“It’s a very good system for a first time Linux user, otherwise referred to as a ‘Newbie’. So if your reading this and have never used Linux before I can recommend you give this operating system a try, you may fall in love with it.” Read the review here.
Review: Lycoris Desktop/lx 1.4 could replace Windows 98
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Linux replace W98? W98 is what I use for old machines. Old machines don’t do well with Linux, quite contrary to what was one of its incentives years ago. I have a Pentium 150 with 32 MB RAM which does very nice with W98. In comparison, even DSL is a sloth in it.
I’d like the picture to be diferent, but it isn’t.
In comparison, even DSL is a sloth in it.
What Window Manager did you use?
In comparison, even DSL is a sloth in it.
What Window Manager did you use?
Not to mention distribution. Gnome and KDE would obviously run horribly on a P150, but XFCE might work if you choose a lightweight distro that’s meant for that sort of thing, like Vector or Beatrix. *box would certainly run well. But I don’t care if you run TWM, if you run Mandrake or Fedora on a P150 it’s going to choke.
DSL = Damn Small Linux, which uses Fluxbox, I believe.
Believe it or not, most people out there are still using Win9x. Most users don’t upgrade their operating system, it just comes on the computer they bought, so until their computers can’t do what they need them to, they’ll keep using it. And when that’s Office 95 or 97 and IE 4 or 5, it’s going to keep filling the need for awhile longer.
So yes, being able to replace Win98 is a more real issue than you seem to believe.
And please, Lycoris is not Linux, though it’s a piece of the subset. There’s are infinite possiblities in configuration of the Linux kernel along with GNU and other software. Assuming that one can represent the rest, much less a single person’s review of one… well… please just open your mind a wee bit.
I installed DSL on a really old Thinkpad with a P100 and 40MB RAM for fun (dual booting w/win98). It did run worse than Win98, I’d have to say, but I really wasn’t expecting much anyway.
I tried Lycoris 1.4. It is much improved over the previous version. They finally included KDE 3.3, but it would never replace Windows 98. You’ve got to be kidding.
For one thing Windows 98 does wireless networking with less than 5 clicks of the mouse. Not so with lycoris (or linux for that matter). Windows 98 handles APM and ACPI functions much better than linux. What about your old games and apps. You can try Wine, but odds are your old apps won’t run, will run really slow, or crash every few minutes. Wine doesn’t handle Win32 calls vey well including windowing calls, meaning the application windows don’t look or behave properly.
If you want to play with Linux, I suggest Arch or Slackware.
I run DSL on a Pentium 133 laptop with 96 meg of ram that would not run Windows 98 fast enough to use it for email or web surfing or anything else. So quit spreading FUD, DSL is always faster than Windows 98 on any kind of hardware.
It could be argued that Windows 98 was Microsoft’s peak for home desktops. It is generally straight-forward, lacks activation, and SE is usably stable and has sufficient features for most people. Saying that a Linux desktop has matched Windows 98 is a complement to the Linux distributor. But it can be argued that Linux is superior in that it can borrow from UNIX’ long history of security lessons learned (it would be up to Lycoris to reap this history).
I’m writing this review of Lycoris Desktop/lx Personal Edition Version 1.4 from within the only word processor the operating system comes with, KWord. I’d rather be writing it from OpenOffice.org, however, Lycoris does not currently include OpenOffice.org with the base system, and it’s currently provided in the Productivity Pack, which is an extra cost. This is just one example of the many strange choices the company had made in it’s past.
Right…
Honestly, I’ve found Ubuntu to be incredibly easy to use, and allows you to get any packages you want from their repository (most Debian ones are compatible as well). It’s completely free, and that’s a plus. It also detected all of my hardware when I installed it, installing drivers for everything except the ATI 3d drivers. That’s expected, as they’re closed-source binaries and all.
