Since being developed as a pet project by Linus Torvalds in the early nineties, the Linux operating system has been gaining enormous popularity among IT professionals and others alike everywhere. But the one place that Linux has failed to develop is that of being the average users desktop operating system. Read the rest of the review.
Lycoris: Finally, Linux for the Desktop?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I frankly couldn’t imagine a more blatant XP ripoff.
Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.). It maybe a so looked at as a “XP Ripoff”, but it’s what is familier to 99.9% of the average desktop users out there. YOu might as well go a step further and say KDE is a Ripoff of the Windows 95 Start/Task bar.
Come on.
If you want people to actually use Linux as an alternative Dekstop OS, you have to have an OS GUI that will allow people to use there current GUI knowledge from Windows and are not going to have to relearn an Os all over again. I mean to an extent they will have to learn some, but you get the idea.
I would also like to mention that I am a Lycoris Desktop/LX user and think the Os os great. I think Lycoris has done a tremendous job at being one of the first to market with a highly usable alternative to Windows. Not only it is great, but what a refresher to be able to install a Linux OS in 20min and have it work right of the gate.
Just my 2 cents.
Please excuse the typos in my previous post, got to typing a bit fast and forgot to proof read:-) LOL!!
Ehrm… Linus can do whatever he like… soon he’ll find himself in a BeOS desktop user market and he can not do much but like it…
Please spare us from your crap Beee, on both stories you posted that.
“I frankly couldn’t imagine a more blatant XP ripoff.”
True, a XP ripoff it is. I really dont get this; is it a user friendly if it looks like Windows? Windows is totaly not logic. I use Linux on all my computers and I love it. But free software is rarly inovativ, we nead something new and not yet another ripoff. Maybe a OpenBeOS r2 will be good. =) (Sorry fore my bad spelling.)
Really, both KDE and Gnome fail to entice the average user into dumping WINXP/OS X for a standard Linux distro. And unfortunally, so much effort and work seems to have been put into both desktop environments that most delopers, when creating a “desktop” Linux distro, just build on top of whats already there….
“Ehrm… Linus can do whatever he like… soon he’ll find himself in a BeOS desktop user market and he can not do much but like it…”
spare us. i try to live in the now, and as much as i think that linux is NOT ready for desktop primetime, in one form or another, it’s here to stay. beos on the otherhand, is dead. yes, it’s dead. obos might change that, but until it’s 1.0, the os is little more than a toy.
flame on.
“Ehrm… Linus can do whatever he like… soon he’ll find himself in a BeOS desktop user market and he can not do much but like it…”
Huh? You mean, OpenBeOS?
Overall, this is a good review. If Lycoris can start to capture users the way it has this reviewer, then Linux is headed in the right direction, IMNSHO.
I think that Mark said it best above — to paraphrase:
We need a desktop that is more like what people are used to than what you’re getting “standard” in Linux distros these days. Windows users are similar to Windows.
Therefore, an interface that starts out very similar to what people are used to is a good idea. However, once people see neat tricks and shortcuts and customizations used by “power users” then they go “Hey, show me how you did that!” Once people realize that a lot of these “tricks” are not available on Windows — that’s when Linux on the Desktop will start heading towards critical mass.
Cheers,
Ken
As I said above, paraphrasing Mark:
“We need a desktop that is more like what people are used to than what you’re getting “standard” in Linux distros these days. Windows users are similar to Windows.”
With that in mind, think of how many Mac users complained about Aqua when it first appeared b/c it was not like MacOS classic? Think of how many Windows users complained when Win311 moved to Win95 and again from when Win98/ME/NT/2K moved to Luna?
If you can make change incremental and users can change the desktop when they are ready, then you show the power of choice…
Cheers,
Ken
“Once all of the installation options are set and Desktop/LX begins to install, the setup process offered me ability to play as many games of Solitaire that I wanted while the installation completed.”
That’s great, I hope it becomes a standard!
Though I would prefer Mahjongg.
they can keep the same level of familarity without copying someone else’s graphics.
but i really wouldn’t be giving “grandma” a linux distro anytime soon, if ever.
Lycoris is a ripoff of Windows XP is a ripoff of Mac OS is a ripoff of Xerox Star is a ripoff of a file cabinet and folders are a ripoff of cubbyholes full of scrolls …
Advancements build on the success of others. The fact that current desktops are borrowing each other’s color schemes and icons is mostly a matter of current style and fashion IMHO. Its aim is to give good screenshot, to intice you to try and/or buy the product. It also aims to make you feel good about your purchase/choice. In the end, I’d rather a desktop be reasonably aestheically pleasing, and incredibly useable, than incredibly beautiful and full of usability quirks.
YMMV.
I noticed that all the text boxes in the screenshots demonstrated a vertical offset; text was not centered in the boxes. Why is it so hard for Desktops and Window Managers in Linux to have a detail-oriented and polished GUI? This is kid’s stuff. Doesn’t anyone feel it is worth fixing? Stuff like this is still lingering all over the place in Linux GUIs, yet developers seem more interested in adding candy coatings instead of polishing existing things.
Center the text, center and align the GUI elements and controls, make the controls and dialogs look professional (that doesn’t mean throwing Windows icons or images onto them), improve general readability… and then I’ll take it for a spin.
You can always tell a Linux app, or a port of one, with the sloppy GUI elements. They may look pretty in some ways, but they’re usually out of alignment, placed oddly, look or behave in strange ways when operated via mouse or keyboard, or they are custom controls used when native controls would have sufficed and looked in-place (in the case of ports like Mozilla – looks like junk on BeOS and is hard to work with).
I’m a Lycoris lover and user. The review was totally glowing, but Lycoris does have some holes in it. But, it is so nice to use. Like the review said, it’s not for Linux power users. To me, it is the best of the distros trying to reach the new and average user, such as Lindows and ELX. When you do observe the parts of Lycoris that need work, consider that they have only five employees! They did this – it’s amazing!
… or they are custom controls used when native controls would have sufficed and looked in-place …
Funny thing is, you can see this kind of thing in Microsoft’s Windows apps too. There is a screentshot out there somewhere that shows Outlook 2002 (XP) running on Windows XP. Some of the window panes have XP style scroll bars, and some have W2K style because the devs felt the need to recreate the scrollbars from scratch for some reason and hard coded the look in a non-standard way.
Other discrepancies I’ve noticed are:
– The XP style menus in Office XP when running on W2K (I’m assuming here that they look the same on Windows XP), don’t look like the XP style menus in standard-menu-using programs running on Windows XP. They are close, but there are differences, mostly on the menu bar of an activated menu. That’s what Office gets for drawing its own menus instead of letting Windows do it.
– I’ve also noticed different menu bars in different apps have different heights in windows XP. The menubar for notepad is smaller than the one for a folder window for example. Again, it is likely because Explorer draws its own menu bars (so, among other things, they can be dragged around, a questionable feature IMO. Note that they now provide and default IIRC the option to lock menubars down). As an aside, the small standard menubar size of notepad looks really bad to me, because XP’s huge bulbous titlebars overwhelm it visually. I think XP windows look like Fisher-Price Tombstones.
I think this is one of the costs of making the interface more visually complex and engaging; the holes and quirks in the facade become more glaring. The little things start to stand out. There is also alot of Cargo-Cult (look it up) design invlolved.
Yes, you’re right. Making things look cool is often more important than designing them for consistency and functionality. Also, many developers (small developers) just don’t know any better and are seeking to make an app that does a particular thing. Once the app does that thing, they consider the project a success and move on to other projects or more features.
I see this in Windows apps all the time (Linux, BeOS and others are not the only places this happens). The difference is that the experience is less jarring to me. There are exceptions… The e-mail client “Pegasus” is HORRID, GUI-wise. It breaks all kinds of rules and is just plain brain-dead and foolish (and ugly) in its design. The app has great features, but the UI was made by someone that obviously does not think about UI design or is not at all good at it
One of my biggest gripes about custom UI elements are controls that initiate an action on mouse_down instead of mouse_up (this infuriates me no matter what OS or app it happens on!! Software designers: pay attention to industry standard behaviors; they are standard for good reason!).
There are good reasons for custom controls to be developed and used, surely, but anyone who designs a custom control should ask a GUI expert or pay VERY close attention to existing controls when making new ones so that they do not jar or frustrate the user.
Custom controls don’t bother me when they:
1. Look the same as the equivalent OS controls.
2. Behave the same as the equivalent OS controls.
I’m in the school of “consistency over looks” when it comes to GUI design. I’m used to a lot of stupid variations, but I try to maintain objectivity about GUI design consistency because I have to train a lot of new users and tech support a lot of people who want computers to “just work” (big hint: they DON’T “just work”).
