Can Linux be run under Windows 7?

Can Linux be run under Windows 7?

In Windows 7 if you have a multi-core processor you can run virtual machines. There is something called XP mode which lets you do a full XP install and lets you run XP just like the real thing, without having to dual boot or exit Windows 7. I think that when XP is running it gets to have a separate CPU core all to itself. It works just like a normal XP installation.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 247

Total answers/comments: 3

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Guest [Entry]

You can run Linux using other virtualization software (like VMware), but you can't use XP mode in Windows 7 for Linux.

Guest [Entry]

A similar thing as in running one OS inside another? Check out VirtualBox.

Guest [Entry]

"Don't bother with XP Mode, you don't want it's diskspace wastage on your system and it's only necessary for those really incompatible POS programs that won't run under Windows 7 32 bit support. What you are interested in is Microsoft Virtual PC only, no XP mode.

Windows 7 will run Microsoft Virtual PC instances of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS quite well. You do have to do a little tweaking of the parameter line to get it to load with the following grub parameter line vga=791 noreplace-paravirt so Linux doesn't crash. There's also another mouse tweak needed to get the scroll button to work i8042.noloop psmouse.proto=imps added to the above takes care of that. Don't expect sound on Ubuntu 10+ as they quit supporting ISA drivers and the Virtual PC emulates SoundBlaster 16.

Here's one of many threads on how to do this.

I have been running a Virtual PC instance of Ubuntu since 8.04 LTS for use in website development so I can use my Windows tools and yet run the website on its native OS. Helps quite a bit at making sure you don't have WAMP and MAMP glitches where the site WAS running fine, but crashes when you go live.

You can also load virtual DOS machines or Windows 98SE machines (extracting files from old backups), etc."