The Ubuntu folks are even crazy enough to send you CDs in the mail at no charge. The CDs come in a nice little foldy holdy cardboardy thing with the install and live cds, a title on the front saying which platform it’s for, and simple instructions. I’ve gotten several, and am passing them around to my friends to try and hook them to the Linux.
> Old machines don’t do well with Linux,
Not true. Back in 1993, I was able to run MCC Linux with FVWM on a 4 MB 386 laptop with 4MB swap space and 40MB HDD. It ran just fine without feeling sluggish.
If you don’t believe me, have a look at the system requirements:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/historic-linux/distributions/MCC/1.0+/do…
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/historic-linux/distributions/MCC/1.0+/do…
The problem isn’t Linux, it’s all the cruft modern Linuxes add to their modern distributions. In the old days, memory was expensive so distributions were tailored to not waste memory. These days memory is cheap so distributions are tailors to spend memory if it can provide useful features.
I run DSL on a Pentium 133 laptop with 96 meg of ram that would not run Windows 98 fast enough to use it for email or web surfing or anything else.
There was something wrong with your Windows install then, cuz that’s the kind of hardware Win98 was originally designed to run on. My Thinkpad ran it fine, and Word 97 loaded up on it nearly as fast as Word XP does on a modern P4 machine running WinXP. IE 4.0 and Opera even run reasonably well on it.
Lycoris uses KDE or Gnome as i recall. Win 98 can run in 32 meg of RAM with IE 5.x and other apps. i doubt Lycoris can do the same with the stock desktop environment.
apples and oranges really.
and most any desktop distro, even a bad one, is more powerful than Win 98.
“So if your reading this and have never used Linux before I can recommend you give this operating system a try, you may fall in love with it.”
So if MY reading this!
argh!
‘For one thing Windows 98 does wireless networking with less than 5 clicks of the mouse. Not so with lycoris (or linux for that matter).”
You’re actually wrong there. My wireless card works out of the box with Desktop/LX with NO additional configuration what-so-ever. I can’t say the same about Windows which requires me to install a seperate driver.
>>>>The start-up sequence and graphics associated with it would have to be one of the nicest graphics start-ups I’ve ever seen. Reminds me of Mac OS. Lycoris scores big brownie points for the new start-up sequence. Too bad you only see the start-up when the computer is booting into the graphical desktop and shutting down.<<<<
When else would you propose they show the start-up sequence?
There seems to be a lack of finesse in this article. I realize it’s a review and, as such, there will be some subjectivity and fluff… but, this article seems to be more of a ramble.
Have you tried DeLi Linux? It is made for old computers.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/delilinux/
I think nearly any OS in the world could replace Windows 98
Windows 98 wasn’t designed to be run on ~100Mhz machines. Just look at what they bumped the system requirements to when Gates stopped forcing them to support archaic hardware – e.g. with 98SE.
I can’t find my 98SE box, but I believe a Pentium II came into the equation.
Also, a lot of hardware was sold with Windows 98 for many years afterwards – ME was bad for laptops, so my 2000 era Omnibook and Armada both came with 98SE. These machines can certainly support Lycoris 1.4.
Not that I’d want to really, 98SE supports the hardware better….
DSL uses Fluxbox indeed. To tell the truth, I was expecting better performance. Probably with a custom kernel it would do better, but I haven’t tried it yet.
and most any desktop distro, even a bad one, is more powerful than Win 98.
For some things, yes. But not for all. Xpdf ain’t that great (unfortunately. I don’t like Mac OS X’s PDF viewer either).
I run DSL on a Pentium 133 laptop with 96 meg of ram that would not run Windows 98 fast enough to use it for email or web surfing or anything else.
Either you can’t setup W98, or your laptop has some hardware issue hat only surfaced with it. Said P150 was my main computer from 1996 to 1999 and it ran nice for web surfing, mail, image editing, text processing and only with 32MB.
W98’s requirements are not much higher than W95’s, and when W95 came around the Pentium was young…
So quit spreading FUD, DSL is always faster than Windows 98 on any kind of hardware.