Linux varients have inticed me many a time, but my experiences with the GUI (I am tired of CLI) leave me feeling as though it is half baked and that the developers just can’t see the problems with the designs. They’re too close to it, or too arrogant, or not educated about these things. Whatever. MacOSX is the closest I’ve seen to a polished GUI on a Unix and it is also far from correct in a number of areas (not to mention all the stuff they had in the OS9 system and casually forgot about with their “world’s most advanced os” crap).
I don’t use Lycoris and never will. But, I think what they are doing is awesome. You need to have something for newbies and this version of Linux is perfect. Are you power user? Don’t use it. Use Slackware if you’re a hacker. No biggie. But, Lycoris is there for newbies and I think that’s great.
It’s all about choice, folks. I applaud Lycoris for offering a real choice to computer novices who want to bag Windows.
I support the WinXP look. Why not? Xp is pretty to begin with, and less technical users will feel less intimated.
Its been about 7 or so months since I last used Lycoris,and even then I thought it was impressive. However, the icons and fonts on the screenshots still look amateurish. I know these guys don’t have a lot of resources, but they should get someone to polish up the icons.They should also use all the free help they can get, especially from UI and graphic experts.
This looks exactly like Windows XP but with less polish, I assume it tries to act just like Windows Xp as well. Why on earth would anyone actually want to use a version of Windows XP (yes, I know it’s not actually a version of Windows =P) that looks worse and can’t run any Windows applications?
that is all
When I switch from Win98 to Windows XP and Office XP, I got confused a lot and my wife complaining because she can’t use it as productive as she previously can. However, although it is hard, she still can do finish her works with it.
So, what I mean here is that what the most important thing for a desktop system is that the ordinary user must be able to use it for their routine works. The look doesn’t become the main issue to them. It doesn’t matter how good Linux desktop can imitate Windows XP or OSX, as long as the usability issue not resolve, Linux will not get the mass adoption as a desktop OS.
However, by looking at the progress, Linux is reaching there. Several month ago, there are no good office software but now there it is (OO or SO and maybe soon, GoBE). I think the last issue will be the printing support. A lot of ordinary user use cheap winprinter that poorly supported by Linux/GNU whereas offices use network printer which still very hard to configure. Resolving printing issue combined with polished GUI/setup system (not look) will lead to increase adoption.
This looks exactly like Windows XP but with less polish, I assume it tries to act just like Windows Xp as well. Why on earth would anyone actually want to use a version of Windows XP (yes, I know it’s not actually a version of Windows =P) that looks worse and can’t run any Windows applications?
For the home small business market: Because you can sell a complete system including OS and office suite for under $500. Remember how sucessful the Commodore 64 / and Vic20 were because they were cheap? In America today there is a wide open market at the low end.
For the corporation:
a) Reduces costs for licenses
b) Allows for easy administration cutting help desk costs
c) Starts to break office dependence of MS propietery formats
–i) making it easier to switch over to all Linux servers (cuts costs lots)
–ii) allows documents to be shared with the enterprise system more easily
d) Creates network transparent applications so these can be distributed remotely (for example to sales force; or people doing flex hours).
etc…
d)
While we sit here and listen to most of these wind bags all of the reviewrs of Lycoris have one thing in common. They agree that this is a great way for people to break their teeth on a new OS.
The Idea that people are starting to nit pick this OS leads me to believe that it has done a successful job at creating an easy to use linux. I hear “better Icons” and “why XP?” I even hear “rip off” What I don’t hear is. This OS sucks or this OS is too hard. On the contrary if you read the reviews of Linux savy and non-savy reviewrs alike, they agree that Lycoris is heading up the way for Linux to be a competitor in the desktop. And that is great for all of us. Whether you like the Icons or not….:)
You hit it on the head, aNON IMUS!!
I tried it on a plain Shuttle SV25 (mini barebone) and it refused to install (or even detect the integrated network card). And I know for a fact that the SV25 is fully supported by some other distros 🙁
The Lycoris community – http://www.lycoris.org – is very helpful with such things. If you “tried it” but didn’t take advantage of one of the best community support sites currently on the web, you haven’t really tried all that hard.
