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2007-08-28

Install Ubuntu On Windows - WUBI


I saw an article about installing Ubuntu on Windows at Ubuntu-Unleashed Blog. It talks about an open source project called "WUBI".


Premise is very simple: You install an application called Wubi on Windows XP/Vista which uses an "alternate" (text based) Ubuntu ISO file to install Ubuntu in the windows partition in a 'single file' and give you an option to boot into it.


What does that mean? You do not need to have separate partitions to install linux/windows. It installs necessary drivers to access NTFS share, and does pretty cool stuff like importing your favorites/booksmarks.

When I was testing the application, which you can download via this link, it could not connect to a download site for ubuntu alternate image. So, I checked c:\wubi\install\ubuntu-7.04-alternate-i386.iso.metalink and used one of the US sites to download it.

I copied both the alternate image and wubi executable to the same directory and then ran the executable. GUI part is quick, actual installation takes sometime. It's advised to defrag your machine prior to installing it.

This is a cool idea and I hope it gets official acceptance from Ubuntu! Check out Wubi Forums if you are interested.

2007-08-23

Lifehacker's Top 10 Gnome Desktop Tweaks

The default desktop environment for Linux users, Gnome, is fast, organized and very easy to learn. But Gnome is also very powerful and highly customizable. Today's top 10 lists the various ways you can tweak Nautilus and the Gnome desktop to turn Linux into a productivity powerhouse.

read more | digg story

2007-08-22

Who owns what

Above picture, which lists some of the companies bought a few Media conglamorate, was put together by Amy Webb and is getting circulated a lot these days. It gives an idea about how much of Internet these few companies own.

2007-08-13

Online Storage finally taking shape


Just want to note this article about Online Storage and what big 3 (Google, Microsoft, Apple) are doing about it. I think online storage makes perfect sense now that we have faster internet connection.


I only tried Microsoft's Windows Live SkyDrive and it looks pretty good but of course 500MB is 'nothing' if you seriously want to keep your files online. It maybe enough if you only want to keep 'some' files

2007-08-09

A (much needed) update for Vista

Today, when I saw MS KB938194 titled "An update is available that improves the compatibility and reliability of Windows Vista" and look at the issues it resolved, it reminded me of my experience with an ATI card when I moved to Vista:

A couple of months ago I bought a nice (=expensive) ATI all in wonder X800 video card and it worked perfectly fine under Windows XP when I was playing World of Warcraft (WoW). Then, I installed Vista. All seemed fine for a week or so and then hell broke loose...

At first, I would not be able to play more WoW than 5 minutes. It would freeze and I had to reboot. Then it got worse so that I could not even play 30 secs. I gave up and started to use my other PC to play the game.

It got even worse when Vista started to freeze even when I am not playing a game but just playing any video file. At some point, my pc was totally unusable as animations were too much to display.

One of these days, I saw a sign that CompUSA shop near my house was getting closing and there was a close-out sale. I bought ATI X1600 Pro & retired the problematic one but promised myself to test it out on my Windows XP box to see if the problem would present itself there too...

Read this article for more on Windows Vista issues and possible fixes coming out...