The company announced version 3 of Lindows this week at Comdex, and Robertson took the opportunity to talk with PC World about his operating system, its business model of powering extremely low-cost PCs, running an online software mall, and what it’s like to go head-to-head with one of the most firmly entrenched products in the world. Read the article at PCWorld.
Lindows vs. Windows: Round 3.0
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m seeing a lot of Lindows-related news on tech sites. Tech site are mostly read by techies. I would like to see more of such news/adverts on the popular media where they can get the attention of the people Lindows is trying to bring over.
Michael Robertson seems to have misplaced the truth in several of the recent articles about Lindows.
He quotes a Lindows box from walmart.com as being $427 and thus slightly cheaper than the Windows XP Upgrade and how it’s such a bargain even when you add on Click-N-Run for $99.
What he DOESN’T say is that Click-N-Run’s $99 price is ‘promotional’ and jumps to $299 next year. That makes that $427 Walmart box $726 (or $430 if you buy the OS alone – $129 + $299).
‘Lindows does Windows’ ‘Lindows does SOME Windows’ ‘Lindows isn’t focused on Windows’. How much creditability will we continue to give this guy?
I wouldn’t give Robertson exactly such a harsh statement about the Windows compatibility, because I know where he is coming from. First of all, he is not a developer. I AM SURE that when he founded Lindows.com and learned about WINE his ideas was to develop Wine to really do what he wanted: run Windows apps. But as the months went by and his engineers were unable to fullfill this for the obvious reason that WINE will never run all the Windows software because of the hidden APIs, he had to change his marketing line. I am sure that this was quite a lowdown for him too.
The fact that doesn’t come from a developer perspective and had to learn about what WINE can do and what not via trial and error, costed him a lot in terms of marketing and general acceptance from the geek community.
Whenever somebody comes out and says Lindows is lying there is always another person who will use the line:
“Why don’t you try it before you bash it?”
To them I’d have to say:
I don’t want to pay for it, I look at it and I see “ripoff”. And then I see the price tag which is another deterring factor. I downloaded RH 8 after using it, I purchased it, that’s how the OSS community works, people don’t understand why companies would bother letting people download their software. Well how do I know something will work for me if I can’t try it myself? And if I have to fork over money to try it then I’m sticking out my neck leaving it vulnerable to being axed.
I will “run” all right… as far from Lindows as I can. :>
Imho, this must be for the benefit of the venture capital crowd to show them they have a viable businesss model.
Also to make the 99 price seem like a deal.
So I won’t be surprized when this “promotional” price is
held over year after year.
Cos no one is going to pay 299 for Click and Run.
Ludicrous. Absurd. Words fail..
It is not my overarching goal or interest to defend Lindows. However, these calculations do not take into consideration many things. If you get a Wal-Mart PC with XP on it, are you never going to buy any software for it? What if you need the Big Enchilada – Office? Or even Office For Small Business? Or image editing software or any number of types of software you have to buy? The Lindows deal is still a good deal in those terms. It includes Star Office 6.0 too.
Actually, in that article, Robertson was being somewhat modest (for him:-), speaking of some of Lindows current shortfalls. I was surprised – they must have caught him at a weak moment 😀
It really is too bad they don’t offer a free download. I’d be interested in trying it, but I can’t see spending $129 for it. They should offer it for free download and then people could choose to pay the $99 or $129 or whatever they want to get access to the Click N Run Warehouse. Kind of like Lycoris’ model. If it worked really well, maybe they’d get more people to sign up for the CNR.
If Lindows.com were smart, they’d offer a “partial” download that expired after, say, 30 days. Maybe it would even give you a chance to purchase over the net and download the rest of the OS.
Also, everyone, please remember – don’t believe everything you read. Just because someone says something in the comments of some website doesn’t make it fact.
>If Lindows.com were smart, they’d offer a “partial” download that expired after, say, 30 days.
That would be nice, but if they do that, they SHOULD add the option to not wipe out the MBR each time they install their OS on your harddrive, but give you the option to write up their bootloader on the Lindows partition or the MBR.
“That would be nice, but if they do that, they SHOULD add the option to not wipe out the MBR each time they install their OS on your harddrive, but give you the option to write up their bootloader on the Lindows partition or the MBR.”
They don’t give this option? You’re right, Eugenia — they should add that. I have my bootloader set up just the way I like it and I never install other OS’s bootloaders on the MBR. I always install it on the OS partition. If Lindows does not give you that option, that’s a major flaw. I know they are not targeting power users, but there should at the very least be an option for an “expert” installation that gives you that ability to install the bootloader somewhere other than the MBR.
>They don’t give this option?
Nope, it wipes out the MBR, just like Windows does. And I can’t afford to lose my bootmanager which loads 9 OSes in this machine… I had to install Lindows 3.0 (2 days ago) on my other machine which only has 3 OSes in it, so it was not too difficult to revert back to my bootman.
