win32-loader

win32-loader

win32-loader fetching the Debian Installer under Windows Vista
Developer(s)	Robert Millan Didier Raboud
Initial release	May 18, 2007
Stable release	0.7.8+deb8u1 / April 26, 2015
Operating system	Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / XP / Vista / 7
Type	Debian-Installer loader
License	GPL (version 3)
Website	goodbye-microsoft.com

The setup has been completed

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).

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.^[1]
• Wubi.
• UNetbootin.

See also

• NSIS

References

1. Instlux - openSUSE

External links

• Package description in Debian
• The network version homepage
• The network version (exe)
• The network version (README)