Hey All,
Joined the site here and have been a lurker for a while now.
I've learned quite a bit reading here on many subjects.
Just thought this new Wubi installer was a great thing for those of you that are new to Linux as I am.
I found it at howtoforge.com with a tutorial on installing it.
Here's the disciption from the site;
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.
Link; http://www.howtoforge.com/wubi_ubuntu_on_windows
Hope I'm not doing anything improper posting this link.
If so, please let me know.
Hope this helps someone out.

a virtual machine seems _a lot_ easier and _a lot_ more safe.

I've heard of such installers before, but I'm a little bit curious as to how it works. For example, how does GRUB boot the kernel from an NTFS-based filesystem? I was always under the assumption that GRUB was incapable of reading from NTFS partitions.

I'm also wondering about the kernel itself. Did the developers of Wubi compile the ntfs-3g driver into the kernel image? And did they hardcode in the 'system_virtual_disk' kernel parameter? I haven't been able to find any other reference to this parameter on the web.

Anyway, I think the biggest problem with the project at this point is that the ntfs-3g driver which they use is far from perfect, so the lack of stability and speed will likely discourage anyone serious about Linux from using Wubi. Although I'm sure many Windows users would love the outward simplicity of this program.

>a virtual machine seems _a lot_ easier and _a lot_ more safe.

I don't think it's a virtual machine because if it was, you'd be able to run it along side windows. That looks pretty cool, I think i might try it.

Yeah I know its not a virtual machine.

then how would a virtual machine be more safe? what does that even matter? this is an installation method. So instead of dual booting we should just run vmware?

Instead of using wubi you should just partition your harddrive or use vmware.

it would be slow and people will probably end up crapping up thier MBR with it

NTFS3g can screw up your NTFS filesystem if it is badly fragmented or has errors. the same goes for resizing NTFS partitions for dual boot.

Always scandisk + defrag then reboot before installing Linux

The same thing has existed for debian for ages

Is this what you are talking about?

...

> Instead of using wubi you should just partition your harddrive or use vmware.

I know how to make a VM, but how is it safer?