I’ve made an achievement today, I’ve completed something I’ve wanted to do for some time: got Linux running in Windows.

By using the live ISO of Symphony OS, a new Linux distro, and QEMU I’ve successfully got a Linux distro (a live one though) running in Windows. QEMU is a command-line application, so I suggest you download it and QEMU Manager if you want to try to do it.

QEMU is an emulator, which allows you to run a Virtual Machine which can run Linux, Windows and possibly Mac (haven’t tried yet). I’ve tried similar tools before like CoLinux, though this is the easiest to use.

I do criticise Linux a lot, however running under Windows is far better as you don’t need to reboot to change OS. Having to change OS is a pain, and this solves it. I haven’t tried to run anything which doesn’t run off volatile memory yet.

Getting Linux running isn’t hard – just the user interface isn’t great. You must create a profile and then boot. I’ve taken a screenshot and I’ll quickly show how to boot from a disk image (ISO):

I’ve also taken some screenshots of the end result .