Is there a replacement for WUBI in Windows 10?

Question

I used to have Xubuntu 11.10 side-by-side with my Windows installation, installed via WUBI from Windows. After upgrading to Windows 10, however, this doesn't start any more, so I wanted to reinstall it.

However, I have noticed that WUBI is not included on the new 15.10 Xubuntu iso, and is also generally not supported any more.

Is there any way I can achieve what I had before, without partitioning my hard disk?

Solution 1

There are community supported versions. see wubi info

Solution 2

Ubuntu 18.04 on Windows allows one to use Ubuntu Terminal and run Ubuntu command line utilities in Windows 10 including bash, ssh, git, apt and many more. Ubuntu 18.04 WSL is published by Canonical.

Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2 which features a true Linux kernel can be installed in Windows 10 version 2004 and later. WSL2 can also be upgraded from Windows Subsystem for Linux version 1 in Windows 10 version 2004 and later. WSL2 supports Intel, AMD and ARM processors.

Install the Windows Subsystem for Linux

1. To use this feature, one first needs to use Turn Windows features on or off and select Windows Subsystem for Linux, click OK, reboot, and use this app. This step can also be performed using Administrator PowerShell prompt:

    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux"
   

2. Restart your computer when prompted.

Install Ubuntu 18.04

1. Check that Windows 10 build 16215 or later is installed.

2. Open the Microsoft Store and choose Ubuntu.

3. From the Ubuntu page, click the blue Get button.

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To launch Ubuntu, type ubuntu1804 on the command-line prompt (cmd.exe), or click on the Ubuntu tile in the Start Menu.

Solution 3

I'd also consider stepping sideways and using:

• VirtualBox - for fully separated client VMs from the host, or
• Docker on Windows - for containerising individual apps or a desktop. (Unfortunately doesn't mount straight onto Windows filesystem yet.)

Obviously, both of these require some kind of Virtualisation technology in your chipset to be used effectively.

Comments

[Erkin Alp Güney]

There is WSL where you can install Ubuntu inside Windows instead of alongside.

[Erkin Alp Güney]

@ThomasWard: GUI support is planned according to uservoice.

[mchid]

You can usually run bootrec commands in Windows recovery to fix the mbr.