14 DAY TRIAL // The summer is almost here with fresh and cool projects related to many hot Linux issues. The third or fourth week of June for example announces the release of an ambitious initiative, called by some the "holy software grail". The dual licensed Lina VM (virtual machine) aims to implement the noble concept of "write-once, run anywhere" Linux applications. As the name suggests, it is similar to Java's "write-once, run everywhere" compatibility regarding the basic idea as well as the way it should work.
The Lina VM should be able to run normal Linux applications under systems such as Windows or Mac with a look and feel specific to each. In this case, a specific virtual machine will have to be installed on the user's platform. The VM, is basically just a Linux environment with support for C/C++ applications that hides the OS specific characteristics from the application. In order to be run, the binaries must be compiled for Lina first, thing that does not imply any more philosophy than compiling them for SUSE or Red Hat, as CTO Nile Geisinger explained.
The mechanism behind Lina is simple, yet it leaves uncovered several important areas which would most probably be solved out later. For example, there is no current GTK+ support in Lina, which means that the user will deal with a non-easy installation process. Support for USB peripherals is missing too. Lina is based on a modified Linux kernel (2.6.19, for now) and it mainly virtualizes the host PC's x86 processor. The second main part of Lina would be a filesystem, equipped with standard Linux libraries which were modified in order to localize resources such as libraries, filesystems or system calls to analogous resources on the host platform.
As I've said before, Lina VM is available under two licenses: for the non-commercial users, LINA is available under the GNU General Public License, Version 2, but those interested in using it with commercial purposes, would have to contact the company and get the LINA commercial license.
Geisinger is optimistic that the open source community will get interested in this initiative and he expects them to get involved in Lina's development and bug-fixing. For that, the OpenLINA.org developers' website will be launched in June.
"One of the reasons Java ran into problems - delivering the "write once, run anywhere" promise was because of cracks in the API. The great thing about the open source community is that they care about the cracks, and will fix them, or at least complain. We're looking forward to those complaints ...", Geisinger stated.