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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.)
wal-mart is excellent for making a stand on something like this; I hope they continue to make offers like this. It would be interesting to see how many of these boxes are selling.
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
Stop whineing and start WINEing
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
It seems like their target audience is the kind of audience who is wooed by flashy 1.0's and doesn't want to have anything to do with the word build. So why don't they leverage that to their advantage? Is Lycoris still so unfinished that they can't slap a 1.0 on it?
Like Windows for the enterprise.
Its just plain Howard Stern style wrong.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The thing about Linux is that it has always been designed by geeks for geeks, this is its biggest strength but also its biggest weakness.
Now Linux is very stable (although not with Gnome, if there are any Gnome developers reading this please make it more stable as the user interface is far better than KDE IMO), it supports OGG, it is incredibly secure and it is lightning fast when compared to the bloat that is windows.
Unfortunately most usrs can't get along with it. The command line is a clunky way of doing things compared to an intuitive GUI and simply a throwback to when computers didn't do graphics. Tweaking things is difficult, sure there are lots of options but I still couldn't figure out an easy way of chjanging the screen resolution.
It lacks style. This isn't such a problem for us geeks as we want something that is clean and functional but mr windows user wants anti aliased fonts and fading effects on the menubar.
The good thing is that the Lycoris guys look they are sloving some of these problems with their no nonsence distribution. If we can give people something that looks like windows but has the stability and speed of Linux we can go a long way to establishing linux as a major player in the OS arena.
No, I disagree.
The fact that Linux can be forked off into a gazillion distro's, freely and willingly, is a *GOOD THING*.
Okay, so the old market forces may not agree with this.
But OS's are fast becoming irrelevant. Linux' dominance in the 'adapt to all environments' arena cannot be stopped: it runs on *EVERYTHING*, practically, whereas Windows only runs on PC's.
("PC's are not the most predominant computer platform. Cell phones are.")
What matters is the document formats.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I thought it read "IRIX" and the train of thought went something alone the lines of
euphoria: IRIX boxens for $289 from Wal-mart!
dawn of disillusionment: Why would I use a hacked up linux distro if IRIX came with it for free?
total disallusionment: Awww crap it's IRIS, not IRIX.
bitterness and depression: Awww crap it's IRIS based on PRMs.
[goes back to Gentoo, sighing]
My life in the land of the rising sun.
But which end distribution do you expect ISV's like Oracle to support? Debian which is the "official" GNU version? Red Hat because of its popularity? Slackware because of its stability? SuSe because of...well, I can't think of a single good damn reason to support Suse, but I digress.
Ideally, we'd have an LSB standard to follow and these wouldn't be issues, but unfortunately, there are enough differences between distributions that a software vendor _has_ to make these kinds of decisions. Consolidation, or at the very least strictly following established standards would go a long way towards bringing Linux to the masses.
I track known Slashdot scumbags on my foes list!
The 'original'? Was MS actually the first company to release a Minesweeper-esque game, or did they embrace and extend it from somewhere else?
I certainly remember playing the vastly superior variant 'Mined Out' or 'Rescue Bill The Worm From Certain Old Age' back in 1984 or so...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
...hardware compatibility list. You've got to appreciate a 404 for that!
Among the newbie friendly distros I'd pick this one because it defaults (IIRC) to a non-root account. If distros like Lindows that set you up as root become popular, it would kill off the perception of Linux as a secure OS. People don't care/understand how secure the kernel/servers are etc; if you have a bunch of newbies clicking on executable attachments then the public is going to perceive it as virus prone. Therefore if you are going to encourage your granny to try linux pick a distro that doesn't follow Bad Computing Practices(TM).
This is a beta release, not a final product.
Now that brings back some memories. It was the only spectrum game my parents played. They'd stay up late muttering darkly about it while I lurked in the background suggesting Knightlore was infinitely superior, 3d and all.
Were there any earlier variants?
Mined Out (link for my parents :-)
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
From Lycoris's Website (http://lycoris.com/products/desktoplx/)
"Power Flower", it says.
Their XMMS skin looks like iTunes, too...
These guys will face lawsuits both by Microsoft AND Apple... Yay! That's what I call platform oecumenism!
