Because of problems dual-booting my
wife's computer with the latest Ubuntu, along with problems setting up the
wifi, I decided to give “Wubi” a try. I found Wubi to be an easy
install, compared to dual booting. Not only was it easier to set up, it
also saved me tons of time.
Wubi is a Ubuntu installation which is
set up onto windows itself using a Windows .exe file. How it does
all this is explained in their website and will not be tackled by me
in this post, only that it is not a true “virtualization” layer
as such and that it involves non-looping, (or is that looping)
operating systems? Anyway, I like Wubi and will be using it in the
future for all of my families' laptops, and mine when I eventually
replace it.
Unlike using virtual machines or
dual-booting, which tends to slow down every laptop I have ever
installed them on, it actually seemed to run much, much, faster.
To install Wubi you just go to their
site here , download the
free .exe file, click on it and follow the instructions. After you
click on it, it will begin installing Ubuntu from the internet and
will ask you how large of a drive you want to install it on. I have
always installed Ubuntu on 20-24 GB of space and, since my wife's
hard drive on her laptop was 250 GB, I chose 24 GB which is plenty
for what we usually do with Ubuntu. Installing to a hard drive space
is technically incorrect because what you are really doing is
installing Ubuntu to a simple folder in the Windows like any other
folder. If you want to uninstall it later it is a simple process
using Windows add/ remove program. I installed it in only 10 GB
space initially but liked it so much that I uninstalled it and
reinstalled it permanantly to my wife's laptop after removing her
dual-booted Ubuntu install and resizing the hard drive.
The reasons I like it so much are
these,
I made a better use of her wifi. Somehow it automatically found her wifi and I did not have to install drivers as I had to with her previously dual-booted installation. Also, because it was somehow using her native wifi drivers, I had stronger wifi reception and was not suffering the “every few minutes” drop out in signal that had occurred with the dual-booted installation.
- Next, everything ran faster! I was happy with that. Unfortunately, as fast as Windows 7 or Ubuntu dual-booted was, neither was as fast as Wubi. Everything seemed to open faster and work faster. I am not sure how this is so, but it seems that wubi somehow disengages many things in Windows as it boots and so uses most of the Windows drivers in a faster way. I was even able to run some of the games, like GL Tron with 3d acceleration without installing the special drivers that Ubuntu was prompting me to install. In fact, the native drivers in Windows ran better than the Ubuntu Nvidia driver I installed, (and later uninstalled), from the Wubi Ubuntu installation. Flash, Java, and Movies played too with the usual extra set of drivers and steps needed for Ubuntu.
- Lastly, the installation, (and later un-install), and subsequent final install of Wubi were so simple and fast. Note, in Windows XP there are a couple of extra steps needed to uninstall Wubi that are documented on their site, but even these are not oppressive in nature. For most, uninstalling will be as simple as uninstalling any other program in Windows.
In my opinion it is the easiest way to
install Ubuntu and it worked for everything it had with the
dual-booted install.
If you are thinking of using this then
here is a list of pros and cons.
PROS-
- Faster install, however, I had to delete my previous dual-booted install of Ubuntu and resize the hard drive to allow space for the Ubuntu folder added to Windows, in my case, 24GB. For my subsequent install it was much faster. How much? My final install was 15 minutes not counting reinstalling my backups.
- Should work with your native Windows drivers
- Easy to uninstall with only a couple extra steps for Windows XP.
- It leaves more space on your drive for dual-booting other operating systems. Because it boots in Windows I am not taking up that extra space setting up a parition for Ubuntu thus freeing it to be used by another Operating system like Free-bsd, Opensolaris, or any other OS I like or want to experiment with. Normally, If you want to continue using Windows 7 along side Ubuntu, then in many cases three partions will be already taken up by Windows, the restore drive, and the boot drive leaving space for only one other partition, since there is a limit of four partitions you can place on a drive. If you are using Widows XP, this can be pared down to only one partion leaving three partitions free for other operating systems. Theorically you can have five operating systems on one drive. Also, I haven't tried running a virtual OS with virtual box or vmware inside the faster Wubi installation. Maybe I can have my cake and eat it too by not having to dual-boot any OS at all.
CONS-
- It creates it's own boot menu which in itself is not a problem, but when Ubuntu installs it also installs a grub menu so you click on two menus to get into Ubuntu, (only have to click on the initial Wubi menu to get into Windows). This is just a minor annoyance because I went into the grub menu in Ubuntu and set the boot time to 1 second so it would automatically boot the grub menu and in a shorter time and I wouldn't have to touch it.
- If your Windows installation fails because of a virus or you need to reload windows for any other reason, then you will lose your Wubi install also. Those who want a separate home partion so they can always only install Ubuntu retaining this information will not be able to do so. In my case the benefits outweigh the loss.
- Right now they are still using Ubuntu Lucid as their Ubuntu installation. Those who want to try a newer version, or another version of Linux will have to try their own experimental install. Wubi says on their web site that it is possible to install other versions by somehow deleting the Ubuntu folder and installing another version in place of it. This was beyond what I wanted to attempt and Lucid Ubuntu is fine for me.
- Because it somehow uses Windows native drivers there was at least one thing missing. It didn't sense the sound system in the same way. The sound icon was missing from the taskbar at the top. The installation did have sound, I just had to click on the sound mixer icon in the AlaCarte menu, and this was a basic mixer window. For my wife and I this wasn't really a bother since she never used the more complicated sound mixer anyway. I simply installed a shortcut to it on the taskbar to open that same window so I could control the sound. I also haven't had the time to try it with skype so I don't know if it will work with that. Guess I'll have to wait to find out.
Overall, I like Wubi and would
recommend it to anyone, and since it is free, there is no cost to
find out if you will too.
By the way, I was not asked to review Wubi or Ubuntu nor did I receive money,
compensation, or pressure to try Wubi.
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