Eric St-Pierre writes: “While some may consider the features of Desktop/LX a limitation compared to what they are used to have in other distributions, I consider that a clean and simple environment makes me more productive. This review tries to show my view of this distribution.” Read more.
Review: The easy to use Lycoris Desktop/LX 1.4
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The fonts look terrible and stuck together. It looks like it is using Freetype. Or just a really poor font.
Probably a poor font.
If they’re using the Font Fusion renderer (that’s what btx2 is — the Font Fusion renderer loaded as a FreeType rasterizer plugin), then they should be using the bitstream core fonts. They’re high-quality, well-hinted fonts, so they should look very good.
I thought the donated bitstream fonts weren’t hinted and that task was left to freetype?
Desktop/LX 1.4 (the for-pay versions) doesn’t use the Vera fonts. It uses btx2, which is Bitstream’s Font Fusion rasterizer packaged as a Freetype module. Btx2 comes with Bitstream’s 13 core fonts, which are very well hinted.
OT-Question – I haven’t see their website updated in ages nor any new releases.
Therefore, when I discovered Desktop/LX about a year ago, I realized that I finally found a distro that was clear, simple and that didn’t require any “tweaking”.
Obviously the distro does need tweaking unless the reviewer likes horrible fonts. The reviewer seems to like Lycoris so why does he put out screenshots with those ugly-ass fonts.
It is being worked on, there is a delay while things are being decided on. It mentions website changes in the big company changes PR
We get your point. I don’t know how many times you’ve said it but it’s getting old, real quickly. WE GET IT. Do you get that?
I didn’t know that Lycoris stiffed any customers. I’m glad to hear Pollycat’s comments.
If someone from Lycoris wishes to either make things right *OR* show that Pollycat is lying/mistken, I’d be glad to hear that.
If they don’t step up to the plate and play, I have to believe Pollycat is being 100% truthful.
The solution has already been posted on OSNEWS.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8768
Follow the link.
We addressed PollyCats concerns. He emailed on a saturday night and we replied on a Monday, clearly according to him this was not a timely fashion.
Lycoris has openly acknowledged the isses around order fullfillment and openly told people how to get both updates and make further orders. Prices on the products were also reduced to further make up for the problems.
He was modded down on our forums because of his intentional flaming.
Mike
I won’t comment on the fonts, b/c it’s already said a few times
I like Kde (gnome more) but always find it a bit toyish. All I can say after seeing the screenshots from the review is: those are the ugliest kde screenshots I’ve ever seen. I mean; the icons, the theme, the fonts…. yuk!
Hi Monkey,
Thanks for your response. Let me clarify a few things (and thank God for OSNews – if this were Lycoris’s forum, I wouldn’t be “allowed” to say anything in response!)
– I emailed Lycoris in August, September and October and my mails were not responded to. Maybe they got “lost”? I don’t know. All I know is that I got no response in the chaos surrounding this release (as we now know, many things got “lost” during that time at Lycoris).
– When I did finally get a response, it was not at all apologetic like the “open acknowledgement”, I felt like I was at fault for daring to ask for something I’d paid for.
– Lycoris has had my money since July and I am still to this day waiting for a refund. So, no, my concerns have not yet been addressed.
I and many others gave money to Lycoris in good faith and got treated badly by them. I’m still waiting for the resolution of my case some four months later. Until then, I will continue to warn people about Lycoris, and I make no apology for this.
Pollycat– Lycoris’ CEO openly apologized for the mess surrounding the 1.4 release. He promised to do everything in order to make things right; told how to get the updates and such. What more do you want?? Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even you.
I suggest you try to solve your problems with the Lycoris people– and not fight it out openly on a
news site. Most people here are not interested in it and it does not add anything useful to the discussion.
My last post somehow got messed up. Here’s the missing words.
Pollycat:
The email I have in my inbox from you to myself and Joe is dated 1st Nov. Now, I cant comment on the other emails because prior to that I had no input on the order situation.. I am just a lowly developer
You never replied to Joe’s email. Joe mentioned that there will be away for you to recieve your copy, but I have not seen any comment from yourself since Joe’s email (which was actually dated 2 Nov). If you still wish for a refund, then reply to the email sent to you and CC’ed myself. It will dealt with ASAP. That is my word. I have resolved many problems with orders and continue to assit people that ask me to help.
When the fullfillment changed back to Joe, we have been much much swift in correcting problems. Joe’s email was not worded to shift blame or make you feel its your fault.
This is the open acknowledgement I refer too: http://www.lycoris.org/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=126
Osnews covered that, too which you posted in I believe.
This is not really the right place to talk about the details of your concerns, so if you want, again, you can email me and I will attend to it Monday for you (monkey@).
If you want your forum access back, then email me that too. You were only modded down due to your constant flaming.
I hope we can settle this soon.
Mike
Good you gave this information Pollycat. I hope you get your money back. Its sad that you had to go through this specially when the company is *selling* Linux. What an irony…
Why wouldn’t Pollycat post his comments here? Anyone who puts down hard money to buy an item WANTS THE ITEM. If the item isn’t delivered, that’s basically a scam. If it was on Ebay, it would be understandable. But this is something that is bought from a “reputable” company. Just because they send out a PR saying “oops, sorry bout that” doesn’t mean that alls forgiven. Especially if it’s taken 4 months to get resolution and it’s not even resolved yet.