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Linux will not be a home entertainment OS until it becomes used more at work. The way I see it working is like this:
By the time we get to the last step, all the frustrating things for n00bs should be pretty much worked out. I don't think that Linux needs to start by being a home user OS. It will end up that way, if all goes well.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
If you set mandrake to boot the gui interface by default after startup, it automatically logs in to the non root account.
What's under yellowstone?
The frequent usage of the word "familiar" hints very much at what lycoris became: A cheap Windows XP clone. All the description and advertising is trying to explain that I almost get the functionality of Windows XP. However why dont buy the real thing then ? I want extended functionality and improvements.
Yeah, but I guess it will just end like: "Oh, you are using lycoris/linux. Can't you afford Windows?"
This announcement was sent out 5 days ago via email and is announcing the new release of a **beta** with their new daily build system. It was even posted to distrowatch two days ago.
/. to brush of the duplicate posting of this story in future as they can claim it is a new daily build ;-)
This is not "News for Nerds", this is old info which for those people who are interested will ahve already received via email or on other websites.
On the plus side surely it makes it easier for
Mr. Smoove
I don't use linux. The closest I've come is one failed attempt to make redhat work. It didn't. It just pissed me off. I'd like to run linux. But I'm not sure what the point would be. Once you took away all of my Adobe/Macromedia programs and my Win32 Quake 3, there isn't a whole lot appealing about running a *nix. I think that the only other thing I really use my computer for would be roaming around the internet. And yes, WIN2k sucks a bit for doing anything, but its not bad enough that I'd want to install a completely unfamiliar OS, learn how to use it and boot into, just so I can sit on IRC and look at webpages. Things like Lycoris are more appealing because I don't think I would end up as confuzed and annoyed. But I put it out to all you linux lovers - Why would I actually want to install linux? Security? Dont care. Speed? Mirc opens up fast enough thank you. L33Tness? I might be able to make linux boot, but I still wont understand half the crap you people go on about. Please - convert me.
My father runs Linux at home and is as happy as can be. The only reason this situation exists is that I SSH into his machine every week and build/fix/configure/backup whatever is wrong or out of date.
I'm happy he runs Linux. He's happy that his box magically updates without him every seeing or doing anything. This is the kind of hands off tech support I like to get from my plumber, mechanic and company IT department. Why shouldn't the end user enjoy this model as well? I could theoretically fix and update a dozen Linux boxes per day through SSH. A room full of geeks could take care of hundreds a day.
Anyone can run Linux if they have a dedicated geek or live support contract. Currently the clueless have only geeks to turn to. With a company that does everything (I repeat: everything) through live support there can be a Linux box anywhere anytime.
Companies are not leveraging Linux's remote access abilities for the end users. This gives the user a perfect box an a constant stream of cash for the support company. Most will not care if you log into a part of their system and do a weekly fix/backup/upgrade as long as you present it in the right way. The privacy concern is no greater than giving your box to a computer shop for a couple of day.
I doubt that any given mob of customers can be more difficult and demanding than my dad, but I guess we all feel like that sometimes.
The above model is actually taking place right now. How many of you log into another Linux box and fix it every week? All I'm suggesting is to put a bunch of us in the same room while we do it and place a company logo outside the door.
The above idea has some obvious problems with it but I'd like to think that what we all do for our families family could possibly scale.
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
... is the attitude of Linux purists whenever a company releases something designed for the masses. Face it: any product that will be acceptable to the hundreds of millions of desktop Windows users is going to *have* to be dumbed down, commercial, and over-prettified. Something like Lindows.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Yet Winodws has taken the greater market share on the desktop and continued to do so (up until now it seems :).
There aren't too many flavors of Windows that cause major problems for business' and home users alike?
Let's -- forgetting Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 we now have in the wilds and widely used: Windows 95, Windows 95B, Windows 95C, Windows 98, Windows 98se, Windows 98Bse, Windows NT 4.5x, Windows NT 5.x, Windows Me (how many builds?), Windows 2000 Home Edition, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional. The sad thing is that I know I missed many releases.
And yes, even for Windows I too can get 10 different programs (free) that do A-B-C in functionality -- but none of them do it 100%. Heck, this is true for very expensive programs like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Project, etc...
