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Lindows Reviewed
Well, the wait is finally over. Lindows, the system that promises to
bring Windows software to Linux, has finally been released in
sneak-preview form. You can catch a
first
hand review of the system on
NewsForge.
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The state of DVD playback on Linux is not what it is on Windows. Maybe Lindows along with the Linux DirectX equivelant libraries will allow Windows software DVD players to work?
I watch DVDs all the time and find it annoying that Linux doesn't have decent DVD playback. Hmmm maybe I should help write one...
I preffer to stay Anonymous (you know - NDA stuff)
/opt/wine-lindows). But - you can move the wine out and play it on Mandrake, SuSE, Redhat or Slackware quite easily ;)
;)
To make long story short - it's based on Debian Woody, it got Xandros (previously Corel) nice file manager, and it got a special version of wine which can install Office 2000 very nicely including Explorer 5.0
You can't install Explorer 5.0 or 5.5 seperated - the process fails after download. You cannot install Windows Media Player 7.1 since it's saying "unsupported OS" and Windows Media 6.4 simply thinks the URL's are wrong.
Running Office 2000 (not 97, not XP) runs pretty nice although there lots of GUI bugs there needs to be fixed.
Biggest shit - it installs and doesn't open users - so all done as root, and even if you open users you won't be able to use the "wine" stuff since it needs root premissions or some serious hacking (it's on
Does it worth the money? yes! I need to run Office 2000 - and that gives me the option to use Office 2000 (and I cannot use other Linux office stuff - need to connect to exchange and just the Ximian exchange connector costs $70 - so $29 more won't kill me).
And since it's a debian woody, then hey - APT heaven is here - give me an hour and the distribution will be totally customized.
Some other stuff - it uses XFS as filesystem, it doesn't install nvidia binary drivers in default (need to do it manually), kernel is 2.4.14 + tons of patches, it tries to load every module on earth and frankly - doing a damn cool job. They'll need to fix the network and priting stuff - it sucks as it is now.
Definately recommended if you're planning to use it in corporations.
Oh, as for who did the wine stuff? lets say it's not transgaming, you know who
MeshMesh
So we know what their secret to running windows apps is: Wine.
What I find unsettling is that this sneak preview states 99% of Windows applications go "poof" on install (which is not very surprising for anyone who has ever used wine). Yet we've seen screenshots showing Internet Explorer on top of KDE.
So another question stands: are those screenshots real?
To my dismay, the reviewer's experience with the preview LindowsOS exactly mirrors what you get with a recent build of WINE. Many applications run, but there are serious problems with installers.
This is not to bash the WINE developers who are making great progress with limited resources. I wish them, and Michael, all the success in the world. I just wish that Michael Robertson would commit some of his development staff to improving the core WINE code and contributing it back to the WINE project.
Shameless plug: Do you need step by step instructions on configuring WINE to run popular Windows applications? Check out my web site, Winecentric
Um...why do we need another totally insecure OS? From the review, I got the impression that, thus far, Lindows is a dumbed down XWindows, with Wine and ungodly horrible security.
Linux users won't want it because they won't want to be root all the time. Windows users won't want it because Windows apps won't run as well.
Admiteddly, this is not a full release, but even so, what is the point of purchasing this? With Wine running, a tempermental app at best, you lose a lot of the stability of Linux. With X running as root, you lose the security of Linux, and gain all those nice outlook viruses. And if the primary target is current Windows users, well, I just cannot see a reason they would switch.
A dumbed down X with Wine just ain't gonna cut it in the market, I have to believe.
I am a windows sysadmin by profession (its paying the bills today folks, save the zealous remarks) and we have very good uptime numbers here, but it's a full time job even for a small shop.
Basically, I think you're right on. Saying "well, linux is just inherantly a stabler system" is akin to saying, "you know, most of those old mechanics who build hot rods in their spare time have cars that run much better than the average driver." Yeah ... what did we expect?
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Oh. Right. Real insightful. Excuse the dripping sarcasm.
"It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people."
How self contradictory can you get? It's *not* the OS. No matter how user friendly or unfriendly, it's the user. Period. End of line.
If it's user friendly, you get a pleasant, useful, powerful, computing experience. That's it.
A user friendly OS and program with a stupid person does not make the OS insecure or the program flawed, or the UI wrong. It just means the user is stupid.
User friendly does not imply a stupid user.
GPL Deconstructed
Excellent. It sounds like Lindows has taken Linux a giant leap towards the ease-of-use that modern desktop users demand. This might actually be competitive in the marketplace
So, lemme get this straight. You are saying that the reason Linux isn't competitive in the marketplace is because they have too much security? That typing in an additional password is a bad thing?
