For a windows user migrating to linux leaving behind one’s favorite windows games and applications is a problem. Now, the solution to this is obviously running linux natively in windows.
A commercial PC virtualisation software like VMware could solve the problem but its an expensive option. Another solution is using coLinux(cooperative linux).
Cooperative Linux is the first method for optimally running Linux on Windows and other operating systems natively. It is a port of the Linux kernel and support code that allows it to run cooperatively without emulation along with another operating system. coLinux differs itself by being more of a merger of Windows and the Linux kernel and not an emulated PC, making it more efficient.
coLinux is great. It consists of a lot of binary packages that can be selected by the user. Files are available for download here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/colinux/files/
An important issue needs to be considered before starting of with installation. Windows is case-insensitive i.e files like kernel2.6 and KERNEL2.6 are the same in windows but in linux they denote different files. Hence while installing packages windows replaces files with same names but different cases. If this is ignored , after installation some commands do not work. To avoid this problem windows has to be made case sensitive.
Open rregistry editor. Locate the HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\kernel\ dword:ObCaseInsensitive registry key. This key determines whether a file system is case sensitive or case insensitive. If the value of this key is set to 1, the file system is treated as case insensitive. If the value of this key is set to 0, the file system is treated as case sensitive. Set the value to 0. Save and restart computer. Now start with the installation.
A simpler version is andLinux.
andLinux is a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in Windows 2000 based systems (2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7; 32-bit versions only). andLinux uses coLinux as its core which is confusing for many people. Xming is used as X server and PulseAudio as sound server. andLinux runs almost all Linux applications without modification.
For download and installation details visit the site: http://www.andlinux.org/
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