coLinux is a wonderful tool for running Linux under Windows; it allows you to run a full-fledged Linux computer with no extra partitions, inside Windows. More information can be found at the home page.

Disclaimers

coLinux is still under heavy development, and will likely change in the future. This page represents the contributions of various coLinux users. The information may not be tailored to your environment. Like many open source projects, there's no warranty, blah blah blah. There is no guarantee that this program will operate correctly, or indeed, at all.

The most IMPORTANT thing to know First

On Microsoft Vista the following actions in this article under the sub-heading above will not work or may not work because as far as I know Microsoft Vista does not have a ms-dos based command prompt program. (COMMENT - The current version of Vista on my desktop DOES have an MS DOS shell. It is still under cmd.exe as it was under XP).

If you are running any version of Microsoft Windows XP or any older Microsoft Windows operating system, clicking on colinux-daemon.exe to open colinux will not work (the program flashes and then disappears)

For those new to *NIX (Note: *NIX is often used to denote UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems) here is a definition of a "Command Shell". "Command shell" is the technical name for MS-DOS or other program that looks, acts and runs in a similar way to command prompt on Microsoft Windows. You will have to use a command shell program on your operating system (In Windows XP, the program file is called cmd.exe. On older versions of Microsoft Windows just use the command prompt program which is also known by the names of command prompt, MS-DOS or just dos to start colinux.

If you are not an experienced Microsoft Windows user, or do not know how to use Microsoft's command prompt program or cygwin, you must learn how to execute (start a program) with your command shell program to be able to open colinux. Or try one of the Installation out of the box.

Terminology

Hosting OS: The system coLinux is installed on (usually Windows)
coLinux OS: A coLinux instance running an operating system like Debian, Ubuntu, or Gentoo
Adapter: Also called a "networking card". A piece of hardware which provides networking capabilites to a system

Overview

Generally, to use coLinux, one performs the following steps:

Download coLinux and run installation
Use the included terminal to log in
Use the most foolproof method to get network connectivity (usually slirp)
Update the system using apt-get or emerge
Install xterm or a complete desktop like GNOME or KDE
Install an X Server or VNC on the Host
use telnet, ssh, or a VNC client to connect to the Guest and start xterm, etc.
use scp, putty, cofs/smb, etc., to copy files between Host and Guest

Download and Installation

Filesystem Download

From the main download site, also download a filesystem which includes an operating system. Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb.bz2 on SourceForge is a good choice. It expands to 1GB when decompressed. This has a basic Debian image on it with everything you need to get started. Save/extract this in the coLinux directory. Here is a partial list of programs which can extract the image, which is compressed using bzip2:

bzip2 for windows on redhat
tar and bunzip2, included in unxutils or in cygwin
winrar
7Zip

Run bzip2 on Windows command line:

bzip2-102-x86-win32.exe -d Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb.bz2

Configuration

coLinux can be configured using parameters on the command line, or with a configuration file like default.conf. These are very similar in syntax. For command-line options, see colinux-daemon.txt on your installation directory.

Here are the contents on an example file called coLinux.bat ("^" is the line continuation character in Windows).:

Uses eth0 as SLiRP for simplest Internet connectivity and eth1 to talk to Hosting OS

colinux-daemon.exe kernel=vmlinux initrd=initrd.gz ^
cobd0="c:\coLinux\Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb" ^
cobd1="fs_768Mb" ^
mem=512 ^
eth0=slirp ^
eth1=tuntap ^
root=/dev/cobd0

Uses eth0 for bridged Internet connectivity and eth1 to talk to Hosting OS

colinux-daemon.exe kernel=vmlinux initrd=initrd.gz ^
cobd0="c:\coLinux\Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb" ^
cobd1="fs_768Mb" ^
mem=512 ^
eth0=pcap-bridge,"Local Area Connection",00:ff:75:39:D3:C1 ^
eth1=tuntap ^
root=/dev/cobd0

Use ssh (port 22) or VNC (port 5901) to connect to coLinux guest system via SLiRP port forwardings, eth1 is still usable on host only

colinux-daemon kernel=vmlinux ^
cobd0=Debian-"c:\coLinux\Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb" ^
cobd1="c:\coLinux\fs_768Mb" ^
mem=512 ^
eth0=slirp,,tcp:22:22/tcp:5901:5901 ^
eth1=tuntap ^
root=/dev/cobd0

The "cobd" options represent partitions. They are actually mounted under /dev/cobdn, where n is given by the index passed to it, and the path is fairly straightforward. Make sure that the first one (index="0") points to your root filesystem (e.g., the Debian image).

cobd0="c:\coLinux\Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb"

You may want to disable the swap device for now; it's not strictly necessary and will be described later.

Remove the line cobd1="c:\coLinux\swap_device" from your batch file or config file.

The other options will work as-is.

Memory

You can take a quick look at the

mem=64

line and adjust it to fit your system. This is the physical amount of RAM you are going to allocate to coLinux, and you need to keep some for Windows.