Oh, so I guess my (and it seems other people’s as well) experience to the contrary is ‘FUD’. Really…
> Old machines don’t do well with Linux,
Not true. Back in 1993 (…)
Geez! ‘Old machines don’t do well with Linux, quite contrary to what was one of its incentives years ago‘. That’s what I wrote…
I hadn’t heard of DeLi before, but I intend to try it. Thanks.
If you start a review by offering a disclaimer that the intended user doesn’t have a good chance of using the product, that’s a fairly bad sign.
Does apple call its users Newbies?
Am I only one who considers this insulting behaviour?
PS) Please don’t delete my post again moderators. You guys are out of control. Apparently only pro-linux opinions are valuable to your “community”
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=165&slide=1
“Thgere are always problems with some configuration, drivers, multimedia support.”
I think you don’t know linux. Only newbies have these problems.
“Linux wasn’t made for desktop & it will never be soo good on desktop even like Windows 98 (on 98 multimedia support & drivers are 1000% better that on any linux). The most funny thing is that many KLinux distros are made for using on desktop but.. Linux has been made for SERVER not for DESKTOP!!! Wake up people. Don’t make airplane from the car…”
If M$ can sell Windows as server (windows are made for desktops, no ?) why not use linux as desktop.
My linux box has multimedia capabilities better than any Windows XP because I use only well supported hardware. Yes, I cannot choose ANY hardware but MacOS X users also can’t and Mac is seeing as the best multimedia OS.
From the review:
Although Lycoris Desktop/lx 1.4 is a modern Linux based desktop operating system, which was released in the last 6 months and has relatively up to date packages, I would compare its usability to that of Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition. I think the system would be a good desktop for my little sister, all kids in general, and my Nana. However, my Mum & I require a more advanced system to meet our needs.
I didn’t really feel that conclusion from the review was explained at all. The only two complaints I noted were single-click, and lack of apt-get. Is that how an advanced system is defined? Did he mean Lycoris is not advanced in comparison to other Linux distributions, or to Windows XP?
“Linux has been made for SERVER not for DESKTOP”
This has got to rate as one of the most asinine comments I’ve seen having to do with Liux. . . period.
i thrown better computers than that in the trash
Maybe you could explain that to the people who tailor Linux for old computers.
The same trashcan you’ve thrown the aux verb in?
Linux for servers not for desktops? –> WinXP is based on WinNT which was for servers, not desktops
Linux won’t run on older hardware? –> WinXP won’t be running on that P120 either. However, I run Slackware 9 on a 32MB P120 Thinkpad without a GUI and it’s been playing mp3’s since December 2003. It’s worst problem? The power was unplugged once and it ran down and had to be rebooted.
Linux can be run on anything. I run it on my iPaq using the Opie environment. I run it on my Thinkpad T20 and two desktops. I haven’t used Windows in ages and with all the money I’ve saved (not buying a Microsoft OS for any machine or a Microsoft Office for any of them or any anti virus or Norton or whatever), I spend it on non-computer stuff.
I ran Windows 98 on a P75 laptop with 32MB Ram, NO PROBLEM!
Why is it that a few discussions here and there actually progress in a mature manner but most end up like the Windows 98 flamewar above with people posting complete misinfomation as if it is being vomited out of their brains?
Can Windows 98 run on a Pentium 100? Sure. Can Linux with the right desktop environment? Yes. Matter settled? No?
“WinXP is based on WinNT which was for servers, not desktops”
NT was designed with both scenarios in mind hence the development of both NT Workstation and NT Server SKUs at the time.
One of the biggest complaints back then was the machines were too slow, especially if you were running the latest and greatest. Wasn’t that how the WinTel monopoly worked? Bloated OS needed faster hardware which compelled hardware upgrades which compelled new features and a new OS that needed newer and faster hardare and so on and so forth?
