PureWinLin - Linux emulated on Windows via QEMU

Beach · Post by **Beach** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:37 pm

Many of you remember my project last year which used CoLinux to emulate a Linux PC (running on Gentoo) and hosted on Windows. Now, I have put together a similar project which uses QEMU instead and is much easier to use overall.

Here is a list of features (pros):
☼ Zero configuration needs on the host PC
☼ Debian 3.1 Stable fully updated
☼ Gnome 2.8 windows manager
☼ FireFox browser
☼ Boot option to enable sound card emulation
☼ Demo version of PureBasic configured with Freak's beta IDE
☼ 4GB virtual drive but starts out as 1Gb in size. Image drive grows in size as new data is stored on virtual file system

And the known issues (cons):
☼ Slow... It is much slower than CoLinux. The QEMU development team is working on a accelerator that claims to make the virtual system run as fast as the native hardware.
☼ Random lockups in terminal mode. The system boots up to Gnome and works fine until you shutdown or logout. The terminal will sometimes hang.
☼ Distribution size is larger. The download size is now 360mb. However... now all GTK2 libs are already loaded and it has Gnome 2.8 instead of XFCE..
☼ No app to install the full version of PureBasic. However, I have already configured the bash environment so all you will need to do is unpack the full version, un-comment some lines in the ".bash_profile" file, and delete the previous directory.

Here are a couple of screen shots:
->PureBasic IDE with compiled app
->FireFox open and XMMS streaming some trance...

Download -> PureWinLin.zip (360MB)
MD5: 75f662f80a5964fe8c4dcc91a9f3dae4

Post by **Fred** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:43 pm

Sounds really cool ! Let me test all that

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 9:29 pm

This looks awesome

Going to download and install when I get home ...

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:38 am

It doesnt run here. Reference memory could not be read. This is after I kept the default options, and picked the top selection.

Beach · Post by **Beach** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:39 am

Shannara wrote:It doesnt run here. Reference memory could not be read. This is after I kept the default options, and picked the top selection.

Do you get the QEMU terminal window? Oh, the default of 128mb RAM will be allocated from your physical RAM - make sure you have enough for your host and the virtual machine.

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:55 am

I have enough ram

I guess it's the terminal, it basicly asked if I want to boot in recovery mode or regular, I picked regular If you need screenies , Ican provide

aaron · Post by **aaron** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:25 pm

Worked great on my laptop, although I had to wander away for a bit while it booted....

PureBasic worked well (just compiled the demo gadget apps), and opening up firefox let me cruise the internet without any troubles. Amazing. Works much easier than colinux did.

Although I had the same troubles when closing it down... I did a 'shutdown -h now' in the console, and it shutdown everything but the console window never went away. I had to kill it. A minor sort of thing though, definitely.

Heis Spiter · Post by **Heis Spiter** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:02 pm

I've tested it. It works fine ! It's the first Linux emulator that works on my computer !

. I've also tested PureBasic

. It seems to work... Now, I'll try to port my programs under Linux

.
Good Job (007

)

dige · Post by **dige** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 10:07 am

amazing! very cool stuff :D

Beach · Post by **Beach** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:48 pm

Thanks guys! I am keeping an eye on the QEMU site to see when they release the accelerator for Windows. Hopefully they will work out some of the other bugs as well.

Post by **Fred** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:12 pm

i just tried it, it works like a charm

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:11 pm

Beach wrote:Thanks guys! I am keeping an eye on the QEMU site to see when they release the accelerator for Windows. Hopefully they will work out some of the other bugs as well.

That would be excellent, until then Im using coLinux, it should be fairly easy for me to install the newest purebasic on coLinux?

Edwin Knoppert · Post by **Edwin Knoppert** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:53 pm

Tried it today, looks nice, thanks!

A few things to mention:
1) The firewall complains about qemu.exe (or so) when i run mozilla.
This is dangerous, once granted this single exe will pass all future communications unprotected.

2) To bad that my highest resolution can not be selected, i 'only' see 640x480 and 800x600.
The thing is that during switching, the Windows caption egt's out of sight.
Iow you can no longer grab the window.

Post by **Dare2** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:51 am

Nice!

Much easier (and as you said, slower) than colinux. I hope this project keeps going!

Do you know if there are there any plans to make a utility that allows access to the img via windows, eg, emulates img file as a folder? That would make it a breeze to get stuff across.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:32 am

Nice work Beach!

Can't wait for the speed fix.