I welcome all comments on the Lycoris issue – it helps me make informed buying decisions.
The funniest part of this entire thread is the guy “Mike” from lycoris BASHING a customer who paid for something and didn’t get it. There’s good customer service…
Hmmmm… can’t figure out why sales might be down…
I would take pollycat with a big pinch of salt. Pollycat claims that Xandros is a fine company, but you wouldn’t get that impression given the way he has treated xandros in the past. Just do a search for pollycat and xandros and you will see what I mean. For example, the following post on Xandros has been copy and pasted into several forums, just so that pollycat could get back at Xandros. Basically the guys is a linux distro’s worst nightmare. He is well known for his very public roasting of linux companies for perceived failings, and he is impossible to placate.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/board/UltraBoard.pl?Action=Show…
Monkey,
Joe (Lycoris head) emailed me saying I could get a refund. I replied to him saying I accepted this. He replied to me saying he would see to this himself. I thought this was the end of the matter. But that was ten days ago and, since then, nothing.
I would gladly settle this privately by email but it seems the email system at Lycoris is in chaos, with no-one knowing what is going on and who has said what to whom, and I’m just too frustrated with exchanging emails and nothing happening.
Meanwhile, I can’t discuss this on Lycoris forums because you censor any criticism there (I wasn’t flaming at all, I was just trying to discuss this matter since I couldn’t get assistance via email and I saw that many others were in the same boat as me. For your information, Joe left a message on the Lycoris forums criticizing me for complaining and I was not allowed to respond to that – pretty cowardly on the part of Lycoris, I think.)
So, I must speak in public here to get this matter resolved and also to alert others as to how Lycoris functions.
All I want is to get my money back.
I don’t agree with the method Pollycat is using against both Xandros & Lycoris.
But it doesn’t matter, what DOES matter is:
Can we now get back on topic, please?
Ashley,
I believe that all companies, including Linux ones, are accountable to their customers if they sell products and services and receive money in exchange.
I have had bad experiences with Xandros and have told people about this. My issues with them are now resolved and I find their product is good, so I now recommend them.
I am now having a bad experience with Lycoris (as are others), so I want to warn others about what I have experienced so that they can make informed choices. If you don’t want to believe me that’s fine, believe others who have also posted about problems with Lycoris around the net.
Apart from this, I have never had a bad experience with any other Linux company – Libranet, Mandrake, Linspire, MEPIS, Red Hat/Fedora, Suse, etc. I support them all, have purchased from them all and been satisfied with their services. I would recommend them to others.
I hope this clears up for you where I’m coming from. I am basically pro-consumer.
why pay for this distro if support is not “top notch” (=chaos) and if i can get a better distro (like mandrake) for free?
“The funniest part of this entire thread is the guy “Mike” from lycoris BASHING a customer who paid for something and didn’t get it. There’s good customer service… ”
Hmm, interesting . . . I’ve noticed nothing from Mike/Monkey that I would call “bashing”. Seems to me that he is actually trying to rectify the situation, exactly what pollycat is asking for.
The facts:
1. Lycoris screwed up
2. Lycoris admits screwing up
3. Lycoris continues to try and rectify the situation
4. Some people are just never happy
5. By many accounts Lycoris has fixed it’s issues
and
6. By many accounts Lycoris is the best Linux distribution for users coming from a Windows environment. It’s well done, attractive, and performs well.
Garret
Caveat Emptor
Whoa! Ok so Lycoris (and etc, whatever…) can screw up. But what is it with this guy? He’s like a beta tester in buying distros? I think he outta just try the freely downloadable ones. Mandrake is free and good if he’s from windows.
What is your issue with that? The reg-key system was clearly set up by a blind monkey or something close to that and Polly pointed it out. Thank you.
As a blind monkey, I find your comments offensive. We of the Blind Monkeys in the Software Industry union (Redmond local) wish to make it a matter of public record that even differently-abled simians are perfectly able to perform valuable work in the software industry.
😉
I have your contact details. I will follow this up monday.
Mike
” The point is that Pollycat seems to have issues with just about everything…”
Wow. This is indeed interesting. Is there a limited number of concurrent issued one can have..? So like: After Polly already had an issue with Lycoris (and rightly so) he cannot point out that the reg-key system doesn’t work, only because he already had *different* problems?! Are you crazy?
Lycoris kept his money for four month. That’s an issue and its not wrong to tell the world about it.
The reg key systems sucks. And it is OK to point out.
On the other hand, you are waaaaay off to imply he can’t hint to one because he already hinted to the other.
Is that the way you try to solve your problems? Do you sue your neighbour to the left after he assulted you, but you will not sue your neighbour to the right for the same thing because its the second incident..? I think you are crazy.
4 month to start correcting mistakes is a long time for any business.
Forum censorship is always a bad thing and it’s even worse when a Linux company does that.
