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LindowsOS' bigest competitor in this "home PC appliance" niche market is Lycoris. Between LindowsOS and Lycoris, I might have to pick Lycoris at this point. I don't feel that LindowsOS has the appropriate "depth" yet. LindowsOS is only "saved" by the fact that their installation procedure is much more simple and that CnR is much more direct and approachable than the (false in my opinion) Lycoris direction of including less than 80 application in their (almost free) CnR-alike web application named IRIS but then selling many different package add-ons for Lycoris with more applications (with no Gnome apps at all to be found in these Packs). If Lycoris was to enrich IRIS with many quality (and Gnome) apps for a price around $50 per year, I see absolutely no reason for a future on Lindows (as it stands today that is). In that specific niche "home appliance PC" market, Lycoris would have won (read our recent review for a few things that Lycoris still need to get right though) but the current situation is not as such, so Lindows still has a shot to become more acceptable and more affordable.

But they will need to enrich their OS with more default applications that make sense to be there and add value to the OS itself. They should also stop pushing CnR so much to the point that it becomes painful to the potential customer, fix bugs, include more recent and more apps in general on CnR and be a bit more serious and professional at places.

Oh, and Lindows needs a system like Lycoris, Windows and OSX already have and it is truly convienient, than having to re-install the whole OS every 2 months when Lindows.com decides to release a new version with a brand new major version number for only some small bugfixes: Update the OS via the web. Automatically. You have the technology already (CnR). Use it! (Update:I was just told that there is such a feature. Well, haven't seen it, it is not apparent at all as it is part of the CnR app itself apparently, instead of being a standalone app based on CnR technology.)

The current installation procedure does not even offer an "update" feature (at least I did not see one - maybe it is present only if the installer finds a Lindows partition, dunno). And it is truly ironic that an effectively, internet appliance (as LindowsOS really is), does not update itself via the web.

Installation: 9.5/10
Hardware Support: 8/10
Ease of use: 7/10
Features: 6/10
Credibility: 7/10 (stability, bugs, security)
Speed: 7/10 (UI responsiveness, latency, throughput)

Overall: 7.4 / 10

1. "First Contact"
2. "Using the System"
3. "Click-N-Run"
4. "Analyzing the... Lindows Phenomena"
5. "Conclusion"