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Should there be something that installs Linux to disk directly from Windows? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 months ago* by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Would it be possible to lower barrier to entry that low?
To the point where installing some Linux distro would be as easy as installing a game on Steam or installing an application on a phone?
There is existing software for installing Linux from Windows.
For example, old WUBI for installing Ubuntu, and linixify-gui (fork of abandoned tunic) apparently does this as well.

So question is, should there be some effort put into making a modern installer of this kind? Something that even the person with the smoothest brain can use to get Linux on their PC?

Are there any existing projects that try to make this happen?

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[–] 46 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I feel like this may backfire, because people may accidentally replace their OS, get really pissed off, and start talking about how installing Linux is really dangerous and might wipe all your data, etc.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I don't even think it could work. NT will bsod if the os drive disappears, so unless you install on a different drive or partition, the OS will die.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    You could just have a UI that runs you through all the questions and prompts from Windows and then reboots and installs a new OS without any other interaction.

    You could even have it ask which files/folders the user wants to transfer over so they don't lose everything.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    You can do that without Windows. What is the benefit?

    It's trivial to make a USB bootable installer.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    It's trivial for you.

    The average windows user has no idea what "Rufus" is, or how to enter the bios and change the boot priority

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    Especialy nowadays with "features" like fast boot that removes the "press f# to access bios" prompt on startup to "speed-up the boot process"... Hell even when disabled (both OS and BIOS wide) some computers won't ever show me the damn thing anyway.

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  • [–] -3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Until a few months ago, I was a Windows user, and I had been since the 90s.

    This was the method I used

    https://chat.openai.com/?prompt=how+to+install+linux

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    Not sure why people are downvoting you. It's a simple enough task that the risk of LLM hallucination is very low.

    Suspect it is just from people who dislike AI but in my experience using it as a replacement search engine for some stackoverflow type questions is about the only useful thing I've gotten it to do.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    I'm positive it's because of people hating on AI, and while I don't want AI in everything, it does have it's uses. I use it for work to write delivery documents, but I give it very constrained operating parameters. It can be incredibly useful if you do.

    Give it a persona: "Senior Software Developer" Give it truth parameters. "You must not assume. You must not hallucinate. Any information presented must be factual, and backed with documentary evidence using citations. Any information that can not be proven with citation, must be marked, and you must provide reasoning." and so on and so on. I have a whole sheet of prompt shortcuts I use for different types of documentation based on target and subject.

    I also read and fact check everything it produces. I follow every citation and verify it says what the AI thinks it does. I also do section by section. I don't produce whole documents, I produce sections and compile them together later.

    I treat it like a research assistant, not like something to do the work for me. I usually do a brain dump of random thoughts and things I know are important for the document I am working on, be it a collection of point forms, emails I receive, news articles, and so on.

    AI has made my job more efficient, because I can pump out 30 pages in a day, where that used to take me a week. Especially since I can produce two documents, one for a non-technical C level, and one for a technical person at the same time.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, this is something that should be taken into account when designing this software.
    Set dual-boot as a default / design UI in a way that offers dual-boot as a preferred option.
    And many other technical issues will probably appear that will have to be figured out.
    But I think that at least even thinking about this is a good start.
    Also, this reminds me of 2013, when people accidentally nuked their Windows installs with Linux because they wanted to get the Tux in Team Fortress 2 (Valve gave it to people who played Linux version of TF2).

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  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    There are reasons this hasn't been done before.

    There are a lot of things you're not considering. You'd need to potentially re-partition a live mounted window disk(s) to create space for a Linux partition which could fail spectacularly. Or install over a running Windows system which will also fail very quickly.

    Also - there are many tools that make it easy to create a live USB drive that one can boot from to get a taste of Linux in a way that is non-destructive and optionally install Linux.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    We used to do this all the time.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Do what?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Previously it was possible to boot from live disc, but install, non directly in, but from Windows. Actually I think maybe we did try it directly from the Windows OS now that I think about it. How long ago!

    But yeah, just click in D drive and you go to live disc or installer. My memories are old though. I remember the the word Wubi but would need a refresher to exactly recall.

    Basically, Microslop screwed up the boot loader at one point in an anticompetitive practice they were never penalized for. Afterwards you couldn't dual boot without having two drives. You also could no longer access full Linux in Windows. There was still Cygwin and WLS way later, but it wasn't as cool.

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