@Eugenia: Do you mind to tell us what 9 Oses you run on your mchine (just out of interest)
It is off topic, but anyway:
WinXP Pro, FreeDOS, Syllable, BeOS 5, Linux Mandrake 9, Gentoo Linux, Lycoris, Xandros, QNX and I have an 8 GB available partition waiting for FreeBSD 5.
I think Lindows is a bad name for an OS. When I think “Lindows” I think “cheap copy of Windows 98”.
> … I had to install Lindows
> 3.0 (2 days ago)
Does that mean we will be getting a Review of Lindows 3 from the axe-lady herself?
And what version of KDE is Lindows 3 using? I for one would be interested in knowing if Lindows is progressing in things other than version names.
> RE: Lies, Damn Lies and
> Michael Robertson Lies
And what else did you think marketting was about? They all lie anyway. I would rather have a guy like Robertson doing his marketting that some other guy that builds the supremo linux and doesn’t realise you have to market it before people can use it.
> If Lindows.com were smart, they’d
> offer a “partial” download that
> expired after, say, 30 days.
Good idea, but don’t forget that Lindows is NOT after the geek crowd. That crowd like to experiment, but doesn’t typically like to pay. They are after common folks -the same people who buy windows without whining about a trial version.
> Does that mean we will be getting a Review of Lindows 3 from the axe-lady herself?
Absolutely.
Sometime next week or the week after.
> And what version of KDE is Lindows 3 using?
KDE 3.0.1-CVS
Once you purchase a copy does Lindows allow you to burn copies for your friends?
http://help.lindows.com/cgi-bin/visitors.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.ph…
p_sid=BGBZ4Yug&p_lva=&p_faqid=31&p_created=1018566198
Lindows does not allow you to copy CDs legally, even though they are required to by the GPL, because of a EULA you sign when you purchase their OS. So basicly Lindows does violate the GPL by forcing you to sign a EULA. The GPL does allow you to make copies of those CDs. I doubt Lindows will hang around if they attempt to take anyone to court over this. There’s way too much community pressure on them to allow them to misbehave like most capitalists. But it doesn’t surprise me that they attempt this, while stealing free software AND bandwidth from Debian and the community. Its not like these guys have ethics or anything. Why does this frustrate me? They are no different than Microsoft or Apple, but at least Apple is contributing a little back our way. Almost all capitalists are hypocritical and unethical.
“Almost all capitalists are hypocritical and unethical.”
Yes, you’re right. And this is why you’ll NEVER see a free/open OS dominating the desktop, because too many hypocritical and unethical capitalists have too much at stake in the closed-source/commercial counterparts. It’s important to realize that if you’re a part of ‘the revolution’, you’re not just fighting Microsoft – you’re fighting Corporate America.
Good luck.
“Almost all capitalists are hypocritical and unethical.”
Yes, you’re right. And this is why you’ll NEVER see a free/open OS dominating the desktop, because too many hypocritical and unethical capitalists have too much at stake in the closed-source/commercial counterparts. It’s important to realize that if you’re a part of ‘the revolution’, you’re not just fighting Microsoft – you’re fighting Corporate America.
Good luck.
Now that made me laugh
I’m not sure that anyone or any group could possibly “convert” the entire US to something other than capitalism but who knows, maybe they’ll be a reality show following the lives of some of these individuals to humor the staunch capitalists. 
What would take it’s place anyway? Asceticism? Communism? Humanitarianism?
Ok sorry for off-topic eariler but as for copying Lindows CDs… Is it correct understanding to say that even though the complete Lindows CD is not copyable in it’s entirety, surely an EULA cannot supercede the GPL and prevent an individual from copying the GPL packages from the CD apart from the proprietary bits?
Just one question
What happens after Joe user has been using his new Lindows PC for 12 months and decides to go out and buy a new digital camera,scanner,mp3 player whatever.
No Linux support listed on the box…….hmmmm
Rings up Lindows support
Oh sorry sir that device isnt supported in the Linux kernel you have.We think you might have to download and compile a new kernel.
Theres a beta driver somewhere on the net for that device sir. One of our techs just mentioned it. Its being developed by some 15 yo kid from Hungary and he hasnt had time to finish it. Youll have to compile it yourself and upgrade your GCC and libfoo3.7 to libfoo3.8 and your glib6.8.8.9 to libglib.foo.9.8.8.9.9
With WinXp he would simply install the supplied drivers and 5 min later would be using his new device
Can anyone else see how this completely stuffs the idea of Lindows has a consumer os?
Mark, you have a good point – this sort of thing could happen with all kinds of stuff. And again, I’m not shilling for Lindows here, but I think the only way any of the Joe User distros have a chance of getting a niche is to really put it out there for people to see and buy. If people start buying it, then those things will start to happen. LOL, it is scary though – after all this time Mac OS X has been out, Epson has just put out non-beta scanner drivers for it for the first time!