Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Win32 loader

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License
  
GPL (version 3)

Win32-loader

Developer(s)
  
Robert Millan Didier Raboud

Initial release
  
May 18, 2007; 9 years ago (2007-05-18)

Stable release
  
0.7.8+deb8u1 / April 26, 2015; 22 months ago (2015-04-26)

Operating system
  
Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / XP / Vista / 7

Type
  
Debian-Installer loader

win32-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 in an official website) or from CD-ROM media (as in the version included in Jessie CD images).

Contents

win32-loader was born as an independent project, for which only the network version was available. Later the code went through a long review and polishing process to become part of the official Debian distribution.

Influences

win32-loader strongly relies on projects such as NSIS, GRUB 2, loadlin and Debian-Installer to perform its task. Additionally, it has drawn inspiration and ideas from similar projects such as Wubi and Instlux.

Features

  • Auto-detects 64-bit (x86-64) support in host CPUs, and automatically selects x86-64 flavor of Debian whenever supported, completely transparent to the user.
  • Detects a number of settings from Windows environment (timezone, proxy settings, etc.) and feeds them to Debian Installer via preseeding mechanism so that user doesn't have to select them.
  • Translated to 51 languages. Selected language is displayed for user interaction since the first template, and is seamlessly passed on to Debian Installer via preseeding.

    • Similar projects

  • Topologilinux: uses coLinux to run on Windows.
  • Instlux, included on openSUSE since the 10.3 release.
  • Wubi
  • UNetbootin

    • References

    Win32-loader Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA