Review: Lindows 2.0 Dissected

Bob the Knob writes "Extremetech has done an in-depth review of Lindows. The guy who wrote it didn't think too much of Lindows before looking at it but he seemed to like it after doing a hands-on."

Comments

Re:I might try it

[fault0]

> initially recommend that they look at using Linux 8.0

Holy smokes, it only seemed like yesterday when Linux 2.4 came out. I guess the vacation this summer put me out of the loop more than I thought.

7 min install

[bjschrock]

I think the most impressive thing I saw in the review is that Lindows installed in about 7 minutes. My old Windows computer used to take about a third of that to boot up...

This is fine for someone with the right hardware..

[intermodal]

but lets see someone pull off a 7 minute install and get a fully working hardware set on a Compaq or god forbid a Gateway...who knows what crap hardware much of Lindows' potential market has.

Good Review, Seemingly Good Product

[perrin5]

Although they appear to be saying that the whole "runs windows apps" was a load of crap. Perhaps there's a list somewhere of what windows apps it runs, if any?

I think the click-and-run feature is a bigger deal than these guys seem to think. They're targeting a market of people who are used to Windows, and many end users don't even understand "shortcuts" let alone icons. Click and Run may sell more copies for Lindows than any other service/review.

Also, running as root may not be ideal for Linux people, but end-users would just get irritated if they had to enter the root password everytime they wanted to change the system configuration or mount the cd-rom...

I agree on the firewall, tho. In the interests of protecting everyone, there should be some sort of default "safe" firewall that people can disable...

just my $.02 (a review of a review, what comes next?)

Re:Good Review, Seemingly Good Product

[G�tz]

You totally miss the point. Running as root is really dangerous. It will enable something like our favourite Windows Security Flaws[TM] on Linux. This will give Linux a bad name.

To me, this distribution disqualifies itself by that.

Lindows Bashing

[xp_fetchbeer]

I don't understand why the vast majority of geeks seem to want to downplay Lindows, or just outright trash it. It looks to me like the community should be happy with anything that contributes to the cause, which I had always assumed was presenting a viable alternative to M$. It's almost like someone who resents their favorite obscure band after they become commercially successful. "I was into Linux before Lindows!"

Re:Lindows Bashing

[Jonathan]

No -- It is more that Lindows (even if they stop directly hyping the non-existant Windows compatability) still has a misleading name and is likely to confuse the naive consumer. When these consumers find that their Windows programs don't work, they are likely to assume that it (and Linux in general) is garbage.

Re:Lindows Bashing

[An Onerous Coward]

Further investigation dredged up this:

Does Lindows Comply With Open Source Agreements? and The Lindows License Agreement. The latter points out that the GPL allows the charging of a fee for the transfer of source code, but omits the fact that such a fee must cover only the actual cost of distributing said source code.

I still don't know what to make of it. I looked for info on the "evaluation version" I heard rumored, but all I can find are mentions of a general release sometime down the road.

Not surprised

[Mr_Silver]

I'm not surprised they like it for the main reason:

Everything just works

This is something that seems to often get forgotten within the Linux world. When people complain that something hasn't worked, they tend to get a response like this:

It's easy to fix. All you need to do is edit...

And in that split second it strengthens the reasons why people are hesitant to move from comfy Windows land. Editing text files may be easy for you, but for everyone else it doesn't sound like fun.

Generally whenever I've said something like the above I get bombarded with questions like "why do i need to edit this?", "what happens if i make a mistake?" and invariably "why do I have to edit this in the first place?".

Hopefully these nice UI touches will make it into other distros. I'm looking forward to the day I can plug my USB MP3 player in and the OS automatically detects it, mounts it and allows me to use it ... without having to hit the command line.

Or are there distros like that already?

Spotty Perfermance

[gurnb]

Although the Click-N-Run Warehouse for Lindows is a great idea in theory, real-world users will run smack into the many ragged edges of open-source software. None of the Click-N-Run applications have been developed by Lindows.com, the creator of the Lindows operating system; the company is merely gathering open-source software from elsewhere on the Web and putting it one place for easy access by LindowsOS users.
I downloaded several Click-N-Run applications, using my cable modem connected to the Microtel PC through my home network. The downloads were fast and the installation always unfolded smoothly.

But the applications themselves were a decidedly mixed bag.

I first tried out GIMP, a photo-editing program that strives to match the popular Adobe Photoshop. GIMP did indeed have many Photoshop features, and even copied the look of many Photoshop icons, but the onscreen instruction manual was spotty. Instead of feature descriptions, many pages only said: "Our apologies. Sorry, but the help page for this item is not yet written.''

I then installed OpenOffice, the Linux response to Microsoft Office. Again, the look and feel of OpenOffice closely resembled its better known cousin, and the program did succeed in opening Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents. But OpenOffice didn't include the same fonts as my documents, forcing the program to select alternate fonts that messed up the spacing between words. When I fixed the spacing and re-opened the documents in Word and PowerPoint, the spacing was now messed up by the return to the original font.

I also tried instant messaging. The first program listed in the instant messaging category of the Click-N-Run Warehouse was Kinkatta Instant Messenger, which claimed compatibility with the very popular America Online Instant Messenger, also known as AIM. But Kinkatta didn't work with my AIM account and I only discovered why in exploring Kinkatta's Web site: a technical change by AOL in February is blocking Kinkatta from communicating with AIM.

