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Lycoris Build 71 Beckons For Your Desktop
PenguinRenegade writes "Lycoris has released a new Beta, Build 71. Lycoris is not a Linux distro for those who already know Linux, but more for the masses, for those who want to migrate from Windows, and don't really want anything to do with the command line. Lycoris Desktop/LX equipped computers are available from Wal-Mart starting at $268.00 (build 46). It's a great OS for the masses, $30 or less, $19.99 from the company if you download your own and just want the Product ID. Registered users get REAL e-mail support and full access to IRIS, an RPM-based click-to-install program base." (There's no cost to download the beta.)
Unfortunately, the only way that Linux will have a chance to take greater market share in the desktop or server arenas is through consolidation.
/. said recently, too much free software (whether different distros of Linux or office suites or whatever) can be a bad thing for quality. Paraphrasing, you can probably download 10 different programs that do A-B-C functionality. But none of them do it 100%.
There are simply too many different flavours out there and this causes the problem of limited takeup beyond die-hard Linux users and the wider problem of quality.
As someone else on
In any other movement/"industry", there are periods of rapid growth followed by consolidation. Some might say this is when monopolies form - look at the motor industry or telecoms or computing. There used to be dozens of players in each field but this has shrunk down to a handful.
So - what's more important, diversity or quality? Only one of these will lead to greater adoption in the mainstream...
G4 Hackintosh
Honestly, I haven't been looking at Lycoris earlier, but judging from the screenshots, I'd not say that they are making a migration easier. They're just cloning Microsoft Windows XP, right down to the default (I suppose) desktop picture. Luna is really one of the ugliest interface designs ever, but I guess that if this helps spread an IMHO superior desktop operating system to the unwashed masses who are still caught in Microsoft's web of darkness, the cloning is somewhat excusable. They could have made it a _little_ bit different, though. I wonder if a lawsuit's coming up...
I think it's great that people and companies supporting Linux are finally starting to reach the masses with their message. It seems the only things that are really missing from Linux (and other *ixes, for the most part) are games and a few key apps like Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver etc etc. Since I'm not a graphics guy and I don't play games, the switch was pretty easy for me to make on the majority of my PCs.
Personally I prefer FreeBSD + KDE, but I think any market share taken away from Microsoft on the desktop will be good for diversity. Of course, for gamers and graphics nuts, switching over will be more troublesome. Hopefully even that will change as Linux gains more market share and companies start realizing it and diverting more development efforts towards non-MS platforms (ideally cross-platform, although I'd imagine the prospect of supporting too many platforms would be prohibitive for some companies).
We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop
For those of you saying that "Linux won't work for the desktop until my grandma can install it.", please remember your grandma can't install Windows either. Being mainstream is not about how easy it is to install. It's about being OEM installed by major retailers. Most people never install a version of Windows from scratch. The upgrade releases are usually easy, but you get driver and dependancy problems sometimes. This is especially true of the NT/2000/XP line. I find that anyone who can run Windows preinstalled can run Linux preinstalled.
Instead of ruling out options due to your own ignorance, hire a consultant/contractor who has extensive experience with Linux and have him select the distribution and develop a written routine for installation (since he will likely not install more than a couple machines himself).
If you stick with Lindows or Lycoris, sure you won't be able to copy it due to the license of software bundled with Linux; however, Redhat does not require a license, although Redhat does sell support contracts.
In regards to hardware 'not working', there is a lot of hardware that works in Linux. You should not simply skip a distribution because IT didn't setup the Cd burner, setup the CD burner yourself.
You could use completely for free: Debian, Gentoo, Mandrake, Slackware, and a horde of others.
I personally recommend Debian because it has APT which allows you to download and install programs via 3 simple words ('apt-get install name-of-program). Gentoo is a great distribution; however, it requires more effort to install and will require you to compile all software from portage (like APT) which you wish to use. You may like Mandrake 9, it sets up a lot of hardware for you (more than any other distribution); however, it uses RPMs like Redhat so it is not as easy to maintain as Debian and Gentoo.