“Lindows is heading in the right direction when it is going towards the home user market. Lindows is by far the easiest distro of Linux I have tried to date, and yes I’ve tried Mandrake 8.x/9.x and RedHat 8. Some aspects of Lindows are a bit confusing like the network printer share and no network wizard to share your internet connection.” Read the short review at TheSoftwareCorner.
TheSoftwareCorner: Lindows 4.0 Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
You can’t beat Redhat 9.0
I wonder how many good reports this makes for Lindows? I use it and it is a great Distro. I do think my 2nd most favorite would be Mandrake.
Redhat 9 is horrible.. after a few days of using it, I had to ditch it. First of all, it did not recognize my printer and set t up like Mandrake9 and SuSE did. After fiddeling around with my network settings, it choked on my two network card setup (two eepro100’s.. again, mdk, and SuSE worked like a charm). Also, it’s pretty unstable. I had a few crashes with gnome-terminal but I’m not sure if thats a RedHat or GNOME issue.
Right now I’m using Mdk9 and i’m happy with it. I might try ark or arch Linux though.
from your point of view.
Lindows is targeting the home user market and they are doing a very good job, and im pretty sure that if they were more game compatibile with linux they would be the bigest competition for Microsoft in the desktop market.
Many reviewers have noted that installing software in Lindows is very easy, it’s a matter of Click’n Run. Is this really better than installing software with apt-get or with Ximian Red Carpet ? I’ve used the latter and have found it adequate.
I like Redhat 9, lacks some of the tools that mandrake has but feels professional. Its also great that they are so open while still being profitable.
Redhat 9 does seem to cause a kernel panic for me though on my notebook. It happens sporadically even after updating the kernel. The new beta does not exhibit this behaviour however.
<tongue in cheek>Mandrake must be more stable than Redhat
</ tongue in cheek>
whatever my experience is worth, my Redhat 9 problems seemed to stem from the default GUI, which is based on Gnome. I switched it to KDE and no more problems.
I like lindows, Right now I’m running Knoppix installed to the hard drive ( kinda like a Debian installer) and its great, I’m going to take a look at Xandros 2.0 when its released and then I may pick a distro and stick to it ( I loved Lindows and Xandros )
That’s funny, i just wrote my a review of my own of Lindows here:
http://www.phatvibez.net/reviews.php?ID=lindows4
I haven’t even officially posted it to my site I was still working on it this morning.
…and I wiped it out. I didn’t like it one bit. I honestly think all this recent good press is just backlash against all the early bad press, the pendulum has to swing the other way, that’s just the way society works. Unfortunately, I do no believe this good press is deserved. It’s just a reaction. I found the Lindows interface horrible and over-branded, it came with almost no useful software packages, and everything about it was designed to make you buy more free stuff from Lindows. Worse, the word Lindows appears in absolutely every menu, on every application, in every title bar, and on all 20 default wallpapers! Microsoft doesn’t even go that far. It also sets up the default user to be root. I would sooner recommend Windows to friends and family than Lindows…it’s a tad more modest and gads more usable. And I loathe MS.
Also, making their source code available only to “registered users” who pay for it is not in compliance with either the letter or the spirit of the GPL.
Eh lindows?Werent they the ones that promised that windows compatibility and then they went back on it?Besides that they charge too much for a linux disto.
as a matter of fact, red hat has basically given up on the home user-because of this, their standard distribution is now a “community project”, means (because they refuse to invest the needed further time and money in it) compared to lindows, it will very likely fall behind even more.
because according to the reviews, lindows is already uncomparable much superior in terms of a complete desktop experience than rh9.
i’m quite sure that red hat will have to regret that at some point in the not-too-distant future.
i’ll still stick to it, though, because there’s still the biggest choice of 3rd party binaries avaible (and i don’t like lindows at all)-but i keep an open eye on the other distris.
I don’t understand. Almost all your comments were of how well things worked to your surprise, but in the end you said you couldn’t reccomend the Distro because of Root and past discretions. The other two you mention don’t come close to what LindowsOS can do, and do well. Yes I’ve tried them both.
the requirements for an OS to chalenge the Windows death-grip on the Home user market are;1. an easy to use GUI 2. an single place to turn to for “Tech support” 3. Some degree of uniformity with in the OS, and last 4. Hardware compatability, i.e. “my printer won’t work, boo hoo”
Yes, but there you go….I was surprised but you can’t get past the whole running as root issue, especially when they do not even try to get the user to do anything about it!
