Andlinux : Linux on Windows Desktop

Cooperative Linux is a relatively new piece of work aimed at running Linux applications on Microsoft Windows. This differs from virtualization based or User-mode Linux because in case of Cooperative Linux a special driver software is used to run Linux Kernel in privileged mode. Virtual Machine based solutions on the other hand do a simulation of the underlying machine. By running Linux Kernel natively, Cooperative Linux achieves performances nearing those achieved by a standalone Linux. Further the resource requirements are also low.

Cooperative Linux is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. More generally, Cooperative Linux (short-named coLinux) is a port of the Linux kernel that allows it to run cooperatively alongside another operating system on a single machine. For instance, it allows one to freely run Linux on Windows 2000/XP, without using a commercial PC virtualization software such as VMware, in a way which is much more optimal than using any general purpose PC virtualization software.

However for a naive user, there are troubles in setting up Cooperative Linux. This is where andlinux comes to rescue. With andlinux, setting up Cooperative Linux is just a kid's play. No more jugglery with batch files or stuff like that. Just download the files required for andlinux and you are ready for the show.

Above image shows my Windows machine running andlinux. Top left light yellow colored window is gnome-terminal. In the background is Windows Live Writer running. There is also a XFCE panel visible in the middle of top right quadrant. The performance of programs is almost same as though I am just running Linux. There is some delay at the time of starting an application but after that it all seems to work just fine.

Andlinux comes with a Ubuntu based image. So I was able to run synaptic package manager to install new applications.

Above is the synaptic application, which I used to install Abiword and gcc.

Requirements:

• Windows 2000/XP/2003 or higher
• 128 MB of free RAM (64 MB possible, by editing settings_static.txt)
• 4 GB available hard drive space
• a good Internet connection, to be able to install further applications.
• some basic Linux skills to proceed once installed (working with Synaptic and Xfce, unless you just want to see Firefox under Linux).

andlinux about page

Download:

To install andlinux, you need to download a 150MB file from any of the following mirror. If possible go for paid high speed download mirror, which supports the project.

• MadTux, $5.95 high speed download to support the project

Andlinux keeping up with the spirit of Free Software also provides mirrors for free downloads. These are as follows-

• TU-Dresden, Germany, 600MBit
• University of Paderborn, Germany, 600MBit (ftp)
• University of Paderborn, Germany, 600MBit (http)
• KunsthausGraz, Austria
• Mathias Rothe, Germany
• Robert Stadie, Germany

andlinux downloads page

Installation:

• Execute the andLinuxPreBeta.exe file downloaded from any of the mirror above. This is a self extracting zip file and extract it to your desired location.
• Run run_to_install.bat
• While installing WinTap, you might receive a Continue Anyway prompt. Just click it and move ahead.
• If the window still remains and the title has the word Finished, just close it.

C:\Downloads>andLinuxPreBeta.exe
C:\Downloads>cd C:\andLinux
C:\andLinux>run_to_install.txt

When you try to execute andLinuxPreBeta.exe, depending on the application installed for unzipping files on your system, you will get a dialog asking for location where andLinux should be unzipped to. If you do not have any unzip application, try 7-zip.

Executing:

• Go to the folder where you unzipped andLinux in the installation.
• Execute startup.bat

C:\>cd andLinux
C:\andLinux>startup.bat

This window shows the background server output from andLinux. After a bit of delay you will find the Xfce panel coming up as shown below.

Once this panel appears, you can start your console by pressing the console icon. You can also install newer packages through synaptic by clicking the second icon.

In the upcoming parts of this series, we will discuss about how to increase the size of the default partition which comes with andLinux.

Happy Cooperation and don't forget to introduce your grandmas to Linux by installing andLinux.

Web Page Source Viewer

Several times we are required to peek into source code of pages. Conventional way of looking into Mozilla Firefox, opens source code in a new window (pressing CTRL+U). This add-on is a sleek and elegant offering, which allows to view the source code in a tab. Advantages of add-on are-

• Less cluttered desktop because source code goes into tab instead of a separate window.
• A closed tab can be reopened later using Undo Close Tab.

As the above image shows, you can have source code of any page in a tab.

This loads "View Page Source" and "View Selection Source" in tabs instead of new windows.

Add-on Page

Download:

This plugin can be downloaded from add-on site.

RAMBack - Making Firefox RAM friendly

Mozilla Firefox has redefined lot of browser related notions and proudly owns many first in browser world. However recent releases of Mozilla Firefox have become bulky. Several times a peek at process status might reveal your beloved Firefox quietly eating up even more beloved RAM.

Now to end up such memory related woes, there is a plugin for Firefox, which supposedly forces it to free up memory held up for performance reasons.

RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory that is otherwise held for performance purposes. Additional items will be hooked into this notification in the future.

Add-on Page

However one of the biggest shortcomings of add-on is that it is only available for 3.0a8pre – 3.0.0.* This kind of non-compliance of various add-on with different versions of Mozilla Firefox has been a source of trouble in recent times. However for all those who have already moved on to a latest happening version of Mozilla Firefox, The plugin is a must have so that you can be saved from ever growing demands for RAM albeit for performance reasons.

Download:

The plugin can be downloaded from add-on site.

txt2html : Perl way of converting txt 2 html

Just as we have industrial revolution, genetic revolution electronic revolution, nowadays its Internet revolution. Every conceivable entity who doesn't have an Internet footprint, is not deemed to be important. However posting on Internet, in its native language HTML has always been cumbersome for most of the people. Further employing any of those big and bulky HTML authoring engines may be too much for something like a text file.

txt2html is a Perl program that converts plain text to HTML. It uses the HTML::TextToHTML perl module to do so.

It supports headings, tables, lists, simple character markup, and hyperlinking, and is highly customizable. It recognizes some of the apparent structure of the source document (mostly whitespace and typographic layout), and attempts to mark that structure explicitly using HTML. The purpose for this tool is to provide an easier way of converting existing text documents to HTML format, giving something nicer than just whapping the text into a big PRE block.

txt2html README

It might seem a bit outdated, but for simple static dynamic pages such as your resume, or about page or for that matter your academics or experience, going into full fledged HTML coding or employing HTML authoring tool might not be a good option. In such cases, txt2html offers a nice, easy and quick solution.

However this certainly is not the tool of choice when you have some complicated layouts in mind or your document is not in text.

Downloading:

The software can be obtained from project's sourceforge site.

Installing:

1. Since the software is a Perl program, you need to first install Perl for your platform. Perl can be obtained from Perl Official Site.
2. Download the txt2html tarball from download site.
3. Untar the tarball.
4. Install all dependencies:
   • Module::Build (for installation)
   • Getopt::Long
   • Getopt::ArgvFile
   • Pod::Usage
   • File::Basename
   • Test::More (for testing)
   • Data::Dumper (for debugging)
5. execute following commands

   [root@localhost ~]# perl Build.PL
   [root@localhost ~]# ./Build
   [root@localhost ~]# ./Build test
   [root@localhost ~]# ./Build install