I’m sorry to have to put it so bluntly but it seems that everything abot Lycoris just plain stinks. The outdated packages, bad business practices, forum censorship, CEO arguing with a customer on a public forum instead of being apologetic and humble, etc.
Am I ever glad I dumped the SME server before getting locked in to it. Now that Lycoris has it under its controll it’s a dead end for SME server for sure.
Once a corporation gets it’s paws on something then it’s all over.
”
Pollycat does indeed seem to go out of his way to make sure people don’t buy, deal with or use any distro that doesn’t fit perfectly into his world. While this may be admirable in some instances, it is quite apparent that pollycat is doing it less out of concern for his fellow man, and more so because he simply has decided to grind some sort of ax. ”
LOrd!!! If I have paid money for a product, I want to receive the product, simple!!!!! YOU are the one complaining for no reason other than to BASH someone.
As for Lycoris, I can’t say I think highy of it after seeing this screenshots/review; it looks like it just adds new icons?
Not to say it isn’t cute though!! ^_^
The CEO has not arguing with anyone here, if thats what you are inpling and nor am I. Pollycat has every right to be annoyed, no question about it. I have said we will follow this up Monday for him. I personally was not aware of further contact made with him. As I have said, I will follow this throught and hopefully settle this for pollycat.
Forum censorship is a bad thing and that is stopping. I have never liked seeing it happen.
We have made public apologies for the way things have happened. We are taking corrective actions and are working hard to improve and prevent this from ever happening again.
… I’ve read all these comments just to find they were all about this guy who’s upset with the company? Stick to the subject please.
I thought i’d read some interesting comments about Linux being free, but not as in free beer. The author of the article found Linux good enough to pay for as a desktop OS. Now, that’s pretty interesting to me – all this bashing is not.
I’m really happy to see Lycoris returning to it’s roots. Hopefully they can recover from the damage done, and hopefully Joe will stick with his new commitment on keeping Lycoris up-to-date. I also have not seen any locked, censored threats lately which is a good sign.
Nice review by the way!
I appreciate hearing the comments from members of Lycoris on the issues Pollycat has raised.
I think I understand the situation; Garret’s synopsis is probably close to accurate.
How can people comment on the fonts. Clearly those images have been scaled. I doubt anyone here knows which algorithm was used to scale the images either. Depending on the algorithm you will get very different results.
The theme is obviously also not the default Lycoris theme. So why bother commenting on that.
From what I remember, DLX is the friendliest distro I have ever used. IMHO, its neck to neck with Xandros in usability and hardware compatibily. I think DLX is only better than Xandros in the looks department. All this taking in consideration that I prefer then that my file manager is as close to Win XP as possible. Being familiar realy makes a difference in a Windows world. I believe that for basic office use (excluding the use of any company propriety software that needs Windows), surfing the net, emailing, chat, web shopping, searching the net, basic digital photo archiving and editing, Xandros and DLX are the clear choice. But once the user gets the itch to compile or just download and / or upgrade to the latest Linux software, Xandros/DLX gets old fast. Both in Xandros and Lycoris DLX, a power user (like me) tends to hit a brick wall in the form of customized KDEs. While these KDEs are IMHO better than stock in terms of “user friendliness and familiarity” (as dictated by Windows), it prevents you from upgrading the rest of your system. To a regular user, this might not be an issue but for me, the freedom to upgrade is very important. So if one is looking for a top notch alternative to Win XP go buy Desktop LX, it is worth the money. To the linux user looking for another distro you might find Desktop LX as just a novelty.
It seems that the Lycoris company is going to have some serious scars when all of this is finally resolved.
As for what I see going on, Lycoris doesn’t seem to have much of a chance as staying a company for much longer.
True, Lycoris apologized for the delayed release. The only problem with this apology is that its a few months late. Not weeks.. but months. What’s really wrong with this picture is the fact that Lycoris charged their users’ credit cards before even having the product ready. If I had ordered the product, and I waited a month, I would be on the phoneline with Visa disputing the charge.
Next, several days after the apology, several users still complain that they are not recieving their refunds / products. The result of these complaints; deleted posts from Lycoris message boards, replies to other message boards, and a few emails with messages of ‘monkey in the middle’.
Here’s a free tip (I won’t charge you $40 today) for the Lycoris team reading this board; instead of policing your message board, and replying to anti-Lycoris posts on other messageboards, why aren’t you spending time fixing the problems? People who paid for a product should not have to play monkey in the middle with you guys (sending emails back and forth) to get their hard earned money.
Better yet, why not give them a refund and a free copy of your software. They worked hard for their money, its obvious you didn’t. Making angry customers happy customers is a great key to success, or so I was told back in 5th grade economics class.
45 day trial? Seriously, you guys hurt your company enough with all the scam you’ve pulled. Take away the 45 day trial and replace it with something less… lame.
You guys are trying to compete with Microsoft, half the price (for the upgrade of WinXP) with eight times the problems.
Plan For Lycoris (free)
1. Settle refunds, distribute free copies of software to people who have waited all this time.
2. Replace 45 day trial with a unlimited trial.
3. Lower your price. I would put $20 for risk of not recieving a product before I put $40 on the line.
4. Change your name so future customers don’t remember horror stories about Lycoris.