Lycoris and Ark are the closest distro’s I could think of that target the same kind of market…just added Xandros to the list but I have yet to try it.
Also, making their source code available only to “registered users” who pay for it is not in compliance with either the letter or the spirit of the GPL.
Actually that is following the letter of the GPL. It doesn’t say you have to give out the source free of charge but to those who use the product. And in order to use the product, u gotta pay for it. Simple as that. Don’t like it. Fine. But don’t go around saying they are violating the GPL. If they were, we’d be hearing bout it in the news now wouldnt we?
In your review you putted a screenshot that shows how to add new users.
XP runs as what? Root? They do not have this kind of user rules like UNIX, it has a lot of viruses, anyone can crah the machine installation and you are saying that you do not recommend the distro because that two points?
It´s strange… I´m a developer and really like to use some command lines but I think Lindows is a good effort to provide a choice for home users and I think they are in a correct way.
I agree when you say that the standard installation do not have too many programs and puts you to buy the CNR, but they are a commercial distro, they must to do it. If you are a geek, you can install a debian package on it or use the lindows communities to take the free softwares like OpenOffice, GCC, libs, etc.
Thwe point is to think in what a home user needs. What I need a sendmail running by default in my workstation installation of my RH9? They are still thinking like “server guys”!!
I really think that other distros have to follow Lindows in case of usabillity, hardware comp., etc. It´s very boring when you install a package in RH, for example, and the icon does not appears in the desk and menu. It´s a lack of standards…
I saw lindows running, but I use RH because it´s enought to me. Not because I use RH I desagree with Lindows movement. I think they are going to the right way, correcting some boring Linux and desktop points thats nobody wants to fix.
PS: Sorry about my poor english…
I hear about it all the time…it’s just that everyone’s thrown up their hands and doesn’t care about it anymore. It’s just like, “oh well, it’s Lindows, what do you expect?”
Okay either you didn’t read the whole thing or you too missed the point…
Of course you can “later” add users, I even said that
in my article. The point is that they don’t actively encourage it. Instead they hide it away without mention in the “Advanced” section. The root password is OPTIONAL in the install…come on, do you not see this!
For a more advanced user this would not be a problem, they know better and would add users and make sure they had a root password. But for the market Lindows targets they would not. They need to be “educated”.
I never said Windows didn’t run as “root” or “administrator” by default or that it was anymore or less secure than Linux. My only mention of Windows was that they have admitted in the past to disregarding security for ease of use and addition of features and that they are currenty paying the price for this. Linux is better than that and should not be brought down to that level…even MS is “trying” to get away from it.
As far as Linux distributions go I would not recommend it for not only those two reasons but they are the biggest. I didn’t say I didn’t recommend it over other operating systems because of it, so who cares what Windows XP does in terms of users. I was never comparing it to Windows.
Like my subject line says, “Most of your complaints about Lindows couldn’t be more lame.”
It doesn’t matter one bit if a distribution has great security (doesn’t default as a root user) if most people can’t get the damn thing installed in the first place. This includes getting all hardware to be recognized including NIC, printer, and graphics card, the ability to set the screen resolution you or they want, and be able to install programs and find the icons for them easily afterwards.
I’ve used RH 8, Mandrake 9, SUSE, Debian, and quite a few other Linux distributions. I can tell you that the average computer user, which is what Lindows is going after, will give up on all of them except Lindows very soon and find someone to install Windows on their computer.
“Worse, the word Lindows appears in absolutely every menu”. Lame
“and everything about it was designed to make you buy more free stuff from Lindows.” Are you on crack? How can you “BUY” free stuff? Who are you paying for this free stuff? Lame. Lame. LAME!!!!
XP – Administrator is the same as root. So Windows has the same problem. LAME!
Just because you guys and gals can’t get Lindows for free you hate it. You have to be the biggest lame people the in world. Does you mommy still wipe your bum after you poo? You guys embarrass me.