Even if the only reason you have a password is to avoid executing all of your binaries as root, so you might actually have a secure machine, even if you do open that Snow White and the Seven dwarfs e-mail?
Thats very insightful. Worthy of a mod point, if I had one... But wait a second.... Don't you have to enter a password for NT? And more importantly, if you want to change something in NT, you need an Administrator password (or at least an Administrator to give you permission)? And last time I checked, NT was "competitive in the market place".
Yes! Hmmm.... Very interesting.
Maybe that few seconds of nagging isn't so bad after all.
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
After reading this article. It basically sounds like they are going to take debian, add some KDE skins, tweak the KDE menu and configure WINE so that they have a stable and reliable version that can run as many windows programs as possible.
This sounds basically like the crossover plugin done totally wrong!
There is no reason (technically) that this needs to be a dedicated Linux distribution. The only thing I can think of is that they are doing this for marketing and/or political reasons. I am sure Michael Robertson knows what he is going from a marketing perspective but he is trying to succeed in a technical market.
The one thing that we should learn from this is that it might be time to a dedicated wine-bundle project.
Specifically... Take wine snapshots and QA them and try to get them as stable as possible. This would of course have to be coordinated with the wine project.
This should also include bundling wrappers around Windows programs so that they can be installed easily.
IE you could have a debian package named wine-bundle-ie which would of course install Internet Explorer by downloading it on the client machine similar to the way crossover does it.
This would get you the best of both worlds... Windows apps on a Linux machine and would be an Open Source collaboration.
I try to run 100% Open Source/Free Software but it would be nice to complete invoices for my clients who use Excel.
Kevin
At least don't make a fool of yourself!
You can run Microsoft Office 2000 and internet Explorer 5 that comes with Office 2000 - IE 5 won't install as stand alone (something with wine registry), but upgrading from 5.0 to 5.5 works perfectly.
So yes, if people expected to magically run all your windows application - then there is no news here - it doesn't. It's running Lotus stuff, Office 2000 (all of it!) & Quicken. Thats what they aimed at version 1.0.
REMEMBER - THIS IS FOR PEOPLE IN CORPORATES WHO WANTS TO USE OFFICE STUFF AND LINUX. Nothing more, nothing less. It's NOT for the avrage Linux user.
MeshMesh
There's probably some truth to both sides of the issue. It's true that careless or incompetent administration can compromise the security and stability of even the best designed system. But it's also true that a well designed system requires less care and less competence to maintain as a reasonably secure and stable system.
Take dealing with services as an example. A well designed system has unnecessary services turned off (or even better, not installed) by default, so that any flaws in those services won't compromise the system. This means that a casual user, who won't be running them anyway, has one less thing to worry about and doesn't need to be as smart or careful to keep his system in good shape. Similarly, a system that allows users to spend most of their time in an unpriviledged mode is less likely to cause problems if/when those users eventually stumble onto trojans/viruses/worms. Adding in an extra, necessary step to make those malware programs really vicious makes it that much less likely that they'll cause problems.
Is good security something that you can buy off the shelf? Of course not. Security is a process, and administration is the key part of that process. But the quality of the product can make that process easier or harder.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
So the problem is that over-userfriendlyness breeds stupid users? Can't we try to educate the users? If i had several million dollars of venture capital and a one way ticket back in time to when the market boom was still high, here's what i'd do to fix the primary problem with desktop computing:
...
:)
I'd create a linux distro designed to TEACH FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES of computer use to the users... things like coherent file organization, user permissions, networking security... just some basic stuff, as well as how to actually use the linux distro that we (my company) would also spend a lot of time setting up to be more secure by default, and well-configured (read: easy to use, but not masking the actual functionality behind all the pretty widgets) so that not only could it be a quality operating system for experienced users, it would be a perfect stepping-stone for morons who are used to having they're brains spoonfed the babyfood that windows and macos feed them.
The result? A *significant* increase in the relevant education level of computer users exposed
to this operating system.
potential <subjective>positive</subjective> side-affects:
1)decrease in M$ desktop marketshare due to higher level of user-education (once you've used *our* OS you *know* why windows sucks... you've become enlightened enough to see past all they're FUD and marketing hype into the rotten core of the thing)
2)world peace. (oh yea... i'm on a roll now heheh) believe it or not, education is a good thing... teach people more about computers and get them more fascinated in the TECHNOLOGY aspect of the computing, rather than just the pretty colors and the ability to send instant messages to minors across the planet and you've actually awakened more of the thing this world needs the most: intelligent thinkers who make judgements based on integrity and quality and other high-minded concepts that joe-sixpack doesn't want to take the time to try to understand.
