What if you want to run GNU/Linux atop a Windows platform or try Linux without installing it on a partition itself, thereby preserving — and not even rebooting — your Windows system? Don't worry; VMware and Virtual PC are not your only choices. A new free software project called coLinux, or Cooperative Linux, lets you do nearly everything User-mode Linux does on Windows 2000 or XP:

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/...29/colinux.html


Moved from Everything Linux by spinynorman

Couldn't get it to run under my Win2K install. It seemed to die out when it was "creating monitor".

The Cooperative Linux Console opened, looked like it was booting, then went black. The message at the bottom was:

"Cooperative Linux Console started
Monitor0: Attached
Monitor0: Broken Pipe
Monitor0: Detached"

In the window that the daemon was running in:
"Cooperative Linux daemon
daemon: manager not opened
daemon: removing driver leftover
driver: stopping driver service
driver: removing driver service
daemon: installing kernel driver
daemon: loading configuration from default.colinux.xml
Expected '>' after '/' for element network, but got 'n'!
daemon: creating monitor
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 7
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 2
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 6
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 3
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 0
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 4
colinux: launching net daemons
daemon: launching daemon for conet0
executing: colinux-net-daemon
daemon: launching console
executing: colinux-console-fltk -a 0
Linux version 2.4.25-co-0.6.0 (karrde@callisto.yi.org) (gcc version 3.3.3 (Deb
n)) #57 Mon Mar 22 23:56:28 IST 2004
64MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 16384
zone(0): 0 pages.
zone(1): 16384 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: root=/dev/cobd0
Initializing CPU#0
Enabling TAP-Win32...
Error enabling TAP Win32vectors
CPU_HAS_TSC: 1Detected 432.031 MHz processor.
Console: colour CoCON 80x25
pipe client 0/6: Connecting to daemon...
pipe client 0/6: Connection established
Calibrating delay loop... daemon: module connected: console
co_message_switch: setting callback rule for 6
830.66 BogoMIPS
Memory: 62128k/65536k available (1126k kernel code, 0k reserved, 62k data, 52k
nit, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After generic, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) stepping 05
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
cobd: loaded (max 8 devices)
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 8192)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
VFS: Cannot open root device "cobd0" or 75:00
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 75:00
daemon: monitor terminated, reason 3
switch_message: freed message a045a50 (2 to 4)
daemon: module disconnected: console
colinux: shutting down
daemon: daemon cleanup
daemon: removing kernel driver
driver: stopping driver service
driver: removing driver service"

Whaddaya think?

I tried it and got about the same (in fact, I think it was *exactly* the same)

WinXP here.

Well, after trying to work with this for about 2 hours I had success. This is what I did to stop "error enabling TAP" on boot:

Readded the TAP driver as stated in link in the above post
Set the TAP to obtain addresses automatically
I renamed my new TAP to "TAP" but I do not know if this matters
I disabled the other two "fake" TAP's that did not work
Added the TAP (unplugged) to a network bridge with my real ethernet
Booted colinux-daemon

This is Win XP Pro SP1.
Good luck.

My /etc/network/interfaces is
auto lo eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.60 (no other number on my network)
gateway 192.168.1.1 (this is my router GW)
netmask 255.255.255.0

My XML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<colinux>
<block_device index="0" path="\DosDevices\g:\progra~1\colinux\Debian-3.0r0.ext3.1gb" enabled="true">
</block_device>
<block_device index="1" path="\DosDevices\c:\colinux\swap_device" enabled="true">
</block_device>
<bootparams>root=/dev/cobd0</bootparams>
<image path="vmlinux"></image>
<memory size="82"></memory>
<network index="1" type="tap" name="TAP"></network>
</colinux>

Sounds as an interesting project, but as long as the distro's you can run on it are still so limited, I think I will stick to VMWare (which is not at all perfect, but which does work for me). Will keep an eye on this one though.

Ciao,

Sitor