Portable Ubuntu

[ago]

> If it's decided that always using colinux is undesirable, may I suggest that
> we title the option to enable it "Make my Ubuntu applications and documents
> accessible from Windows."
>
> Thanks,
> Evan
>

Even if the use of colinux is agreed upon, I'd assume that the colinux
binaries would have to be downloaded separately to keep the wubi
footprint on CD small. So the above would also be a required
"fallback" option when there is no internet connection.

There are some colinux gotchas you might want to be aware of:

* There seem to be problems with 64 bit windows versions . See:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7026890 and
http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Dashboard_for_developing_a_64_bit_coLinux

* Firewalls might get in the way of Xming and PulseAudio integration

* Cofs is used to access the windows files, but there is a warning in
the wiki that it may lead to filesystem corruption
(http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Cofs_device), I do not know if that
comment is up to date. Samba might be used instead, but it is another
piece to take care of.

* The 2.6.22 kernel is targeted, I am not sure how easy it would be to
provide up -to-date patched kernels or if you prefer to live with
their kernel version.

* As mentioned previously, modules are loaded separately from a
different file, I assume this is to support images generated without
colinux, and I assume it is a one off. There might be other unexpected
behaviors in the initrd (didn't look into that). That again is
something we can leave as is or try to standardize upon. We might have
to swap some configuration files at boot time (or better make the
underlying services more dynamic).

* There is no 3D acceleration (most apps will not need it anyway). I
guess that rules out the option of replacing the Windows desktop with
netbook remix launcher, too bad...

* I managed to make windows crash completely, I didn't think about
taking notes then, I'll see if I can reproduce that (it happened in a
VM, so it might be half an issue)