I did search the Lycoris forums – someone else has the same problem and no-one answered him. I could probably dig and dig until I find a fix, but the whole point of Lycoris is that you are not required to dig and hack at the command line. If I want to do that I can just install Redhat which works on the SV25.
I think Lycoris is a great idea and project but all I can say is “it’s not ready yet for me”.
Look how many non-MS operating systems are trying to duplicate the look and feel of Windows. But what happens when they succeed? When the OS looks and feels just like Windows, but *without* in fact being able to run Windows apps, it’s very reason for existing vanishes. People will learn to use it, and then switch to the Windows it is patterned after so they can run the same programs everyone else can. You’re not increasing the acceptance of Linux, you’re just perverting it into a free training tool for Microsoft on how to use the REAL Windows.
Eugenia:
Great review. Finally a desktop linux distribution. I’ll keep my Gentoo though, but I’m not Lycoris’target user.
My question:
Does lycoris allow to create different users and login as them ? I would like to install it for my mum and dad and give them seperate accounts.
“Unfortunately at the time of testing I did not have any additional devices such as a DVD-Rom, CD-RW, or USB device installed to test with Desktop/LX.”
Who is going to take seriously a review of a “home desktop OS” from a person that does not even have the basic hardware installed that 99% of home dektop users use on a daily basis? You would think DVD playing, CD Burning, and DigiCam connecting would be something most people looking to switch would be interested in…
Also for a reveiwer that seems to be talking mainly to the uninitiated, it’s funny how tiny details about Linux are absent or glossed over, eg; poor software, poor installation routines, little cohesion between software and OS, etc…
Linux isn’t going to be ready for the desktop untill the software is, an issue that’s sadley not stressed enough.
I have been following Lycoris for a while and I think their basic approach is right. The OS looks good and is getting positive reviews. I had a quick look on their website for the source code but couldn;t see it (GPL and all that). I’m interested to see how they have dealt with the GPL issue and if they have kept any code proprietary by keeping it at the app level. Just curious. Does anyone know how they are dealing with the proprietary/GPL code issue?
Code.
I agree with your points about consistent behaviors as well. That kind of thing drives me up the wall. One example that comes to mind for me is the config UI for Putty, the windows SSH client. Another is WHFC, a Windows fax client for the excellent OSS Hylafax Fax server. I think that for that very reason it gets little use on our office. It grates on me so much that I have taken to hacking the UI to better follow standard Windows UI guidelines. Thankfully, the code is now GPL (but uses MFC, yuk) and that Windows dialogs use a resource format that I can edit without changing much if any code. Yes, standard Windows programs (before .NET) can use binary resources linked into the app for things like dialogs, menus, accelerator key mappings, and string tables. They are compiled from text descriptions and can even be edited after they are linked in. Maybe Mozilla could (re)learn something from this concept and apply that to their XUL UI engine.
To bring this post back on topic, I think Lycoris (and Lindows) have one advantage: they chose KDE as a base for their desktop. Since KDE is based on the Qt toolkit, which is designed to be cross-platform between Windows and *nix, much of their widget behavior should be similar to Windows. Also, most Qt/KDE apps behave very similarly to each other. GTK+ based apps (like GNOME) might have a bit harder time of this. They may be able to theme them the same, but there will still be behavioral differences. At least it isn’t as bad as earlier GTK+ (pre 2.0 I think releases) apps. Example: for quite a while, GTK+ menus had no menu hysteresis (the ability to move the mouse from a menu to a submenu without having that submenu close on you). This meant you had to be very precise with your mousing (down, right-through-this-narrow-space, down instead of down, diagonally down-and-to-the-right)
What I hope is that they don’t try to foist apps like The GIMP on their users (god, what a horrible interface, I could go on for hours).
Linux is not OS, it is just kernel.
RH/Debian/SuSe/etc Linux is crappy wrapping with crappy GNU sh.t.
FreeBSD is an OS.
It’s nice to see distros are starting to actually be usuable without resorting to the console. I was also impressed when WINE loaded up Explorer and was surfing the net happily. But.. still no luck installing RPM packages. BeOS made it look simple with their installation system.. why not Linux?
When is their going to be an os installation program that has a irc client built in? I hate solitaire.. 🙂
Lots of eye candy, but I still think that application availability will make or break this.
Windows: 10,000 *useful* apps for the average person.
Linux: maybe a dozen *useful* apps for the average person.
