Lindows.com today launched LindowsOS Laptop Edition, the first Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for laptops. LindowsOS Laptop Edition includes improved power management, compatibility with WiFi cards and the ability to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts to browsers & email programs.LindowsOS Laptop Edition greatly improves power management and extends battery life with the ability to put a laptop to “sleep”.
Closing the laptop cover or simply selecting “Sleep” from a popup battery menu will save all work in progress and power down the laptop to minimize battery usage; pressing the power button restores the computer to its pre-sleep state.
LindowsOS Laptop Edition also features a high level of compatibility with a wide range of WiFi cards, found increasingly in businesses, schools, and other public areas.
The rest of the press release is here.
i read that lindows has a good innovative (marketing-)idea it amazes me that suse, red hat etc. which have much larger resources than lindows leave the entire homeuser-market (plus the needed innovation and polishing) over to mr. robertson…
just hope they won’t regret it some time in the not-too-distant future…!
LindowsOS costs $60 but you can buy a PC from Wal-Mart
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2293918
with LindowsOS installed for “$199.98”, Do you still have to pay for Click-n-Run after you buy the Wal-Mart PC I assume?
I dont think they’re promoting this very well. Lets look at their “big features”:
1. Sleep – Oh yeah, Windows has this
2. Battery Indicator – Same thing. Always works on windows.
3. Wireless support, same…you get the idea
I like linux, but promote something like encryption to help if your laptop gets stolen. I mean, these features wont impress people.
“I dont think they’re promoting this very well. Lets look at their “big features”:”
I beg to differ, the big portion of their marketing isn’t really sleep, battery indicator, or wireless support. Those are mainly exposing the fun stuff that comes with. They are mainly exposing the information people have the most questions about. They’re market is people who can’t afford a computer, or are not familiar with an operating system in general, but have heard about Windows. They hear this and that about Windows, but they ask does LindowsOS have this.
I think they are wise with marketing their product to lower income individuals. They’re promoting an affordable operating system, and dirt cheap computers. I’m surprise you never got that – it’s basically pasted all over their website.
I happen to be struggling with a laptop lately to get all its features working. This distro gets that working, but not this, while everything’s set up automatically in this distro, except feature X, which wont work for the life of me…
Power management has been one of the most spotty features. It’s also the most important one, to me. Screw the modem, nice mouse driver, and wireless networking; if my laptop’s battery dies after 30 minutes without warning, there’s no point in it being mobile. Good to know there’s a distro doing something about this, even if it is a pay distro… that makes you root by default…
I’ve personally only ran linux on notebooks, for the past 3 years, the best thing for power mangement has been ACPI and it works great for me, the only thing I haven’t gotten working is a winmodem, mainly because I use either broadband or my wireless nic and don’t care about it. What distro’s have you tried?
It should be part of the standard Lindows OS.
that makes you root by default…
I have said it before here on OSNEWS.com. You have a choice after the install is complete and it boots up into KDE for the first time to create additional accounts.
People who go click,click,click, will get root by default as in XP.
As the President of Lindows.com, I wanted to address some of the comments I read above…
– We mention power management, wireless support, etc. because these have been a real challenge for Linux in the past. We have invested a great deal of engineering in getting this right, and will continue to do so.
– The Laptop Edition features will be part of a future version of LindowsOS, but we had some big laptop deals that needed this right away.
– Modem support is another area we’re spending a great deal of time on and we’re getting better all the time here, even with internal winmodems.
– As for the $199 Wal-Mart PC, it does not include the CNR service.
Thanks,
Kevin
I’m a Mandrake guy myself, but I was thinking of buying a laptop for my girlfriend eventually, and these would be a great choice. She already uses a Linux desktop 75% of the time (proof non-geeks do use Linux – and, for better or worse, my girl is one of the least geeky person I know!).
Are these available in Canada? (or plan to be, anyway – I’m in no particular hurry to by a new PC right now, with Xmas ahead…)
Not sure if that post really is from Kevin Carmony. If so I am impressed that you are reading these posts.
While initially I did not trust Lindows, I am now view the company fairly favorably and would even recommend Lindows as a good option for a non OS junkie looking for an alternative to Windows.
Having said that, does Lindows have any intention of changing the name. If Lindows does become popular the initial interest generated by the name may no longer be worth, excuse me for saying this, but the lameness of it. By that I mean Lindows will sound like a cheap knock off of Windows in the longrun.
Just an observation and thank you for anwering my objection to a specific version for laptops.
I have a question. How much have you modified the existing kernel/programs to enchance all these laptop features? Have you added/modified a lot of code?
Basically, what is lindows giving me that is unique (for laptops)?
Look at Web Browsing, it said “LindowsOS blocks popups…”, it’s mozilla or netscape! Not LindowsOS, LindowsOS itself doesn’t do anything with that!
