Run Ubuntu in Windows from a USB Hard drive
The following tutorial explains how to easily run a "Full USB installation of Ubuntu" directly from a Windows PC without the need to reboot. Our example is run from a portable USB Hard drive that we can take with us anywhere. Through emulation, Ubuntu can be run from the portable device using a host Windows 98, NT, XP, 2000 or Vista computer to launch the emulator. This enables the user to run Ubuntu and Windows simultaneously. Were using Qemu hardware emulation software with the Kqemu accelerator to accomplish this.
Screenshot of Ubuntu running in Windows from USB
Distribution Home Page: Ubuntu.com
Qemu Emulator Home Page: Qemu.org
Minimum USB Hard Drive Capacity: 3GB
Persistent Feature: Yes
Full Blown Qemu Emulated USB Ubuntu Essentials:
- Computer (running Windows)
- USB Hard-Drive (at least 3GB of free space)
- Ubuntu ISO (Currently this does not work with Ubuntu 9.10)
- PQU.exe (contains Qemu, Kqemu and a special batch file)
The Portable Qemu + Ubuntu Creation Process:
- Download and run PQU.exe, a Qemu-Portable-Ubuntu Folder is created (move the folder to your USB device)
- Download the latest Ubuntu ISO and copy it to the Qemu-Portable-Ubuntu Folder
- Double click the Create-N-Run.bat (Once presented with the Ubuntu launcher, select the option to Install Ubuntu)
- Proceed to install to hda -3.2GB Qemu Harddisk (the install will take some time "20-60 minutes")
- Once installation has completed, select the option to restart. Then close the Qemu window once Ubuntu has shutdown
- Now, simply click the Launch.bat file whenever you wish to run Ubuntu from the USB device
Performance Notes:
You can edit the -m value in the Launch.bat file to use up to half of your system memory ( However, I don't recommend using more than 512MB) QEMU currently limits the max guest ram size to 2047 MB
Other important tips:
Use Ctrl+Alt+f to toggle between window and full screen mode
Use Ctrl+Alt+Esc to move from Ubuntu to Windows
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