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Ubuntu used to ship their CDs with an installer that wrote to a virtual disk file and let you boot from it. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide https://wiki.ubun

Ubuntu used to ship their CDs with an installer that wrote to a virtual disk file and let you boot from it. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide They've since dropped the idea but you can still cobble together something similar. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/309900/deploy-linux-into-and-boot-from-vhd https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/309900/deploy-linux...

haunter 5y ago
It still exists as a fork and works perfectly https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi/ https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi/
tehbeard 5y ago
From first hand experience, while it worked, several times the boot manager got nuked, and either I lost Ubuntu access, or had to repair windows to get back into the system at all. That said this was back during win7, the cobbled together solution may be more stable..
- aejnsn 5y ago
  Yes and one of the Win10 updates clobbered GRUB somehow. Windows is just a bad neighbor.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Windows 10’s “updates” are actually full OS reinstalls in the background which includes the bootloader so it’ll nuke GRUB or whatever else you have. The really nasty part is that even having separate drives won’t save you - I don’t know if Windows can install the bootloader to a different drive than the one holding the OS partition or if it’s some other bug but I absolutely remember a Windows install nuking the bootloader on other drives that were connected during the OS install. It wasn’t a big deal pre-Windows 10 as you only install an OS once and disconnecting the drives is trivial, but nowadays with every update being an OS reinstall it’s a major problem if this issue still persists.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      Windows will install its bootloader onto the fallback UEFI bootloader; the bootloader that should get loaded when no other option is configured in the UEFI itself. No other bootloaders should be touching that thing for a consistent boot experience. Every normal OS registers a boot option with the UEFI and puts its bootloader into a normal directory. It also pushes its own bootloader as the default in some cases, but that's just a single boot order change away after booting into the UEFI setup (or after messing with confusing and dangerous tools from inside Windows, which I wouldn't recommend). The dual boot problem is only really insurmountable in BIOS+MBR mode (which should be considered long deprecated) and with buggy motherboards. Some people will set their system to BIOS+MBR mode for some weird reason, but with Windows 11 this mode should finally be dead already. UEFI has been an option since at least Windows 7 but it was disabled by default for a long time, so if you've upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version, you'll most likely still be running this old and unstable config. I think this is one of the reasons new Linux users have so much trouble dual booting. Modern motherboards detect different UEFI bootloaders installed on EFI partitions even if you swap around SSDs. Dual booting has come a very long way!
      - Enginerrrd 5y ago
        > I think this is one of the reasons new Linux users have so much trouble dual booting. There's another problem. Motherboards with non-compliant UEFI specs. Exact details here may be flawed, but one of the most insidious dual boot issues I had, which prevented grub from loading was that it turned out, if you had a folder or file labeled windows or Microsoft in the EFI partition, it would always preferentially boot that one no matter what order you set to actually prefer. To fix it, I had to run the Linux EFI utilities for OS detection to set everything up, then go in and manually change everything with windows to some other name. This included modifying whatever the grub configuration file is that says to never modify manually. The biggest issue I had is that it took a LONG time to figure out that noncompliant UEFI specs on the motherboard was the problem. It was maddening.
    - flippinburgers 5y ago
      I have never had a problem running linux alongside windows 10.
  - tkuraku 5y ago
    I have had windows and Linux on separate hard drives for the past 7+ years with no problems with upgrades. If they are on the same hard drive all bets are off though.
_qbjt 5y ago
Puppy Linux has this feature and it’s pretty cool. Upon logging out you get a prompt asking if you want to save your session to a virtual disk file, and you can save it to any writable media (including the USB drive you’re booting Puppy from).
ComputerGuru 5y ago
I donated the bootloader code/magic for Wubi, but I was never clear on why it was discontinued. I guess some internal numbers on usage didn’t encourage pursuing that path?
- mappu 5y ago
  It wasn't intentionally discontinued, just the maintainer didn't update it in time and so Ubuntu 15.04 ISO media shipped a wubi.exe that only worked to install 14.10: https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/1471344 https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/1471344 Removing wubi was a quick fix instead of patching it.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    Without mentioning any names, yes, I had a hard time getting in touch with one of the maintainers back then. Burn out is real. Wubi also had a dependency on grub4dos which had an idiosyncratic development and release style, to say the least. It was also the only component developed by non-English speakers, which made communication very hard. Later releases had some major regressions that were never sorted out, and I think everyone involved found it highly draining to deal with these issues without a more fundamentally correct way of tracking and preventing regressions.
esjeon 5y ago
Yeah, this was the first thing that came across my mind. This is nothing new, and the OP simply didn't do his homework, and learned it hard way. xD

haunter 5y ago

It still exists as a fork and works perfectly https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi/ https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi/

tehbeard 5y ago

From first hand experience, while it worked, several times the boot manager got nuked, and either I lost Ubuntu access, or had to repair windows to get back into the system at all. That said this was back during win7, the cobbled together solution may be more stable..