"What's more important, diversity or quality?" you asked. Obviously diversity will lead to qualityy as we've tried it the other way for the last decade+ and where IS the quality with Windows so far???
Not trolling but what I think people would expect:
I like to see thing that will help Linux be accept by the masses but what I would want to make sure that any Linux distro should be able to do the following without me having to open a command window
Open MS Office files
Play games
Surf the net
As much a M$ might be a monopoly they have spent millions on the UI which works for 95% of the people 95% of the time. Why would someone accept anything less even if it a 1/3 or the price? I use Linux all the time and its great, but would my dad? Don't think so
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
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.
Why don't they have Linux on their desktops? When we looked at moving folks over, we ran into the following:
Testing the Red Hat, Lycoris, and Lindows desktop offerings we would have to buy a number of additional licenses - while we already have a campus license for MS Windows and Office.
Both Lycoris and Lindows seemed to have trouble recognizing some of our hardware - particularly Firewire and Wireless Networking.
In all three cases trying to use the available options for working with MS Word documents (used by virtually all our clients) showed compatibility problems with any of them that had a large number of tables or that used automatic labelling of Figures.
As a final straw, there is currently no way to sync a PocketPC with appointment and contact data on any of the Linux offerings. .02 worth...
:-)
My point is that no one is going to switch to Linux just to be running Linux to do the same things they do on Windows. The ONLY way that folks are going to be convinced to make the switch is to have a Linux that does something folks can't do easily or cheaply in Windows, and then promote the heck out of that.
Personally, I think that the Gimp is a start in the right direction - and that Lycoris and Lindows isn't.
Just my
Please take a moment and check out some soothing images if my commentary has stressed you
You can choose from these mirrors. This is the full version, but with no tech support.
I am not a coder or sysadmin but I do love technology, especially Linux. I have gone through a number of distros since 1999 and I think the move toward more user-friendly desktop Linux distros is great. Those that can and enjoy getting into the guts of an OS should do it no matter what distro they choose. The rest of us just want something that works and isn't owned by a monopoly. I've been using Xandros 1.0 for the past month and I must say this: it just works! Sure, I have some print over the network issues which will get ironed out in time. But, really, it's the first distro that has allowed me to turn off my Windoze box for a week. I woke it up to get some files I need and also to use Quark Xpress. Just my two bits; I could be wrong.
"We are accountable for not only what we do, but also that which we don't do." -- Moliere
Scenario: newbie installs "finished" winMe. Newbie gets frustrated by blue screens of death. Newbie thinks this is normal, and reboots.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
After looking through their web site and reading what is actually contained inside of this OS, I am actually curious enough to download it and give it a look-see.
It has everything that everyone would need in an OS, plus a lot more. That's one thing that I love about Linux. It comes of literally hundreds of applications to get your jobs done quickly and easily.
Now one of the best attributes of this distribution was mentioned in the description of the story; a free online-rpm based installer. Lindows wants you to pay money for access to their dump of RPMs, but not Lycoris. Also included are media players for almost every type of media (including TV tuner cards), the ability to burn CDs, a full office suite, nice "control panel", an update-wizard, built in firewall, and a recovery mode. What more could you ask for in a "general" Linux distro!? Plus it looks nice!
--If only there was a license required to use a computer.
"Now Linux is very stable (although not with Gnome, if there are any Gnome developers reading this please make it more stable"
GNOME is very stable for me. It (the core components like panel and Nautilus) almost never crash, and if one core component crashes it will just restart and everything else will continue like nothing happened.
If GNOME crashes very often then you should fill a bug report and telling the developers exactly what crashes, when, and how to reproduce it. Just saying "it's unstable" doesn't really help since we can't read your mind, and we can only fix a problem if we are able to reproduce it.
This page from my website shows some interesting thing. How often are pictures recycled?
Windows is the dominant operating system, so there is a double-standard that applies. What is acceptable for Windows is not acceptable for Linux in the eyes of a newbie. Especially if they only installed Linux because they heard how stable it was compared to Windows.
Empathy808 - e-mail me at dot.slash.penguinrenegade@spamgourmet.com and I'll help you convert to Lycoris. That goes for anyone who wants to check out Lycoris. PLENTY of volunteers to help answer questions in the forums, too!
I'll answer any questions you might have, too, PERSONALLY.