If you have to use Windows for your day job or for a few must-have applications, but you're a penguin at heart, have we got a program for you. While you can run Linux inside of Windows using virtualization software like VirtualBox or VMWare, andLinux goes a few steps further and essentially installs Linux on top of your Windows operating system, allowing the two to exist side by side and even interact with one another.

In other words, once andLinux is installed, you can launch native Linux applications almost as easily as any Windows program.

AndLinux comes in two varieties the moment. Both are based on Ubuntu, but one installs a full KDE system with all the programs that normally come with Kubuntu. The other version basically installs Xubuntu, which uses the light-weight XFCE desktop environment and packs fewer bells and whistles.

Since andLinux installs a full operating system, you'll need to make sure you've got quite a bit of free space on your hard drive. The KDE version eats up more than 4GB of space while the XFCE version takes about 2GB. If all you want to do is run a single Linux application like Amarok, Ardour, or Cinelerra, you might be better off checking out KDE for Windows and waiting for the developers ro port your favorite applications. But if you want to be able to run any Linux application you like without rebooting, andLinux is worth checking out. Keep in mind, this is beta software, so you might run into issues like applications failing to start

[via Lifehacker]