“I would highly recommend Lindows-OS to anyone considering moving away from using Windows. If you play a lot of Windows games, I would suggest you dual boot. If you are a hard-core Linux geek, who enjoys squeezing every last nanosecond of performance out of their machines, maybe this is not for you.” Read the review at PCTechForums.
Redslug’s Review of Lindows 2.0
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Great review, just a couple of points…
First, WINE *is* included with the standard distribution of Lindows – it’s the Codeweaver’s extensions that aren’t included (that means – no Windows DirectX 3D gaming for you).
As proof of this, last night, I installed Sim City 2000 on Lindows 2.3.4 (not expecting it to work), and I was pleasantly surprised. No sound, but it did fire right up! They are compiling a list of applications that do work (or those that have workarounds) at the Lindows web site.
Also, while the standard /usr, /bin, and /etc-type folders are there, Lindows makes a “C:” drive in the /home directory. Standard Microsoft file viewers (Microsoft’s own, by the way), reside in the C:Program Files area. Unbelievable to see this actually work as advertised.
Having the drive organized in this way can allow users more familiar with Windows settle in with Lindows more comfortably. Also, for those Windows apps that DO work, it takes the work out of having to properly set up a “Windows” environment from which WINE needs to do it’s work.
Other points to ponder:
– There is a program out there called DOSEMU which emulates DOS in Linux. There has been a lot of activity on the Lindows forums about this possibility. Don’t forget, there are many many useful and fun DOS proggies still out there. Emulating DOS with all it’s complexities (CD-ROM, Sound, Memory Management), can be difficult but that’s nothing compared to emulating Windows properly.
Whether or not this becomes part of the official Lindows distro remains to be seen, but as it stands now, it works very well – sound and all.
Check it out at: http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/
– Lindows is FAST. This is the first distro where I didn’t feel the traditional x-window slugishness. In fact, Lindows goes well out of it’s way to hide “X” and all that loading jargon in the beginning. It even masks the initial “X” startup screen. You go from an informative (but basic) startup screen, fade to black, then pop up into the KDE loadout. Unreal.
– Got Nvidia? So do I. Unlike the confusion surrounding the installation of drivers for these cards, My GeForce had no issues at all. Tux Racer and Chromium were both running through hardware accellerated OpenGL.
Not to name names here, but just what is up with Red Hat and Nvidia? Why can’t it be this simple?!!
BTW, my hardware config running Lindows is an AMD 1.4 GHz Athlon, 256 MB of RAM, GeForce 2 GTS (IBM OEM), Sound Blaster Live, generic optical scroll mouse and onboard NIC. All of this was correctly detected and configured automatically. Installation took me about 10 minutes.
– Click and Run is great – no B.S. here. The stuff they compile for Lindows works, and works well. Only one little thing – you’d better have broadband to more effectively use this. I mean, sure, loading and installing something like a solitare game might be doable on a 56K, but when you think about something like StarOffice 6, you’re looking at 80 MB! the other option here is getting the Click and Run CD companion which has some of the best apps on a disc.
– Lindows is a bit sparse. Click n Run is great – and if you use this OS, you’ll surely find that out because you won’t be doing much of anything else until you get some apps in there! Personally, I think they should include at least OpenOffice.org as part of the standard install, but I digress. Just plan on doing some downloading.
– You WILL believe! This review was timely for me because it solidified my own position on Lindows from the very beginning. As a desktop OS, Lindows actually stands a chance to be successful. It’s internal organization, installation ease, and even unlikely customer base formed from places like Tiger Direct and Walmart make it legitimate now.
This is surely not your father’s Linux – it’s not supposed to be. The apparent speed, which I referenced above, is probably due to the elimination of server-based daemons and other resource hogging server-side applications as well as some good old optimization. It doesn’t try to be all things to all people like almost every other distro out there besides ELX and Lycoris.
This is a desktop OS, plain and simple. It’s the first Linux distro I feel like I can try out on my mom without the phone ringing off the hook.
I blew Mandrake off of my systems and installed Windows 2000 instead just so I wouldn’t have to dual-boot to play games. And so I’d have reliable OpenGL… working USB mass storage device for my camera… working USB printer…
YMMV. 😉
– chrish
has really come a long way … I can’t wait for 2.2 and for more apps to be ported (e.g. evoution in 1.4 and galeon2 – which is waiting on mozilla 1.2)
“has really come a long way … I can’t wait for 2.2 and for more apps to be ported (e.g. evoution in 1.4 and galeon2 – which is waiting on mozilla 1.2)”
What does that have to do with Lindows????
Lindows uses KDE 3.x…..
“has really come a long way … I can’t wait for 2.2 and for more apps to be ported (e.g. evoution in 1.4 and galeon2 – which is waiting on mozilla 1.2)”
What does that have to do with Lindows????
Lindows uses KDE 3.x…..
I guess this was the closest story for that to be on topic. At least they didn’t post it at the Amiga story.