News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members
Mini-Review: Wubi - Painless, partion-free WindowsXP/Ubuntu dual booting
cthorpe:
When you boot Ubuntu, you will have quite a bit of room formatted in the linux fs. This space is actually contained within the virtual disk files that Wubi creates for you. These files are mounted through loopback when you boot. Everything you do that changes the linux fs is retained in these files. I mentioned NTFS writiting above meaning that if you want to be able to modify data outside of the linux fs, you will need to enable writing.
zridling:
I'll need a Vista version, but wow, thanks. Great find, Carl!
f0dder:
Well, cthorpe, how is the access to the ubuntu image on the NTFS partition handled? - that's my question. The typical "inside windows, take note of the sectors it's stored in" (which can get really funny if you defragment your partition), or is there always some degree of NTFS-write enabled in the kernel? And is NTFS-write stable by now?
cthorpe:
This thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=305109 on the Ubuntu forums may answer your questions.
Apparently, there is stable kernel mode NTFS writing that can be used to write to a statically sized img file. The disk images Wubi creates are static in size (they are a lot bigger than the basic Ubuntu install needs, so you have plenty of room to grow).
As for writing outside of the statically sized ntfs partitions, you will need to enable a less stable ntfs writing.
f0dder:
Oki doki. I wonder if that "static file" handles fragmented files gracefully...
It's a nice enough idea anyway, for testing it sure beats (slow and limited) live-cds, (slow and limited, especially graphics wise) vmware, and the mess of either repartitioning, or swapping harddrives around.
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