Great system for new users…lots of stuff preconfigured and installed….most apps people need are already there without all the bloat. Look at the browsers Moz and Konq…Lycoris is the only one (that I kow of) that pre-installs flash. It’s that kind of little thing that makes it easy for new people to get on Linux.
As for the XP look….it’s a comfort zone thing. From what I’ve seen, once people get a little more familiar with it they end up installing liquid or some other theme and then their systems doesn’t look like windows anymore….
These guys are headed in the right direction. Their community support is also unbeatable. No attitudes, just helpful people trying to make the best of a new and exciting sytem…improving it for all
RoccoD, yes, you can make seperate user accounts on Lycoris.
I just spent about 4 days wrestling with Lycoris 46 on both my Dell Latitude 600 laptop and my cheap-o SiS mobo Celeron 500 mini-tower system.
Laptop: It wouldn’t see the 3Com PC card hardware modem. Even RedHat 7.1 had no problem with that. It also refused to enable the ESS Maestro sound system. It saw the hardware, but would not enable it. A forum moderator at Lycoris.org gave me some convoluted steps for making a “pcmcia floppy” to help with the modem issue, but no ideas for the sound. Lycoris says this Dell laptop is fully compatible. Right…
Mini-tower: It wouldn’t dial the modem — a plain Rockwell external modem connected to COM1. Once again, RedHat and Windows never complained. It was able to handle the CMedia audio. Also, though the OS recognized the CD-RW, the burner app did what (in my experience) KDE2.X apps do best: it crashed. Over and over.
Several times on both computers KDE locked up so tight that I had to do a cold boot (Gnome has never done this to me, but KDE2.1 also did it under RedHat 7.1): hell for a ext3 file system and KDE. After a couple of those on the laptop, KDE refused to load and shut the system down.
Sorry, but to me this distro is still alpha code and not fit for real use. Windows wins once again by default.
I am REALLY looking forward to OBOS.
Dr P.
You had problems with the same machines that Lycoris sold on their website. I bought one and it works perfect right down to the modem. I just checked their site and their rockwell modem support is BALLS! So i think the issue is maybe you. What it sounds like to me is that you are a Gnome fan but your Distro affiliation is a little fuzzy….let me guess Mandrake? True I have heard that the initial CDburning software has issues the lock up issue is a first I have heard of. I guess we’ll just have to see how this Alph release does.
Blub,
Lycoris comes with an irc and icq clients and aim if you use it.
You had problems with the same machines that Lycoris sold on their website.
What? They sold an old IBM laptop and an HP if I remember right. Do you see those names in my post?
I bought one and it works perfect right down to the modem.
Good for you.
I just checked their site and their rockwell modem support is BALLS!
I don’t know what “BALLS” means, but it didn’t work with MY modem, regardless of what their site says. The same modem works perfectly with every other OS I use.
So i think the issue is maybe you.
There is always some arrogant little turd here who has to make it personal. If it works for you, great, but YOU are not the universe of users out there. Assigning blame to the users, insulting them, and claiming all is well with the software is nothing more than typical linux geek arrogance that convinces Windows users who are trying to change to linux that they are not welcome.
What it sounds like to me is that you are a Gnome fan but your Distro affiliation is a little fuzzy….let me guess Mandrake?
Distro affiliation?? A little fuzzy? What are you talking about? FYI, I have never used Mandrake. Only RedHat and Slackware. As far as Gnome, all I said was that it never locked up my system. That is a fact whether you like it or not. I’m not that crazy about either of them yet. If I was such a Gnome fan I wouldn’t have wasted my limited time on a distro that doesn’t have it. Can you grasp that concept?
True I have heard that the initial CDburning software has issues the lock up issue is a first I have heard of.
I’m not making this stuff up. I was only relaying MY experience with Lycoris Linux. It looks like it has potential to capture the attention of the public, but it still has problems. I’m not the only one who has had trouble with it. Just check the forums. Also understand that users who have problems with a distro are not interested in your opinion of them.
You’re not going to ram it down adult’s throats with your insults
lycoris was my first try of linux since rh6.2 started to hate me and i converted to *BSD.
lycoris = winxp for linux.
for the first time i saw i divx in linux. no other programs needed.
and the modem diaiup, no fuss, just connect.
i just say, go lycoris. (but i removed it and replaced it with openbsd 3.1 now ; )