Wubi ("Windows-based Ubuntu Installer") is a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', '' Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All th ...

installer, that was the official

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

-based software, from 2008 until 2013, to install Ubuntu from within Windows, to a single file within an existing Windows partition. After installation, it added a new "Ubuntu" option to the existing Windows boot menu which allowed the user to choose between running Linux or Windows, and avoided the need to re-partition the disk.

History

Wubi was born as an independent project and as such versions 7.04 and 7.10 were unofficial releases. For Ubuntu 8.04 the code was merged into Ubuntu and for 8.04 alpha 5, Wubi was also on the Ubuntu Live CD. The project's aim was to enable existing Windows users, unacquainted with

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

, to try Ubuntu without risking any data loss (due to disk formatting or partitioning mistakes). It could also safely uninstall Ubuntu from within Windows. It is not a

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized har ...

, but creates a stand-alone installation within a loopmounted device, also known as a

disk image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usu ...

, like Topologilinux does. It is not a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading on ...

of its own, but rather an installer for

. While Wubi does not install Ubuntu directly to its own partition this can also be accomplished by using LVPM, the Loopmounted Virtual Partition Manager, to transfer the Wubi-generated Ubuntu installation to a dedicated real partition, including a bootable USB keydrive. The advantage of this setup is that users can test the operating system and install the drivers before they install it to a dedicated partition (and avoid booting and functioning risks). Windows Boot Manager

Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows the user to run

. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the Windows file system (c:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk), as opposed to being installed within its own partition. This file is seen by

as a real hard disk. Wubi also creates a

swap file Swap or SWAP may refer to: Finance * Swap (finance), a derivative in which two parties agree to exchange one stream of cash flows against another * Barter Science and technology * Swap (computer programming), exchanging two variables in th ...

in the Windows file system (c:\ubuntu\disks\swap.disk), in addition to the

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

of the host machine. This file is seen by Ubuntu as additional

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch ...

. A related project, Lubi, used Linux as the host system instead of Windows. However, this project has not been worked on since 2007 and only works on Ubuntu 7.04. Wubi was removed as an installation option in the official download page from Ubuntu 13.04 onward. However, Wubi installers were still provided for versions up to and including Ubuntu 14.10. An unofficial fork of Wubi, calle
wubiuefi
supports UEFI and legacy BIOS as well as newer versions of Ubuntu (as of 2022-04-03, version 20.04.4).

Desktops

Users can select the desktop environment within Wubi. But, because each desktop environment is also available as an application package, it is recommended that users install Ubuntu (default option) and from there install the other desktop environments. When users

log in In computer security, logging in (or logging on, signing in, or signing on) is the process by which an individual gains access to a computer system by identifying and authenticating themselves. The user credentials are typically some form ...

, they can choose the desktop environment to use.

Limitations

Compared with a regular installation, a Wubi installation faces some limitations. Hibernation is not supported and the filesystem is more vulnerable to hard reboots. Also, if the Windows drive is unmounted uncleanly (Windows crash, power failure, etc.), Ubuntu will not be able to repair, re-mount, and boot from the Windows NTFS drive until Microsoft Windows has successfully booted, repaired the drive, and then shut down cleanly. If the Windows system could not be booted after the corruption to repair the filesystem, the user would also not be able to boot Ubuntu. Performance related to hard-disk access is also slightly slower on a Wubi install, more so if the underlying disk image file is fragmented, as the disk image file in the Windows filesystem contains a Linux filesystem whereas without Wubi only the Linux filesystem is used that has direct hardware access. Wubi creates the root.disk file using Microsoft's proprietary

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred f ...

file system while running under the MS Windows OS and then while the Ubuntu OS is running it accesses that file using an alternative file system driver. The differences between the Microsoft and Linux implementations of NTFS could technically result in corruption of the root.disk file that affects the NTFS filesystem in such a way that it could even prevent Windows from booting. Running ''chkdsk /r'' from MS Windows to fix the damaged NTFS file system and then shutting down Windows cleanly may fix any corruptions (this may take a significant amount of time to run as root.disk is a large file).

Influences

Wubi relies on other open source projects: Debian installer, Migration Assistant,

Grub4Dos GNU GRUB (short for GNU GRand Unified Bootloader, commonly referred to as GRUB) is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a us ...

NTFS-3G NTFS-3G is an open-source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read/write support. NTFS-3G often uses the FUSE file system interface, so it can run unmodified on many different operating systems. It is ...

, NSIS,

Metalink Metalink is an extensible metadata file format that describes one or more computer files available for download. It specifies files appropriate for the user's language and operating system; facilitates file verification and recovery from da ...

and

Ubiquity Ubiquity is a synonym for omnipresence, the property of being present everywhere. Ubiquity may also refer to: * Ubiquity (software), a simple graphical installer made for the Ubuntu operating system * Ubiquity (Firefox), an experimental extens ...

Development

The lead developers are Agostino Russo, Geza Kovacs, Oliver Mattos and Ecology2007. The main development occurs at Launchpad and is led by the Lupin Team (Lupin is the

loop Loop or LOOP may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live * Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets * Loop Mobile, ...

-installer, handles everything that happens after reboot) through the original Ubuntu blueprint page and the new Wubi, Lubi, Lupin, and LVPM project pages.

Hardware support

Both the i386 (32-bit x86) and

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...

releases of Ubuntu are supported by Wubi and Lubi. In versions before 8.04, only the x86 release of Ubuntu was supported. Wubi UEFI works with UEFI boot loaders.

Origins

A number of Linux distributions, including

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta release ...

and Slackware's ZipSlack, provided a similar tool in the mid-1990s, using syslinux and the UMSDOS filesystem driver. Later,

SuSE SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux En ...

provided something similar using syslinux and loop-mounted disk images on FAT filesystems. During the late '90s

BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers first developed by Be Inc. in 1990. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform that could be used by a substantial population of desktop users a ...

used a similar system to install the OS in a folder in Windows. The idea for Wubi was drafted by Agostino Russo taking inspiration from Topologilinux, which provided a loopmounted installation, and Instlux, that provided a simple Windows frontend. The idea was to merge the two concepts having a Windows installer that would loopmount an image of Ubuntu. Geza Kovacs later refined the specification and provided the first prototypes to show that the concept was sound. Oliver Mattos wrote the original user interface in NSIS. Agostino Russo then refined the loop-installation concept, moving from a simple loopmounted pre-made image file to an image created on the fly using a dynamically patched version of the Debian installer, thus providing an experience which was closer to a real installation while addressing several other issues of the early prototypes. Lupin project was thus born and Agostino Russo wrote and implemented most of its code with some contributions from Geza Kovacs. Agostino Russo and Ecology2007 later redesigned and rewrote the current Windows front-end. Hampus Wessman contributed the new downloader and the translation scripts. Bean123 and Tinybit also helped to debug and fix bootloader issues. Lubi and LVPM were subsequently created by Geza Kovacs. The project has inspired the creation of other Windows-based Linux installers, such as

Win32-loader win32-loader (officially Debian-Installer Loader ) is a component of the Debian Linux distribution that runs on Windows and has the ability to load the actual Debian installer either from the network (as in the version ian official website or f ...

References

External links

*
WubiGuide in the official Ubuntu wikiLubi/LVPM/UNetbootin project website
* FLOSS Weeklybr>63: Wubi
with Agostino Russo, the lead developer of Wubi
Wubiuefi
a "fork of Wubi for UEFI support and for support of recent Ubuntu releases" {{DEFAULTSORT:Wubi (Ubuntu Installer) Free software programmed in C++ Free system software Linux installation software Ubuntu Windows-only free software