Will Mint support Wubi?

[belovedmonster]

I was beginning to think that this next release of Ubuntu might be quite boring because of the LTS factor, but it turns out that Ubuntu might actually be releasing a hugely important piece of tech come April time. A thing called Wubi. You can read about it here.

Will the next version of Mint support Wubi? I hope so!!

[Husse]

Well Hardy is far from getting boring
new and better handling of X and external hard disks among other things
As for Wubi this has to be evaluated but if it fits on the CD, why not?

[timw06]

Wubi isn't new; it's been around unofficially since Feisty and only narrowly missed the deadline to be included on the Gutsy CD! Since Wubi is only a modified NSIS, and Mint is only a modified Ubuntu (no offence) a port shouldn't be too difficult. A while back I was thinking of porting it to Mint but never got round to it. Does someone know where I can find the source to the Hardy version so I can have a go?

[belovedmonster]

The Wubi website? Their sourceforge page? http://sourceforge.net/projects/wubi/

[timw06]

I know about the Souceforge page but the last svn commit there was in June last year...

[k_2150]

I'm using Wubi now, it's bundled with Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha and will be included in the next official release. I didn't think it would work, running Linux from a Windows folder rather than a Linux partition ... I was expecting a laggy performance and/or frequent crashes, I was wrong on both counts, it works perfectly for me with no noticable difference in speeds.

[suirkey]

are there any plans to add it the the next Mint release?

[Husse]

are there any plans to add it the the next Mint release?

No
It is not just to add it, it seems to be rather complicated and the people working with wubi would have to "make a wubi" for us if I understand correctly
I have answered that somewhere else

[tuxcantfly]

are there any plans to add it the the next Mint release?

No
It is not just to add it, it seems to be rather complicated and the people working with wubi would have to "make a wubi" for us if I understand correctly
I have answered that somewhere else

Not necessarily. Since Mint is getting the kernel and initramfs generation scripts from upstream Ubuntu, the bulk of the work (the loopmounted booting patches to the initrd) should already be available as of Linux Mint 5.0; the rest is rather simple.

I'm the original developer of Wubi (back then it was known as the Windows-based Ubuntu Installer), and though I left the project almost a year ago to work on UNetbootin, at the time the only steps needed to port it to another distro was to port over the loopmounted installation and booting backend code, then known as Lupin (which has already been done since Mint has gotten it via upstream Ubuntu), generate hashes and metalinks for the ISO files, add the metalinks to the downloads URL list, then modify the preseed file generation to install the default Mint meta-package set. Other than that, some rebranding would have to be done, but again, these tasks are quite trivial compared to having to port the loopmounting code over. Since I doubt there have been any radical changes to the codebase since then, the same procedure should still work now; thus yes, it is possible to easily and independently port Wubi to Mint.

However, myself I believe loop-installations are inherently flawed (which was why I left the project in the first place) since they make the Linux installation dependent on Windows for the bootloader and filesystem, not to mention the various performance, reliability, maintenance, and supportability issues that emerge when you have a system booting from a file; thus apart from simply the added convenience, Wubi-style installations are far worse than standard ones. I believe that LiveUSB installation is a better way to go, since LiveUSB drives provide a more seamless transition from the standard liveCD installation approach, and with the increasing popularity of large flash drives, they have a potential to easily supersede the standard CD-install approach, providing faster boot and installation speeds, easier generation of liveUSB installs (at least with a graphical liveusb creator), no need for CD burners or blank disks, with no drawbacks in terms of the generated installation itself. If there is to be a specially branded Windows based installer for Linux Mint, I'd suggest that a graphical tool to create LiveUSB drives, something along the lines of UNetbootin be used instead (I can create a specialized version for Mint, if any of the core Mint devs are interested).

[MagnusB]

UNetbooting looks very interesting. What type of install does it perform when you choose to install to HDD? An ordinary install, with it's own partitions etc?

[tuxcantfly]

UNetbooting looks very interesting. What type of install does it perform when you choose to install to HDD? An ordinary install, with it's own partitions etc?

With the USB install mode (the primary option), a liveUSB drive is created, from which Mint can be booted and installed to HDD the ordinary way just like from a liveCD, complete with partitions, bootloader and all; I presume that would be its primary usage case. See http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=14209 for a guide I just posted on it.

UNetbootin's alternative "Hard Disk" install mode (this isn't what happens when you install using a liveUSB generated using the USB drive install mode) creates a "frugal install"; that is, you can run Mint in Live mode from your HDD, but the caveat is that since Mint and other Live distros keep the partition it booted from mounted, you won't be able to repartition it for the installation. That option was created primarily for Netboot-style installations like those of Debian, where the partition doesn't have to be mounted for installation (and therefore the hard drive can be repartitioned), so this install mode won't be that useful for Mint, unless of course Mint has a copy2ram option that allows you to run it from RAM and not have the hard drive partition mounted (so that it can indeed be repartitioned).

However, given how widespread and cheap large USB drives are these days, I doubt anyone will be needing to use the frugal install approach; anyone installing to HDD should be using the easier installation via the liveUSB approach.

[SIStem_shock]

I'd like to see Wubi for Mint offered. I recently installed Wubi because I'm not ready to attempt a dual boot on my new Vista pc but I just couldn't tolerate using Vista all the time. Ubuntu is certainly an improvement over Vista, but I really do miss my Mint. I realize it may not be the best permanent solution but I think it a great transition tool. Once I'm more knowledgeable and confident I can switch to a regular dual boot setup but until then I am able to use Linux without being restricted to the limitations of just using a Live CD. I came to the forum here today specifically to find out if there was a Mint version.