). It recognized my existing Vista-XP dual boot and installed nicely without screwing anything up.
>Linux guest is a nightmare to configure for shared folders & USB
Not messed with USB but I configured folders pretty fast (Ubuntu guest) after carefully reading VirtualBox manual (and I am total noob in linux). Well it did make me remember hardcore DOS command line skills…
Anyway in last VirtualBox version network-related stuff got great boost so it’s easier to simply make ftp server on host.
Problem is that.. WHY would I want to use linux in the first place?!!??!
Why would you not be able to use the sudo command to run dpkg? Did you try?
@darkkosmos: Geek cred.
andLinux
http://www.andlinux.org/
Provides similar setup using Ubuntu and coLinux.
This provides huge amount of easy to install applications using Synaptic Package Manager.
IMHO vmware much faster than virtualbox
example of using linux in windows (i’m used) is for webserver/web application testing stuff [apache+php+mysql] that generally run on linux….
the only linux that i love is slax
http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php
good for recovery rescue cd. ;^^
” # I tried, in fact, to install a program using dpkg -i as mentioned above but was not successful; I got a message that I did not have “superuser privileges”. ”
@Samer: are you sure, you tried to run dpkg in with root privileges (sudo)?
Hey genius,
Post a political ad and lose customers.
I was seriously interested in your product, but not in your agenda. No, no you can’t.
@sayno2politics
Yes I can post a political banner. It is NOT an ad; I am posting it for free.
Oh and by the way, I am not selling anything for you to be interested in, you must have been seriously interested in someone else’s product.
This is a free service. You are free to take advantage of it, or not. If you don’t come here again it’s no skin off my back.
Apparently you don’t just say no to politics, but to free speech as well.
@Orin
How does this stack up against previously posted WUBI? Better or worse.
I’d say Wubi FTW. Pretty easy to set up, and won’t have performance issues as opposed to virtualization.
@Mothman,
WUBI and Ulteo Virtual Desktop offer two different things.
UVD offers a working Linux envirnoment INSIDE Windows. You can run both Linux and Windows simultaneously.
WUBI installs Lunix inside a Windows hard drive partition, but you will have to boot into it (installs a dual boot prompt).
[...] The verdict: an excellent way to test Linux LiveCD builds on-the-fly in a Windows environment without re-booting and without burning ISOs into CDs. There is also the definite coolness factor of running Linux inside Windows (if this is where your interest lies, also check out Ulteo Virtual Desktop). [...]
I have VirtualBox. I’ll try this one too. Thanks.
A virtual OS will give you almost bulletproof security from malware, worms and viruses when browsing the net as they can’t get into your ‘real’ host machine.
Another possible use is as a testing environment.