Running Linux under windows?

[Tony Baechler]

My info comes from a sighted person who installed it when I was there.  
I didn't install it because I wanted to see if it was what they 
claimed.  It wasn't.  They imply that it runs directly from Windows and 
requires nothing special including grub.  I don't know what bootloader 
it uses since the person installing isn't that much of a computer 
person, but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be lilo.  It does require a 
reboot into Linux and another boot back into Windows to uninstall.  From 
a blind prospective, there is no way of knowing that grub was installed 
or how to access it.  It doesn't beep or have any significant boot delay 
that I could tell.  It apparently shows a menu letting you choose which 
OS you want.  Even on the first boot into Linux, there is no speech and 
no beep, so it would still require sighted help for an initial setup.  
It's too bad because I would like to give Ubuntu a fair try but not at 
the cost of repartitioning again.  For now, the best bet for the blind 
is probably a virtual machine, but if sighted help is available, wubi 
might be fine.  I would like more information from people who actually 
got it to work with Orca.  They imply that you can launch it from 
Windows but that's untrue.  You must shut down Windows first, making it 
more difficult for the blind.  I suppose once you're into Linux and you 
get Orca started, you could edit your menu.lst to beep and such, but 
this wouldn't be obvious to someone reading the wubi site unless one had 
previous Linux experience.  Considering the market for wubi, it is doubtful.

marbux wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 3:21 AM, Tony Baechler <tony at baechler.net> wrote:
>   
>> I suggest wubi.  It still installs a bootloader which I assume is grub so
>> you'll probably need sighted assistance on your first boot, but it runs in
>> Windows without repartitioning.  http://wubi-installer.org/
>>     
>
> Have they changed it? When I tested it, it required a reboot into Wubi
> and from there a reboot into Windows. You could install and uninstall
> it from Windows but both couldn't run concurrently.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paul
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