3)(ready for this) SECURITY... yes, the internet will become a SAFER PLACE. more people will understand WHY you don't run an exe that comes into your mailbox from a stranter (or often from a co-worker) and why email-hoaxes can't be real and
*soapbox rant*
bah. i don't know, i'm just fucking around with those last two, but seriously though, there are IMPORTANT intellectual concepts that affect not only computing, but LIFESTYLE, that the Linux community has a FAR better grasp of than the "windows community"... and truthfully the ONLY salvation we have from Microsoft taking over the whole world has it's source in simply finding a way to impart this knowlege unto everyone OUTSIDE the linux community that we can, and we're not going to be able to do that by scaring them with our super-intelligent operating system, and we're not going to be able to do that by trying to get the government on our side (we'll get crushed like a kid getting picked on in the schoolyard for telling on a bully) and we're sure as hell not going to do it by sitting on our collective asses and looking down our noses at those who "just don't get it"
the common populace CAN be taught, as long as you present it in an easy-to-consume bright shiny fun-looking semi-affordable package. once you've done that you can teach them anything you want, we just need to pick the right thing to teach them.
*getting off soapbox now*
thanks for your time
Microsoft has now put security priority #1 and I don't know what that's worth, but I would bet that they're going to start getting away from running everything as "root" on the latest and greatest MS OS.
Having Lindows log in as root and run everything as root is backwards. At a minimum, create users that have near root access but not EVERYTHING.
It seems like the time spent developing this "piece of art" could be better spent writing documentation and GPL software to manage linux for dummies.
Then there wouldn't even be a need to run Windows software.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
palm desktop is buggy software though, the installer never has worked quite right on NT-based machines. What always amazed me about the palm desktop is that if you go to install it as an admin on some user's machine, the software will not work when you log on as anyone other than the person who installed it! I don't know if this has been fixed or not, but that has always annoyed me about Palm Desktop (well, that and you have to be local admin for no particular reason).
I fear the license wars about to erupt.
314-15-9265
I don't understand how these guys got to this point. Clearly Robertson is connect to some kind of VC funding hose, or he would be working on his second startup in 10 minutes.
But there's next to nothing to this distro:
But clearly what Linux has been waiting for to turn into windows is progress on WINE . When it works, Linux will run the Windows apps the rest of the world uses. Until then, the idea just won't work.
In this situation the straightforward thing to do is to hire first-classes WINE hackers and move the project forward with the force of money. And why Lindows isn't doing this is beyond me. Perhaps some kind of brand-development trick? Unless the VCs have some other tricks up their sleeve, I don't see how anyone's gonna get their money back. Anyone know anything about why Lindows is proceeding this way? Anything tidbits on FC?
I have two words to summarize: bottom feeders
Contribute to the community or get out of the game.
While I'm already pretty nervous about installing precompiled binaries on my system, it seems like the success of LindowsOS would bring with it the attention of Windows virus writers.
If this distro became popular (even only in a business setting), Linux would be in the same boat as Windows as far as viruses go. Any binary packages you would download would be more likely to contain a virus, and who installs rpms and debs as a user?
Of course this risk is already there, but increased popularity would make it more risky.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I believe the original goal of Lindows was to provide an alternative to the users that don't want to constantly pay for upgrading the Windows operating system, as well as to provide a way to convert users from windows to linux by providing a medium. This means, the primary market are the users that don't want to, and probably haven't yet upgraded to 2000/XP yet and are probably still vulnerable.
As my friends who are diehard windows fanatics keep telling me, I am simply not familiar with the rock hard stability and unbreakable security of the latest Windows operating systems. I am not aware if a regular user is able to install any program on the system without that program comprimising system security or crashing the system.
However, if those users are still running 98, then they're still subject to the same security issues we've all been joking about for the last 5 years. And if they move over to Lindows, and assume the default root user for running all programs, they'll be no less vulnerable on that platform. My bash in this regard is appropriate.
And if after 15 years Microsoft finally got it perfect, well good for them. Move beyond that. If Lindows is supposed to help us replace it, it needs to provide all the good things that windows has provided over the years (primarily the userfriendliness and wealth of applications) and not drag with it all the bad things, that for the sake of not bashing windows constantly I will omit this time.
And remember, NT 3.51 was pretty stable in its own right, but they managed to screw it up on later operating systems, even in the NT line, and service packs have typically created more problems than they've solved. I'm glad you think the latest incarnation of windows is perfectly bugfree and secure. That doesn't mean I need to ignore their previous track record, even if now security is their topmost priority. If being secure and bugfree had been their goals from the beginning we wouldn't have had so many fun years worth of material justified bashing them over. Of course, that might have meant they would have had a slower production cycle, and competitors might have gotten the upper hand in some markets, and it was far more important to Microsoft that they remain the industry leader, product quality be damned.
