{"slug": "colinux", "name": "CoLinux", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 2.907, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-01-16", "latest": "2026-04-22", "why": "I remember being hooked on CoLinux when I had to work on Windows.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I remember being hooked on CoLinux when I had to work on Windows.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "colinux.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "http://www.colinux.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["CoLinux", "coLinux"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 765783296, "item_id": 47861456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861456", "by": "scoopr", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to run colinux, it was kind of amazing", "excerpt": "So, is it like colinux[0], but for pre-NT windows? Neat! Back when I was still using windows (probably XP era), I used to run colinux, it was kind of amazing, setting up something like LAMP stack on the linux side was a lot easier and then using windows editors for editing made for quite nice local dev env, I think! Could even try some of the X11 servers on windows and use a linux desktop on top of windows. When I no", "context": "former Windows user, later switched to macOS", "use_case": "Linux dev environment on Windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux"}, {"id": 765783105, "item_id": 47861444, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861444", "by": "rahen", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I remember being hooked on CoLinux when I had to work on Windows.", "excerpt": "Before WSL, the best ways to run unmodified Linux binaries inside Windows were CoLinux and flinux. http://www.colinux.org/ https://github.com/wishstudio/flinux flinux essentially had the architecture of WSL1, while CoLinux was more like WSL2 with a Linux kernel side-loaded. Cygwin was technically the correct approach: native POSIX binaries on Windows rather than hacking in some foreign Linux plumbing. Since it was me", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "scoopr", "context": "former Windows user, later switched to macOS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861456", "date": "2026-04-22"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["linux dev environment on windows"], "compared": [{"slug": "windows-subsystem-for-linux", "name": "Windows Subsystem for Linux", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "cygwin", "name": "Cygwin", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861270", "title": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588243", "title": "Go-legacy-winxp: Compile Golang 1.24 code for Windows XP", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 765953824, "item_id": 47872114, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47872114", "by": "mech422", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I used to use LOADLIN.exe - worked pretty, IIRC", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux"}, {"id": 765783296, "item_id": 47861456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861456", "by": "scoopr", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to run colinux, it was kind of amazing", "excerpt": "So, is it like colinux[0], but for pre-NT windows? Neat! Back when I was still using windows (probably XP era), I used to run colinux, it was kind of amazing, setting up something like LAMP stack on the linux side was a lot easier and then using windows editors for editing made for quite nice local dev env, I think! Could even try some of the X11 servers on windows and use a linux desktop on top of windows. When I no", "context": "former Windows user, later switched to macOS", "use_case": "Linux dev environment on Windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux"}, {"id": 765783105, "item_id": 47861444, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861444", "by": "rahen", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I remember being hooked on CoLinux when I had to work on Windows.", "excerpt": "Before WSL, the best ways to run unmodified Linux binaries inside Windows were CoLinux and flinux. http://www.colinux.org/ https://github.com/wishstudio/flinux flinux essentially had the architecture of WSL1, while CoLinux was more like WSL2 with a Linux kernel side-loaded. Cygwin was technically the correct approach: native POSIX binaries on Windows rather than hacking in some foreign Linux plumbing. Since it was me", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux"}, {"id": 746338865, "item_id": 46646179, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46646179", "by": "zoobab", "date": "2026-01-16", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used CoLinux with pubuntu, and from there install GCC.", "excerpt": "I used CoLinux with pubuntu, and from there install GCC.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Go-legacy-winxp: Compile Golang 1.24 code for Windows XP"}]}