System Memory	Suggested Memory Setting for coLinux
128MB RAM or less	Don't bother with coLinux. Well, OK, try 32MB...
160 to 256MB RAM	64MB
256 to 512MB RAM	128MB
512MB or more	256MB or more

Those values are based on personal experience; your mileage may vary. Note: This is non-swappable memory, so using too much can do bad things to your computer (while coLinux is running; as soon as you reboot, everything will be fine). It used to default to 29MB which was sufficient for most things, now it seems to default to 64MB. If you have less than 256MB of RAM you probably want to make it smaller. Realistically, unless you want to use X Windows (described later) or use a very memory-intensive program, 32MB or even 16MB may be enough.

Oh, if you want, you can also tell coLinux your keyboard is not US with a command line like loadkeys fr-latin1. (For remapping your keyboard check coLinuxKBD)

Then you have to configure the network. This is not strictly necessary to enjoy coLinux but you need it to:

download new software: the image you downloaded contains only a basic system, much like a bare Windows installation
use ssh and PuTTY, a nice terminal since you will find the console too uncomfortable
launch X applications and run VNC and see the results on your Windows screen

Running coLinux

ok I have so little experience with ms-dos that I need to know how to actually get colinux up and running specifically on cmd.exe from winxp that starts from the Windows 'Home' path.

C:\Documents and Settings\my user name> cd \coLinux
C:\coLinux> colinux-daemon.exe @example.conf

or, to use a command shell as the terminal:

C:\Documents and Settings\my user name> cd \coLinux
C:\coLinux> colinux-daemon.exe -t nt @example.conf

Some errors can be disregarded. Currently, errors that will appear when running a correctly-installed coLinux:

Disabled Privacy Extensions on device c02bf040(lo)
eth0: duplicate address detected!

To enable a double-click start, create a short-cut to the daemon (right-click and select Create Shortcut), and then right-click on that new shortcut and select Properties. In the Target box (under the Shortcut tab), add the following to the end of the existing text (after the double-quote, and don't forget the space before the @): @example.conf and click OK. You can now double-click the shortcut (perhaps copy it to your desktop) to run CoLinux. If you would like to start the console minimised, select Minimized from the Run drop-down box.
Alternatively, you can put the following into a bat file such as coLinux.bat which you can double click:
start "coLinux" /Dc:\colinux /min colinux-daemon.exe @example.conf
Remove /min if you want to see the boot messages.
Change the /D<path> to point to your coLinux dir.

The login for the debian image is root/root, you should change this.

In another few seconds, a colinux-console should pop up. And after a few more seconds, it should stop and give you a login prompt. Since the Debian image by default has no other users, you must log in as root:

2.4 distros - blank password
2.6 distros - "root" as password

Now you can use adduser to add another user for normal use, or passwd to set the root password. And you have Linux!

Brushing the Dust off a Downloaded Root FS

The Debian Root filesystems are a little long in the tooth. DebianRootFsImages is a procedure to bring the system up-to-date so that it is actually usable.

Troubleshooting

coLinux doesn't start

check the path to the uncompressed filesystem image
in the line with

root=/dev/cobd0

add ro after root:

root=/dev/cobd0
ro

and be ready to remove it if it doesn't help. You can keep it. It is harmless in most cases (some distributions need it)

finally, take a close look at your text editor. It may have converted the text silently to UTF-8, adding an invisible marker at the beginning of your configuration file. Switch to hexadecimal mode or to another editor and check the top of the file. If you see the UTF-8 marker, erase it.
in case of a error similar to

daemon: exit code 84a08401
daemon: error - CO_RC_ERROR_ERROR, line 33,
 file colinux/os/current/user/file.o

Repeat the following dance:

colinux-daemon.exe --remove-driver
colinux-daemon.exe --install-driver

If that doesn't work you can check your parameters in the config-file. Look for an incorrect or missing image filename, vmlinux path, or swapfile path. Comment out all unneeded config-file parameters to see which might be incorrect.

If none of these things work, you can try Nitin Jain's install notes^[1]. Very good step-by-step directions

Using Other Linux Distributions in coLinux

The vanilla Debian may not be to your liking, or it may just seem a little hard to set up. You can find the instructions for configuring a specific distribution to use coLinux here: ConvertingDistributions. If you would like to use the Gentoo Deluxe 2 GB image look here: GentooDeluxHowto, or if you would like to use Topologi Linux look here: TopoHowTo. You can also download via BitTorrent a pre-configured coLinux setup based on coLinux-0.6.0 and the Debian filesystem - just download, extract, install, run.

More official image files can be find after selecting "View older releases in the Root FS Images - 2.6.x-based package" on SourceForge file releases page.

Adding Swap Space

To add swap for use in your coLinux environment you need a filesystem file with the correct size of swap you want. Here is a location of a number of sizes of empty partitions. Name the file you downloaded per the line below in your default.conf file. Be sure to set the path too. cobd1=c:\coLinux\swap

Boot into your coLinux system.
Login as root
Add the line below to /etc/fstab: /dev/cobd1 none swap sw 0 0
Run "mkswap /dev/cobd1"
Run "swapon -a"

Alternative way to get swap file

You can create your own swap partition file if you have colinux installed - with the following command: dd if=/dev/zero bs=1k count=512k of=swap_fs

The 512k will mean creating 512k blocks of 1k size - this is 512Mb of swap. Alter these numbers for more/less swap to suit your needs. It is recommended that it be at least twice the size of the memory you have configured colinux to use.