[Tfug] Why Wubi is the stupidest idea in Linux history...

[Bowie J. Poag]

By the way, GNOME was the stupidest idea in Linux history. Not Wubi. :)


Bowie J. Poag wrote:
>
> As a crack addict with a bazooka, I take great offense to your 
> all-encompassing depiction of myself and my fellow bazooka-toting 
> crack addict friends.
>
> Seriously, I dont think Wubi is meant as a serious "let's use this 
> forever!" Linux distrib. With adequate virus protecton, such an 
> environment is fine for education, for example. Or off-network 
> deployments.
>
> Why so hostile? :)
>
> Cheers,
> Bowie
>
>
> Jim March wrote:
>> Quoting:
>>
>> ---
>> Wubi is an Ubuntu installer for Windows that lets you install and
>> uninstall Ubuntu from a Windows desktop. Wubi adds an entry to the
>> Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed
>> within a file in the Windows file system (a loopmounted partition),
>> this file is seen by Ubuntu as a real hard disk. That way the hard
>> drive does not have to be repartitioned before the Ubuntu
>> installation. The resulting Ubuntu installation is a "real" Linux
>> system, not just a virtual machine. Wubi makes it easy for Linux
>> newbies to play around with Ubuntu.
>> ---
>>
>> Source:
>>
>> http://www.howtoforge.com/wubi_ubuntu_on_windows
>>
>> The problem here is that if anything goes wrong with the Windows
>> bootloader process, both Ubuntu and Windows are toast.  And what do a
>> lot of virii infest?  Yeah.  The bootloader.
>>
>> Basically, a real Ubuntu dual-boot setup will protect against many
>> forms of virus/malware that Wubi can fall victim to.  In the event
>> that you're running Windows when it gets infected, it's *possible* the
>> boot sector will get so fried that GRUB fails to load either Ubuntu or
>> Windows, but in practice this is vanishingly rare.  In most cases
>> Windows malware will choke on and be unable to affect the GRUB-based
>> Ubuntu-altered boot process.
>>
>> An even better option from a malware-protection point of view is to
>> run a pure Linux system and then do a Windows virtual machine under
>> that.  Hardware needs aren't that bad - most P4s with a gig or more
>> can do it, and my $500-six-months-ago Best Buy special laptop (Dell
>> 1525) with 2gigs RAM does great.  In this model it's Windows that sits
>> on a file in the Linux disk structure, rather than exactly opposite as
>> in Wubi.  If Windows gets itself hosed (again) just restore one file
>> off backups and you're up again.  And via the internal networking
>> between host Linux OS and guest Windows, you can store all your data
>> elsewhere on the Linux disk so that if Windows is toast, you can still
>> get to the same files within Linux.
>>
>> Wubi is the worst possible implementation of Linux.  Period, end of
>> discussion.  It uses the Windows standard boot process, so if you
>> already have malware you're working off a portion of the system
>> *likely* affected by malware and hence unpredictable as a crack addict
>> with a bazooka.
>>
>> Jim
>>
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>>   
>
>
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