Introducing Ulteo: your virtual Linux desktop

Unsurprisingly, it looks much like the online version, including the heavily populated menu and desktop background. And this alludes to one feature that Ulteo does have over Linux installations. It can synchronise a specific local folder with a sync folder on your your Ulteo Online account. Every 30 minutes, the contents of both directories are checked for any changes, and any differences either uploaded or downloaded so that the contents match.

There's a 10MB limit in the file size, and with the free version, you get up to 1GB of online storage. You can increase this to 10GB by spending some money. And the folder synchronisation feature isn't just restricted to the Application System and the Online Desktop, it can also help users of Microsoft Windows.

The third major technology in Ulteo is the Virtual Desktop, and this is where things get interesting: "Enjoy the power of your Linux applications on Windows without any need to reboot the system!" is what it says on the UIteo website, and accordingly, the 510MB download will only work on Microsoft Windows. But that doesn't mean it isn't Linux.

The Virtual Desktop is based on something called CoLinux, a term short for Cooperative Linux. CoLinux is a set of modifications made to the Linux kernel that let it coexist, running at the same time, with the kernel of another operating system. In the case of Ulteo, this means that both Windows and Ulteo Linux can run at the same time.

You might think you can do this already with virtual machines, but there are a couple of advantage to using CoLinux. The first is that the user doesn't need to know or even care about what a virtual machine is. As easy as apps like VirtualBox and VMware are to use, they still add an extra layer of complexity. Secondly, CoLinux integrates the Linux applications directly into the host OS, rather than the isolated container of a virtual machine.

Linux on Windows

From Windows, when you click on the Virtual Desktop executable, the installer that appears is a native windows application, and it takes around five minutes to install the entire desktop. Several Windows drivers are installed at the same time, adding virtual network devices to your Windows installation – just like VMware, and these enable Ulteo to access the network. It's quite a surprise when you first run the application, because there's very little to see.

The only hint that anything is different is the 'kicker' window visible in the task bar – an unnerving sight on a Windows desktop. This is a sign that KDE's task manager is running, and it's tucked away off the top border of the screen so that it can't interfere with the Windows panel at the bottom of the screen.

Moving your mouse to this edge slides the kicker into view, and from there, you can launch Konqueror for file browsing, or open the Konsole command line and you'll be able access the files stored on the virtual Linux disk, and those within your Windows filesystem. If you need to use Windows to copy files to your Ulteo installation, you need to quit Ulteo and use a third-party application to mount the virtual disk image Ulteo uses for storage.

As with a virtual machine, it is fairly processor-intensive, taking around 40% of our 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor in spurts. But regardless of this drawback. it's all very impressive, and it's as responsive as a native Linux desktop. It's a great way to get access to Amarok, for instance, or use the Linux command line to manipulate Windows files. It's also infinitely easier to install than Cygwin, which offers similar features.