Ok, maybe I didn´t read all of your article, but I still think that some thinking are “server” or “geek” thinks. For example, for an user, if he´s using the OS as a root or as a user it doesn´t metters (It´s what I tried to explain when I wrote about Windows). I think Lindows must to add in his first boot a simple window to create a default user or to set the root password.
What I´m trying to explain is, in my opinion, Lindows is a good distro for home users because it fits what they want: Easy of use. So I recommend it!
Other point is if you are evaluating a distro, sure you are concerning other OSs, not just Linux. The Lindows focus is the home users so you have to concider OSs that has the same propose (Windows, MacOSX, Xandros, Mandrake).
I´m not trying to make critics to your article, just trying to swap some cents about what a home users needs. It will be good to Linux if it can conquer the home users and the only way to do this is giving a easy way of use without to make the user knows what is “root” or “administrator” or package, etc…
I don´t use Lindows because I have to pay for it and because I can configure my printer and camera putting some lines in a file, but to comment about Lindows must to think like an user, not like a developer. I continue to recommend Lindows.
PS: Sorry if I wrote some worse comment about you or your article. As I told you, my english is not so good. Can we talk in Portuguese? 😉
It has a very fast/simple to use install, good point.
Upon install it reconised all my hardware except tv-card and dual screen configuration, only Mandrake has been able to configure all of this.
Click’n’Run – can be unreliable/out of date but generally a very good thing. (I’m still in favour of apt/urpmi).
Running as root – this is an accepted thing to Windows users because Windows itself by default runs as Administrator ala root, if they’re asked for a password everytime they wish to do something with the OS they may not reconise WHY its asking for a password, when their previous OS didn’t.
Overall I do recommend Lindows to people who wish to try Linux out but have little intrest in learning a CLI/under the hood stuff, otherwise I would recommend, and do currently use Mandrake.
Who want to configure MPlayer to see videos? If you install RedHat by default you can´t see videos with MPlayer or Xine.
MPlayer is a great software but (again) they aren´t thinking about what the user needs!!! Why they don´t create a package that installs the software, the GUI, the codecs, all the things? Because they simple do not have the “user way”. They are developers (I´m a developer too).
If you make a package that add a new menu in KDE, when you install it KDE does not refresh the menu! It´s boring!!! If you are a user or develor or geek… who likes this? It´s a lack of whim, polish, attention!!! KDE is for users not for administrators… not for developers (I love KDE…).
What Lindows is doing is to take awesome softwares and putting them in a “easy of use/install” way. That´s the deal!
If some day I do not have to pay for it I will migrate to it. I´m considering to buy Lindows now, but the problem is to take out my RH with all the softwares installed…
Why other free distros do not follow the Lindows example? RH told us that its version 8/9 is for end users, right?
i’ve aleady tried to bring the things you mentioned as well as other points to red hat’s attention via the general mailinglist at rhl.redhat.com, but the (rel. few) reactions were very disappointing.
you can see my original mail in the archives-titel: “fmf-frequently missed features”. read the replies. maybe, if you and some other are also mailing there about those (very obvious) points and they realize that some things really need to get changed or fixed, they might finally do so.
Redhat is a US company. Worth about a billion dollars too. Enough people would be screaming the moment Redhat violates their patents, so they are right not to.
There are many issues with patents on free osftware, and it is not good to ignore them and act like they didn’t exist.
If you buy the version they sell, they will give you that licensed software. If you want music use ogg, and it supports Multimedia out of the box. If you want mp3 then download the plugin. Simple.
If you want MPlayer, then download it. Redhat defaults to GNOME, which is goin to make GStreamer the standard anyways, so maybe some things are not really issues. Besides, very few people complain about those issues with Redhat. The reason the replies were disappointing was that these issues have been discussed at great length. I am sure the paid for versions of Redhat do come with these things anyway.
Lindows licenses this software, and I think I would recommend Lindows over Redhat for newbies anyway, and for those without an easy internet connection, but for general purpose, I think Redhat is very good. The desktop issue is a GNOME issue, but I think there are very few problems on that front anyway. People do seem make mountains out of mole hills at times.