So I had to download the second instant messaging program on the Click-N-Run list, called GAIM, to make the AIM connection.

Re:Spotty Perfermance

[Doomdark]

... But OpenOffice didn't include the same fonts as my documents, forcing the program to select alternate fonts that messed up the spacing between words.
When I fixed the spacing and re-opened the documents in Word and PowerPoint, the spacing was now messed up by the return to the original font.

No offense but this is an area where not much more can be done. You are taking in "alien" content, modifying it natively, then once again converting to alien format. These kinds of conversions are lossy by nature, esp. since MS Office formats are proprietary ancient messy "standard" (proprietary although not secret any more). This is especially true with layout related information, as file format doesn't really define how to use information; and also because fonts themselves usually can not be freely shipped. To get truly ubiquitous precise layout, Postscript/PDF should be used. In future hopefully a real office document interchange format emerges; OpenOffice has been active in this area (although it's not likely their XML-based format will become standard, it hopefully leads the way, showing how standard could be defined).

Unfortunately, for people who have to work with Office docs end-to-end, things will never be very easy unless they stick to using MS Office. But that's only a small part of functionality OpenOffice (and StarOffice providew), and judging the suite solely based on this feature is rather unfair for it.

Nice review

[nuggz]

I thought it was a good review.
Points out negative aspects, but really shows what Lindows is doing right.

Despite all the anti Lindows crap going around, take notice of things they do well. Also remember the target audience too, this reviewer did.

7 Minute install with loads of hardware autodetection? I think that's good, but it isn't exclusive. I tried the gentoo unreal live CD, booted up an I was playing in minutes there too (although my sound didn't work)

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

The review seemed to focus primarily on Lindows' ease of installation and use. It mentioned the security concerns (such as no software firewall installed, and how it runs as root by default) but seemed to treat these problems as being outweighed by ease of use. Some might say we already have an OS that focuses primarily on ease of use, and not enough on security issues. Do you know which OS that is? I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with "Lindows."

Re:This is fine for someone with the right hardwar

[Doomdark]

True. And this is exactly the reason why consumer need to have option of getting Linux pre-installed with, say, Compaq or Gateway... and why Microsoft is fighting that with all of their might, although behind the scenes.

Installing Windows on crappy h/w is a bit as well, what with trying to hunt down working drivers and all. It's just that with name brands this is already being taken care of.

This could violate the GPL

[petard]

Those who have received from Lindows.com the binaries for any GPL'd software can also find the source code available for download in their my.lindows.com account.

Take the GPL Quiz. Lindows is required to distribute the source to anyone who has received the binaries and requests the source... not just "those who have received [binaries] from Linxows.com".

It is now my desktop of choice

[codepunk]

I have been using linux for over 5 years and I admin linux clusters for a living but on my desktop I now use only lindows 2.0 . I do tweek mine to run as a user vs root and I remove the click and run garbage. What is left is a very souped up and productive debian environment. If you need software you will be pleased to find that apt-get is available for your use. Do yourselves a favor and test drive it I think you will come to love it.

Greatest Innovation and Greatest Mistake

[syrupMatt]

IMHO, the greatest feature of Lindows is Click-N-Run. In my experience of introducing users, even fellow geeks, to linux, the #1 barrier of entry was "how do I isntall software x, y, z". Even after explaining red hat's rpm and apt-get (as well as methods via console), they still miss the convienence of just double clicking an installer and having the work done for them.

However, the prices they are planning on charging for this may prove to be the thing that makes Lindows yet another irrelevant attempt for linux to break into the mainstream desktop market. According to the article IIRC, they are planning on up'ing the price to $130 per year, albeit for seemingly unlimited use. This is going to be a turn off to the Linux/Lindows newbie (and Microsoft convert), who is going to essentially say "i have to pay $130 for just being able to install software easily?!?"

sudo

[gimpboy]

alot of these issues could be taken care of with sudo. the folks at lindows would have to create a pretty pimped out /etc/sudoers file and specify what commands the user can run as root (apt-get, mount, etc). then the user would never have to enter a root password.

GPL and access to source (Re:Lindows Bashing)

[Hanno]

To clear up a common misunderstanding of the GPL. In brief, the GPL states that...

• if you use GPL'd source code as the code base of your product, you can still sell your product for any price you want and you are allowed to ship your product without source code

• you must, however, make the full source code available upon request to those who bought your product, and you are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for this service (which means, afaik, the copying and media cost, but not an added sales price)

• and - now HERE'S THE CATCH - you can't dictate those who have access to your source code (i.e. the buyers of your product) what they do with it.

  You can't stop your client from developing (and selling!) his own version of your original product, you can't stop your client from giving away the source for free, you can't stop your client from posting the source on a public internet server etc.

The philosophy of the GPL is NOT you must give out full free source code but you must allow access the full source code to your client AND you can't tell him what to do with it. This last part is the "free" in "free software".

Of course, as a result most GPL'd software isn't "sold" as a product, but as a service. I don't sell Apache to my clients, but they pay me for installing and maintaining their web servers, which is a service for them, not a software they buy.

E.g., when I modify a GPL'd software for a client (which I have done in the past), I charge my client by the hour for the service of modifying it, but I don't charge the client for, say, a license of "Hanno Mueller's version of XYZ version 0.1".

And since I have already been paid for the modification, I return the patch to the maintainers of the software, who may or may not use it.