Recently I was looking to run Linux on Windows 7 computer and came across “andLinux“. ‘andLinux’ is a complete Ubuntu Linux system which runs seamlessly on Windows7, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000(32-bit versions only). coLinux is used as the core for andLinux. coLinux is actually a port of the Linux Kernel to Windows. coLinux differs itself by being more of a merger of windows and the Linux Kernel and doesn’t work like an emulated PC. Here Xming is used as the X server and PulseAudio as the sound server. andLinux runs almost all Linux applications without any modifications. andLinux is recommended for single user PC’s or trustworthy environment as the communication with the X-Server and the launcher is not secured.

To start Linux applications you can either use the XFCE Panel or you may choose to use the andLinux Launcher.

andLinux Launcher consists of

• Start menu in the system tray which can be changed according to your needs and it also has quick launch icons.
• You can open a file with text editor or open a folder in the file manager with the Explorer shell extensions.
• File type associations can be made easily and you can run linux commands from windows scripts with andcmd.exe.

You can run andLinux in a command window or as a NT service in the background. With andLinux you can use Linux applications and Windows applications simultaneously and you can even cut and paste text between them. andlinux requires windows 7, XP, 2000, 2003, Vista and an NTFS file system.

Download andlinux