“Enough people would be screaming the moment Redhat violates their patents, so they are right not to.”
nobody wants them to-you can license those.
“If you buy the version they sell, they will give you that licensed software.”
you can get the normal redhat-distro just by download, or by buying their magazine. in both cases afaik, the plugs aren’t included.
“If you want mp3 then download the plugin.”
90% of all musicfiles is in mp3 and it will stay the default standard for quite some time in the future. therefore a desktop os does have to include it by default. another problem is that the uneperineced windowsuser doesn’t know where to find and how to install it.
“Redhat defaults to GNOME, which is goin to make GStreamer the standard anyways, so maybe some things are not really issues”
so when is a gstreamer-based player avaible which is perferctly integrated into browsers-in gnome 3?!
and following red hats argumentation, they wouldn’t be allowed to ship it anyways with the proprietary standards included (wmv, wma, real etc.), which would make it basically useless. so some things _are_ real issues!
“Besides, very few people complain about those issues with Redhat”
yes, unfortunatly, because red hat is targeting the corporate market and the geeks.
“I am sure the paid for versions of Redhat do come with these things anyway”
s.a.
“The desktop issue is a GNOME issue”
just partly, and red hat could accelerate solving the issues.
“People do seem make mountains out of mole hills at times”
if you would be just interested in using red hat as you do windows instead of tweaking it, you would certainly disagree!
I usually punish my Windows using friends by telling them to install Gentoo, and then crack up at their frustration.
I am sorry but RedHat really needs to ditch the i386 optimazations and bump it up to either i586 or i686 ! I can tell the differrence between i386 RH and i586 or i686 distro’s on my machines at home. The later of the two run and feel alot faster IMHO.
Red Hat can’t provide mplayer or mp3 players. Why, well 1. Red Hat won’t ship non open source software in their non enterprise distro. Two, it doesn’t matter if you license mp3, you still can’t legally redistribute the mp3 plugin for xmms. The patent itself causes the GPL to kick in and make redistribution copyright infringement. Just like back in the day they couldn’t distribute KDE. If you don’t like it, go complain to the mp3 patent holders. And anyone who doesn’t think mplayer is on legally shaky ground needs to go consult a lawyer. It would be absolutely negligent of Red Hat to distribute any of that.
As for the i386 optimizations, Red Hat doesn’t “optimize” for i386. They compile with i686 instruction ordering but only use i386 instructions. So the binaries will run on i386 or i486, but they don’t produce the slowdown on i686 that a pure i386 binary does. Compiling specifically for i586 would actually slow down any pentium 2+ processor. Any speedup you feel is either a) imagined or b) caused by an optimization patch to glibc or the kernel which Red Hat doesnt include.
I’m currently running RH 9 with XD2 and really like it. I’d try lindows but it’s just butt ugly. The UI is just not attractive at all. I don’t mind KDE and I know you can change themes but it’s still just ugly.
HA HA… LOL…
Good one…
“I usually punish my Windows using friends by telling them to install Gentoo, and then crack up at their frustration.”
… but… are they that dumb? How can it be posible… Ha ha… Maybe a virus got their brains…
you are evil… LOL… just to think someone would try to do that… without the know how… HE HE
It’s unfocused and full of homonym mistakes.
>>As for the i386 optimizations, Red Hat doesn’t “optimize” for i386. They compile with i686 instruction ordering but only use i386 instructions. So the binaries will run on i386 or i486, but they don’t produce the slowdown on i686 that a pure i386 binary does. Compiling specifically for i586 would actually slow down any pentium 2+ processor. Any speedup you feel is either a) imagined or b) caused by an optimization patch to glibc or the kernel which Red Hat doesnt include.
Considering that we’re up to the Pentium 4 and have 64-bit processors available, I think that all distros should be defaulting to i686. Of course, I don’t know how that will affect the AMD crowd – don’t get me wrong, I used and liked an Athlon machine – I just don’t own one – but it’s time we left the old crap behind. The local used computer store in my neighbourhood doesn’t even advertise anything earlier than a Pentium 2 although he does have some 486 and Pentium parts and systems in a dusty corner or two.