Wubi makes Linux on Windows simple

Computer giant Dell made big news yesterday when it began shipping desktops and laptops pre-installed with Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution. In terms of prepackaged operating systems, users have basically been stuck for a long time with the solitary choice of Windows vs. Mac. The fact that consumers can now purchase a Linux machine with support from the distributor certainly validates the open-source movement and Ubuntu in particular.

Yet if you're curious about Linux or Ubuntu, it hasn't been very simple to install it on your Windows machine. Up until recently, the process has usually involved partitioning your hard drive for the Linux install and creating a boot CD from a downloaded ISO file.

Luckily, for those of us who are Linux-curious and either too lazy or too inexperienced to install a distro on our own, beta software called Wubi literally takes all of the hassle out of running Ubuntu on your Windows machine, and it can be removed from your system as easily as any other Windows application. All it takes to run Wubi is a recommended 1GHz CPU, 128MB RAM, and 3GB of disk space for the initial Ubuntu installation.