Yep, that’s Kevin. He always puts in an appearance whenever Lindows is reviewed.
Yep, that’s Kevin. He always puts in an appearance whenever Lindows is reviewed.
Well, at least he bothers to read, which indicates that he might actually give two shits about what his current/potential customers think.
Could you imagine Bill Gates responding to one of these articles ?
I dont normaly like to be mean but, andy, that was the most dumbest comment I’ve read thus far. According to your reasoning I can go down farther and say, its not Mozilla that blocks the popups but the popup_blocker_func ();
Question: Is the sleep feature hibernation? Does the machine dump all the ram to disk and turn off, or does it just shutdown the drives but leave the CPU/power running?
thanks
Thats what I like about Lindows…they keep personal contact with theyre customers…
And that they can be a bit humerous too… For example the Lindows Rock (http://lindows.com/lindowsrock/) and the notice at the bottom of every page on theyre site:
“Lindows.com is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft Corporation in any way – in fact, we don’t even really like them because they are suing us.”
And of course…they make an excellent distribution for desktop computers. I am the person who people consider a quite proficient computer user and I use Linux or Unix on all my computers. I still like using a distribution like this (for n00bs) on my desktop computer. Simply because it makes life so much easier!
I looked under the notebook compatibility and couldn’t find any modern machine that I’d want.
Thinkpad T41
Thinkpad R50
Dell Inspiron 8600
The latest Dell seems to be from January and the notes paint a picture of gloom getting it to work.
From reading on the Inqwell, I see you can put SuSE on a modern Thinkpad. What would be involved in getting Lindows onto a Thinkpad T41?
Microsoft is where it is now just because somehow, they were the only ones REALLY realising the volumes that would be made on PCs. The other vendor were blinded by huge margins on servers + the prestige of that market
I think Lindows is one of the only Linux vendors to genuinely realise the potential of Linux on a volume market and to act accordingly. A big part (and growing) of the volume is on laptops. Lycoris also go down that route.
for months i was scanning the web, looking for a laptop for which linux would ‘just work’ (including proper power management), eventually i gave up and got an iBook which, with the same specs, is about as cheap if not a little dearer than an x86 laptop. i saved lots of time and avoided lots of headaches.
whatever about the debate of linux being ready for the desktop or not, it is deffinately NOT ready for the laptop.
andy’s comment was fair. your comment is silly as the function that blocks popup windows is a part of mozilla, the people of mozilla WROTE the popup blocker. mozilla is NOT a part of lindows. lindows is a distribution, all they do is slightly modify packages and package them in order to have a more cohesive system, i have no idea why they chose to call konqueror, LindowsOS File Manager.
If he did, noone would know, he’d be modded down for trolling
Got the info about this in the mail today though, sounds pretty good, hope the changes are merged upstream into LindowsOS/submitted to kernel maintainers and such.
Lindows isn’t the first at all. Lycoris beat them by almost a year with their version for a true laptop – TabletPC’s.
Is that Lindows is segregating their product line ( If I misspelled that word i apologize I am not a native english speaker)What I mean by this is that you dont see a Windows Laptop Edition, a Windows Developer edition, and a Windows OS. These features are built into Windows automatically and they do work very well. In terms of Linux, SuSE and Red Hat work on my Laptop and sleep, Wireless and everything works fine. I think Lindows needs to button down its hatches a little bit because I see no reason to buy a edition for my Laptop and my PC. Like SuSE and Red Hat and Windows, I want to buy one version and it just work.
No, they didn’t code everything but they sure the hell have innovated the way in which Linux is marketed. I tried Lindows and it works, CnR works, and Lindows customer support works (for home users).
Lindows simply is not targeted for the kinds of people who would download a distro and install it. It’s targeted at people that will buy a preinstalled desktop/laptop and USE (not tinker) it. In that, I believe they will succeed.
Ray
(“Could you imagine Bill Gates responding to one of these articles ?
)
No…actually, I couldn’t. It’s this type of customer service that influences me to purchase from companies like that.
Moreso…more than the EASY distro they sell, the support is great, the “WalMart PC” is a GREAT idea…but most of all…ANY person, company, group, etc…that has the fortitude to stand up to Microsoft and not run and hide is a REAL hero.
Good going, Lindows.com!! After I provide Christmas for my sons, you better believe I’m buying a copy.
JM
Not ready for the laptop???
I have a 133 MHz Compaq that runs GREAT with several distros of Linux.
Maybe it’s not ready for SOME laptops.
(Just my 2 cents)
JM
Well to the comment on lindows being a cheap windows knock off vs the name problem I like it. If it makes MS mad all the better. Fruthermore I personally root for coca cola but look at the upstart pepsi they are gaining market headway. I say go Lindows and provides support and options for everything out there. Dont make the MS mistake also better to have a small tight program and if you want support for extra download it ect.
Regards, Joseph