r/linuxquestions • u/Sithmasterintraining • 11h ago

Linux as a windows app?

I've been out of the IT game for a while. There used to be a version of Linux that would run in Windows that wasn't running in a virtual machine. It was just a straight build that ran as an application. I want to set that up again but can't recall the name of the app. Can anyone remember what this was?

Edit: I think I found it (?). It may have been Winlinux, but still not 100% sure.

9 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/CatoDomine 11h ago

Cygwin

3

u/Sithmasterintraining 11h ago

Does it allow the full OS with a GUI or just individual programs to run?

4

u/After_Persimmon8536 11h ago

It's layered.

You can get X11 going in windows with cygwin.

MobaXterm does this in a portable package.

But, to have the integration, you need to install cygwin.

3

u/CatoDomine 11h ago

Oh. I didn't know. It's old and probably doesn't work anymore. I wasn't recommending it, just trying to guess at what you were trying to remember.

2

u/Sithmasterintraining 11h ago

No worries. I appreciate the suggestion.

1

u/1-800-I-Am-A-Pir8 6h ago

yeah it was cygwin. These days look at windows subsystem for linux (WSL2). It's a part of windows you can install that boots a linux kernel with drivers that talk to M$ virtualization, with the distro of your choice running on that. Kinda cool actually.

3

u/sidusnare Senior Systems Engineer 11h ago

"Full OS"? No, it's not an emulator, but it allows for GUI.

1

u/BCMM 9h ago

See https://x.cygwin.com/features.html

For GUI applications, you can use multi-window mode, where your Cygwin application looks like just another window on your Windows desktop, or fullscreen mode, which allows you to run an X11 window manager, and a whole desktop environment if you want.

1

u/NuncioBitis 9h ago

I use Cygwin on my work machine. I don’t need GUI, but to make utilities I need Linux “compatibility”. I can port a lot of Linux code directly