Re: memdisk, was: Re: [K12OSN] rdesktop (now win4lin)

[Chris Curtis <ccurtis nidaho net>]

On Fri, 2004-02-06 at 21:29, Jonathan Carter wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 20:16, Shawn Powers wrote:
> > Scott Sherrill wrote:
> > > Our office staff uses Win4Lin on top of K12LTSP.  When they login to the 
> > > linux box it starts Win4Lin full screen and they are happily running Win98.
> > 
> > Can I pick your brain a little on implementation?  Does Win98 run from 
> > the local computer?  Does it run on the K12LTSP server?  Does Win98 
> > exist as a single disk image file, or is there a heirarchy of file (and 
> > registry) somewhere?  Is it easy to duplicate an "install" by simply 
> > dropping a virgin copy of the image file wherever it needs to go?  Does 
> > win4lin supply sound?  Does it degrade network performance?
> > 
> > Enough questions?  ;o)
> > 
> > -Shawn
> 
> Have any one else tried to use memdisk to boot windows 98 from a K12
> thin client?
> 
> Why doesn't it work, or should it?
> 
> Thanks
> Jonathan

These questions were not directed at me, but that never stopped me
before ;-).   I have Win4Lin installed on my K12LTSP server that runs at
my office.  W4lin runs off the server.  it can run locally off the
server or run in a terminal session, it makes no difference.  When w4l
is installed, it creates a few directories in your home dir, although I
don't remember what they are called now.  Win4Lin allows you to boot a
real copy of windoze just like you were starting up a copy of any other
program.  Sound works, and pretty much everything in the system works. 
You can setup custom hardware configurations if you need to use serial
ports and such.  I have yet to find an app that did not work under
win4lin (not including some activex games which I don't have the time to
waste on anyway).

One nice thing about w4l is that if windows pukes (no,,, that can't
happen) you can restore it completely just by restoring a backup if the
win directory (that got created when you loaded it).  Did I forget to
say that there is almost no performance loss running winapps under it?

I am a full time Linux user, and there are no programs I need to run
that are windose only.   But I use win4lin to show windows users how
powerful Linux is.  I recently got a company to migrate 10 workstations
to desktop Linux.  A month or so after the migration, one win2k PC died
with pests and worms, and two winboxen machines were getting "virus
detected" messages everyday making the company very paranoid (after
spending about $250 reloading win2k (for the second time)).  They are
now having me load win4lin on all their remaining PC's.  

If you Must run windows apps, win4lin is a great product ( I get no
cash, gifts, backrubs from netraverse).


Chris Curtis



Don't worry, Mr bush will find WMD's, even if he has to plant them there
himself.