For testing purposes or just for fun, almost any existing Linux distribution can be rapidly deployed from its Live CD or DVD ISO image, without the need to perform an installation to a hard drive or a USB drive. Windows users who are curious to test or use Ubuntu without actually installing it on a partition of the hard drive, have at least five fast solutions to deploy Ubuntu from within Windows without affecting the currently installed operating system or modifying the structure of hard drive partitions.

1.uSbuntu Live Creator is a free Windows software, targeted primarily to automatically create bootable USB drives with Ubuntu Linux distribution. uSbuntu Live Creator has also a magic option which allows you to run Ubuntu alongside Windows, without any configuration nor software installation on your hard drive. This simple virtualization technique is based on a portable version of VirtualBox: in order to run Ubuntu in Windows, you will have to double click on the Launch_usb.exe file, located in the Portable-VirtualBox folder.

2.Ubuntu Linux and Windows can also run simultaneously without the need of a virtual machine. The solution is given by andLinux, which will allow you to run natively a full featured Ubuntu Linux distribution in Windows operating system, in the same time with Windows, in absence of any virtual machine. It is freely available for Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista operating systems as a single executable file.

3.Another solution to make Ubuntu and Windows to coexist on the same computer and share the same desktop is provided by the Portable Ubuntu for Windows executable, which will allow you to run Ubuntu inside Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, without actually performing an installation of the Linux distribution on your computer. Portable Ubuntu for Windows makes also easier the file sharing between the two operating systems, because, for example, you are allowed to edit a document simultaneously in both Ubuntu and Windows. Ubuntu will run in Windows Windows natively, as any other win32 application. Therefore, you will enjoy an incredible performance, while the two operating system are running (Ubuntu works indeed fast from within Windows through Portable Ubuntu for Windows application).

4.Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users. You will no longer need to burn a CD: Ubuntu will be installed in a single folder as a Windows application. In this case, you have the option to boot into Ubuntu, such that Ubuntu will not interact with Windows while it is running. Your Windows operating system or the bootloader will not be modified.

5.Another fast method (at least from my point of view) is the deployment of Ubuntu into a virtual machine on top of Windows operating system guest. There are many free virtualization utilities for Windows available, but the quickest possible method which uses VMware player and can also be applied in case of any other Linux distributions, is described in this article. You just have to install VMware player and customize the .vmx virtual machine file according to your available PC resources.

How Ubuntu looks on your Windows OS? Tell us in comments.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 7:30 am and is filed under Freeware that rocks, Linux Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.