Anyone here tried Colinux?

[p0ntif]

Has anyone here had any experiences with colinux?
I am going to try it out this weekend probably, but was just curious if anyone can tell me some good or bad from their own experience. Thnaks!

 

[Nothinman]

I use it at work and there are a few annoyances, but overall it works alright. It's not a full virtualization like VMWare so if you want a GUI you'll need an X server for Windows.

 

[p0ntif]

GUI isn't especially important to me, though if I can play X-evil, I'll be thrilled.
Care to elaborate on some of the particular annoyances? Any crashing issues? Memory issues? Whatg kind of a system do you use it on? And can you tell me how it works with network devices? I read somewhere that it (colinux) was almost set up like a seperate machine that you connect to on your own computer, which kind of confuses me in understanding how it talks to the PnP stuff supported under windows. In short, will I be able to start and stop my network card from colinux? Or will that mean that it will only stop under colinux, and any processes using it in windows will continue to use it?

thanks

 

[Nothinman]

It's just a basic HP tower issues to me for work with 1G of memory. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that the kernel offered by the CoLinux people doesn't support CIFS so you have to use SMBFS. That and there hasn't been a real release in a full year now.

 

[p0ntif]

sorry you replied fast and I edited (added to) my message.
I didn't realize that there hasn't been a recent release. Crazy bones.

 

[Nothinman]

It does show up as a seperate machine, like VMWare or Virtual PC, and you have to SSH into it or use the ugly console application they provide. It doesn't have direct access to the hardware, it goes through a virtualization layer, it sees some fake hardware and those drivers talk to Windows which talks directly to the hardware. If you shutdown the network interface in CoLinux it won't affect the NIC in Windows.

 

[p0ntif]

That's interesting. Thanks for the input. Does this also mean then that if a netork card typically isn't supported by linux, but is recognized in windows, it can make use of it? And in going through the layers do you notice any dramatic performance issues?

 

[Smilin]

hehe I thought you said colonix

 

[Nothinman]

I have noticed a little network speed issues, but I don't know if they're because of the extra layers or just because CoLinux is so new. And yes, CoLinux doesn't need to support the hardware for it to work as long as Windows supports it.

 

[p0ntif]

Thanks for all your help Nothinman, you rock.

 

[CTho9305]

I use colinux to produce the GTK1 Linux builds of SeaMonkey. I've never had any problems - my only real issue is that running multiple coLinux instances is a problem if you want them all on the network, since XP won't share one connection with more than one other connection.

 

[p0ntif]

good to know

War - the only way Americans learn geography.

love the sig. Sad but true.

 

[magomago]

How about just try a LIVE CD?

 

[CTho9305]

How about just try a LIVE CD?

Because coLinux is nothing like a live CD?

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

How about just try a LIVE CD?

Because coLinux is nothing like a live CD?

No I know what it is I had tried it for a time period. I just can't think of all that many instances where a person would want that instead. True I see your example, but beyond most of it it just seems to be more like "oooh ahh linux is kinda running in windows" type of effect

 

[Nothinman]

I had tried it for a time period. I just can't think of all that many instances where a person would want that instead. True I see your example, but beyond most of it it just seems to be more like "oooh ahh linux is kinda running in windows" type of effect

No, it's more of the "I need to run some Linux apps but I have to use Windows too" type of thing.