But thats just my opinion.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
BEing an administrator in Windows is not the same as being root in UNIX. Root is a FAR more powerful account. With root you basically become the system. With Administrator rights, you have the ability to excersize a great deal of control over the system, but you still have limits. For example Windows XP exerts some protection over it's system files, to keep them from being replaced/corrupted. Now certian things (like driver updates) can override that, but in general use, it is enforced, even for admins.
I don't espically worry about doing my work on a Windows system with administrator rights. I DO worry about staying logged in as root. It is more powerful, and as such more dangerous.
You apparently haven't researched the roles of users and groups (yes, groups exist) in Windows XP beyond the pretty blue AOL-like user manager. Try this for size:
1. Open Administrative Tools (can be found under Control Panel.)
2. Select Computer Management
3. Observe the already existing groups. Make your own, add users to it.
4. Run the following: \WINDOWS\system32\gpedit.msc
5. Look under \Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings
Here you will find the ability to specify the security level of dozens of actions, allocate special OS permissions, restrict software execution given certain scenarios, password aging and complexity rules, auditing, etc.
If you're using the NTFS filesystem, open Explorer, select Folder Options from the Tools menu. Select the View tab and scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Settings. Disable simple file sharing. Now the properties page of any file or directory will include the ability to control user access to that resource, considerably beyond just wrx, inclusively or exclusively by user or group, and have those properties inherited down the directory tree.
NT has a very rich role-based security model, and always has.
Jerry Pournelle wrote an excellent article circa 1997 for Byte about how badly IBM dropped the ball on OS/2. Of the interesting highlights:
- IBM drastically underestimated demand for OS/2 2.0 when it first came out. They didn't make nearly enough diskettes, and there were many stories of Eggheads (and other stores) running out of copies. I can attest to this, I couldn't get a copy when it first came out, either
- Comdex, 1991: IBM was charging an OUTRAGEOUS price for their SDK (on the order of $150-$200). MS was handing SDKs for Win3.0 out to anybody who walked by.
- Comdex, 1991: IBM OS/2 2.0 won best-of-show against Win3.0. Jerry recounts having to wait HALF AN HOUR at the awards show while they hunted down an IBM rep to even accept the award. All the while, the runner-up (Microsoft) was swarming with reps, all asking questions as to why they didn't win, handing out more SDKs, etc
There was even the time I called IBM tech support and got literally laughed at by the tech support for trying to run OS/2 on a 386/40 (recommended was a 386/33 at the time). 486/50s were bleeding edge at the time.When OS/2 2.0 came out, only Win3.0 came out. IBM dropped OS/2 big time. By the time OS/2 2.1 came out, Win3.11 was well on its way and nobody gave two wits about OS/2 any more.
Finally, keep in mind that OS/2 1.x was the laughing stock of OSes at the time. Even more so than Win386, Win2.0, etc. The DOS box was nicely referred to as the "penalty box" for how miserably it performed.
Say what you want about Microsoft (I don't like them either). They know how to market their wares. And when you bumble as badly as IBM did, you have no chance.
Windows limits users' capabilities by user interface as well as by permissions. If you have sysadmin-type priviledges (which you always do on Win9x) you can probably do raw hardware access (I'm thinking hard disks here), but not easily. You can format disk partitions, but you'll always be asked to confirm it. You can only make and delete partitions by rebooting to DOS mode (at least on Win9x, I'm not sure about NT-based versions like 2k and XP).
/dev/zero > /dev/hda", which will cheerfully fill your partition tables and disk with zero bytes). This is great if you know what you're doing, which is why Linux users are encouraged to always use a mere mortal userID, and only switch to root when they know exactly what they're doing (well, what they're about to do, anyway).
In Linux (as far as I can see) the user is assumed to be right, as long as they have sufficient priviledges. (Think "cat
This is why running as an admin-level user on Windows is pretty common, while running as root on Linux is, er, frowned upon.
For example: I know someone who works from home and occasionally goes in to the office, and uses the same (company-owned) laptop in both places. Because he needs to be able to alter network settings to switch between work LAN and home cable, the company's sysadmin (i.e. the guy with the laptop's Administrator password) has added admin-level access priviledges for that laptop to the login he usually works in.
If that was a Linux box, I assume the sysadmin would add the user to the list of sudo users, or even just give him the root password; either way, he'd have to make a conscious decision "I need super-user access for this; I'd better be careful".
Also to all the idiots who keep posting "XP has permissions", well of course it does. The complaint here is that Lindows would be like an XP setup that purposely turned all those permissions off!