aejnsn 5y ago
Yes and one of the Win10 updates clobbered GRUB somehow. Windows is just a bad neighbor.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Windows 10’s “updates” are actually full OS reinstalls in the background which includes the bootloader so it’ll nuke GRUB or whatever else you have. The really nasty part is that even having separate drives won’t save you - I don’t know if Windows can install the bootloader to a different drive than the one holding the OS partition or if it’s some other bug but I absolutely remember a Windows install nuking the bootloader on other drives that were connected during the OS install. It wasn’t a big deal pre-Windows 10 as you only install an OS once and disconnecting the drives is trivial, but nowadays with every update being an OS reinstall it’s a major problem if this issue still persists.
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    Windows will install its bootloader onto the fallback UEFI bootloader; the bootloader that should get loaded when no other option is configured in the UEFI itself. No other bootloaders should be touching that thing for a consistent boot experience. Every normal OS registers a boot option with the UEFI and puts its bootloader into a normal directory. It also pushes its own bootloader as the default in some cases, but that's just a single boot order change away after booting into the UEFI setup (or after messing with confusing and dangerous tools from inside Windows, which I wouldn't recommend). The dual boot problem is only really insurmountable in BIOS+MBR mode (which should be considered long deprecated) and with buggy motherboards. Some people will set their system to BIOS+MBR mode for some weird reason, but with Windows 11 this mode should finally be dead already. UEFI has been an option since at least Windows 7 but it was disabled by default for a long time, so if you've upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version, you'll most likely still be running this old and unstable config. I think this is one of the reasons new Linux users have so much trouble dual booting. Modern motherboards detect different UEFI bootloaders installed on EFI partitions even if you swap around SSDs. Dual booting has come a very long way!
    - Enginerrrd 5y ago
      > I think this is one of the reasons new Linux users have so much trouble dual booting. There's another problem. Motherboards with non-compliant UEFI specs. Exact details here may be flawed, but one of the most insidious dual boot issues I had, which prevented grub from loading was that it turned out, if you had a folder or file labeled windows or Microsoft in the EFI partition, it would always preferentially boot that one no matter what order you set to actually prefer. To fix it, I had to run the Linux EFI utilities for OS detection to set everything up, then go in and manually change everything with windows to some other name. This included modifying whatever the grub configuration file is that says to never modify manually. The biggest issue I had is that it took a LONG time to figure out that noncompliant UEFI specs on the motherboard was the problem. It was maddening.
  - flippinburgers 5y ago
    I have never had a problem running linux alongside windows 10.
- tkuraku 5y ago
  I have had windows and Linux on separate hard drives for the past 7+ years with no problems with upgrades. If they are on the same hard drive all bets are off though.

_qbjt 5y ago

Puppy Linux has this feature and it’s pretty cool. Upon logging out you get a prompt asking if you want to save your session to a virtual disk file, and you can save it to any writable media (including the USB drive you’re booting Puppy from).

ComputerGuru 5y ago

I donated the bootloader code/magic for Wubi, but I was never clear on why it was discontinued. I guess some internal numbers on usage didn’t encourage pursuing that path?

mappu 5y ago
It wasn't intentionally discontinued, just the maintainer didn't update it in time and so Ubuntu 15.04 ISO media shipped a wubi.exe that only worked to install 14.10: https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/1471344 https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/1471344 Removing wubi was a quick fix instead of patching it.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Without mentioning any names, yes, I had a hard time getting in touch with one of the maintainers back then. Burn out is real. Wubi also had a dependency on grub4dos which had an idiosyncratic development and release style, to say the least. It was also the only component developed by non-English speakers, which made communication very hard. Later releases had some major regressions that were never sorted out, and I think everyone involved found it highly draining to deal with these issues without a more fundamentally correct way of tracking and preventing regressions.

esjeon 5y ago

Yeah, this was the first thing that came across my mind. This is nothing new, and the OP simply didn't do his homework, and learned it hard way. xD