Fixing Cygwin/X error in Portable Ubuntu Remix TRES
Portable Ubuntu Remix is a linux distro working on Windows using Colinux. For the latest version Portable Ubuntu Remix TRES, the Cygwin/X cannot be started due to some errors. And this how-to provides a solution to the software bug.
Introduction
Portable Ubuntu Remix is a linux distro working on Windows using Colinux. Colinux differents from other virtualization software such as Virtualbox or VMWare, since it runs Linux on Windows natively. Therefore the performance is nearly native. It works by modifying the Linux Kernel to run in Windows. Another great thing of Portable Ubuntu is that, you can put it in your USB drive, and bring it to any Windows machine and use it without rebooting.
The newest version of Portable Ubuntu is TRES (dated in 2010-03-31). If you download it and install it, it will extract to the folder you specific. However it won't run, since the Cygwin/X produces a fatal error and need to be quited. You can still use the Ubuntu, but without the graphical interface.
The Error
Cygwin/X Error Message
The above screenshot is the error that you will encountered. If you open the /var/log/XWin.0.log in your cygwin directory where you installed your ubuntu, you will see the following errors:
2010-10-20 11:28:13 (EE) XKB: Could not invoke xkbcomp
2010-10-20 11:28:13 (EE) XKB: Couldn't compile keymap
2010-10-20 11:28:13 XKB: Failed to compile keymap
2010-10-20 11:28:13 Keyboard initialization failed. This could be a missing or incorrect setup of xkeyboard-config.
And people raised this question in the forum of sourceforge, but there is no solution that I found working.
Solution
The problem is probably due to the software bugs in that particular version of Cygwin/X. I found people encoutered the same problem with Cygwin/X, but still there isn't any working solution.
The solution that I found is using the Cygwin/X from the previous version DOS. You can download the DOS version from sourceforge, and copy the directory of cygwin to your copy of TRES directory. And the problem will be solved. If you found that is too troublesome, I have zipped the cygwin directory of DOS version. Rename the cygwin directory in TRES to cygwin_old, and extract the zip file to TRES directory. The problem should be solved now.
leonnib4
Simple to fix
You just have to terminate all pubuntu processes.
In this case it's "XWin.exe" that causes that error.
Be sure, when re-launching pubuntu, that "cmd.exe", "conhost.exe", "pubuntu.exe" and XWin.exe" are terminated.
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Ross Tang (ross_tang)
I am solving the error of XWin.exe
I would like to solve XWin.exe problem, so that I can have GUI and x-forward working. If you terminate all pubuntu processes, and relaunch pubuntu, the XWin.exe problem should remains. How do you solve it then?
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drkvogel
Please explain "the Cygwin/X "
I am considering installing Portable Unbuntu Remix on Windows 7. However I am slightly concerned by this problem with "the Cygwin/X" - I already have Cygwin/X installed on my machine. Does Portable Ubuntu Remix have it's own Cygwin/X installation and is there any danger of it conflicting with my existing Cygwin/X installation (installed to C:/cygwin)?
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