History
A number of Linux distributions, including Red Hat Linux and Slackware's ZipSlack, provided a similar solution in the mid 1990s, using syslinux and the UMSDOS filesystem driver. Later, SuSE provided something similar using syslinux and loop-mounted disk images on FAT filesystems. During the late 90's BeOS used a similar system to install the OS in a folder in Windows.
The idea for Wubi was drafted by Agostino Russo taking inspiration from Topologilinux, which provided a loopmounted installation, and Instlux, that provided a simple Windows frontend. The idea was to merge the two concepts having a Windows installer that would loopmount an image of Ubuntu. Geza Kovacs later refined the specification and provided the first prototypes to show that the concept was sound. Oliver Mattos wrote the original user interface in NSIS.
Agostino Russo then refined the loop-installation concept, moving from a simple loopmounted pre-made image file to an image created on the fly using a dynamically patched version of the Debian installer, thus providing an experience which was closer to a real installation while addressing several other issues of the early prototypes. Lupin project was thus born and Agostino Russo wrote and implemented most of its code with some contributions from Geza Kovacs.
Agostino Russo and Ecology2007 later redesigned and rewrote the current Windows front-end. Hampus Wessman contributed the new downloader and the translation scripts. Bean123 and Tinybit also helped to debug and fix bootloader issues. Lubi and LVPM were subsequently created by Geza Kovacs.
The project has inspired the creation of other Windows-based Linux installers, such as Win32-loader.
Read more about this topic: Wubi (Ubuntu Installer)
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