The nice thing about Linux is the older kernels that worked fine on the old hardware are still around, just waiting to be picked up by some enterprising company and made into a shiny new little quaint distro perfect for sprucing up those mountains of old computers into perfectly suitable thin clients or home computers. Instead of throwing those computers away, improve what’s there for them and keep them running. There’s nothing wrong with them at all. But MS fails to recognize that market sector and all those old machines are falling by the way side since the software that runs well on them was abandoned.
I found linux desktop distros like suse 9.1 and ubuntu to be about 2-3x slower in use and bootup time. Ubuntu didn’t recognized all my hw and as we all know in this case one has to become a linux guru so my impressions were meh. Not even talking about dual boot setup issues which I don’t expect home user to deal with. The whole linux experience from user’s and dev’s perspective is lacking. For an excellent articles read “what is linux” and “autopackage” websites.
“what is mac” not “what is linux”. I’m linux brainwashed
”
I found linux desktop distros like suse 9.1 and ubuntu to be about 2-3x slower in use and bootup time. Ubuntu didn’t recognized all my hw and as we all know in this case one has to become a linux guru so my impressions were meh. Not even talking about dual boot setup issues which I don’t expect home user to deal with. The whole linux experience from user’s and dev’s perspective is lacking. For an excellent articles read “what is linux” and “autopackage” websites.
”
OK, please, follow me here. Do you think you can do that? I have a couple of things I am going to explain to you.
First off, look along the front of your computer. Most likely, somewhere along there you will see a symbol resembling a colourful window. Yep! That’s the one! The one that says Designed for Microsoft Windows <insert version number>. Hmmm…now, look up the definition for design. I’ll give you one here.
Design – To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect
(Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.)
So this must mean that this computer was designed for running Microsoft Windows, no? Did you custom pick your parts like me with Linux compatability in mind? If you did you should have mentioned that in your post. If not, then maybe take a second to think about how difficult it would be to write a driver for a piece of hardware made by a company that could care less about Linux, doesn’t provide any specs, doesn’t provide any code, etc. etc. If your hardware is supposed to be supported (on lists or w/e, then provide more info next time).
Now one major reason Apple’s don’t have this problem is that Apple makes the software and the hardware, and it would be difficult for Apple to with-hold information from Apple, dont’cha think?
Now, if Joe Blow is going to run Linux (let’s pick Linspire), it is going to come preinstalled no? Is he going to have to deal with a)hardware issues or b)configuration issues?
Yes, Windows boots faster, Windows also needs to boot more often, so your point is what exactly?
Also, judging by your post, you are most likely running unsupported hardware, so that could very well cause it to be unstable. For instance, if it didn’t recognize some onboard stuff (you didn’t mention what wasn’t supported) it could mean that your motherboard has poor Linux support, right? Now I would think your OS not supporting your motherboard properly might cause instability. (If I am incorrect as to what the problem is, then provide more info from now on).
Oh, and if Joe Blow is going to run Linux, it definately will not be in a dual-boot environment. It will be on a cheap PC purchased from Wal-Mart. So you saying that Home users shouldn’t have to deal with dual-boot issues is kind of stupid, cause they normally don’t. Name me one Joe Blow you know that dual boots his computer.
Oh, and again on the hardware issue, try installing Mac OS X on your P4 or AMD and let me know what happens. Wait, but you say Mac OS X doesn’t support these computers….Well, Linux doesn’t support yours, so quit bitching.
Oh, and the day Apple quits making ugly looking computers that seem to be malformed, I’ll buy one (excluding their laptops of course).
It’s true wireless has been troublesome in linux for a long time.
However this is soon about to change… I’d recommend you to follow the Desktop Summit (www.desktopsummit.com) where Linspire 5 will be demonstrated.
As an insider and beta tester I am running Linspire 5 right now, using wireless with some advanced features like network disk, encryption etc. Everything possible auto-detected by Linspire!
Well I bought this product so I could experience the full deal with tech support and all and so far I’m not impressed. Only email support and I can’t get past the Video Selection screen.
Chunk