Ignalum Linux - A Bridge to Windows?

linux slacker writes "Ignalum Linux 'is an intuitive graphical environment that works right out of the box and offers unrivaled compatibility with Microsoft Windows' or so says their website. The company is owned by four university students in Ontario, and one of their goals is to allow companies to incorporate Linux into their Windows environment, so users could still run Word, Excel and other popular Microsoft fare."

Comments

Another one

[jimicus]

Does the world really need another Linux distribution? I know I'll be modded to hell for this, but why?

"Better" windows compatability still isn't 100%. And J. R. Sixpack is gonna be as confused as hell when his system which he bought which is "compatible with Windows" won't run some random program he found on a shovelware CD.

Re:Another one

[tehcyder]

If you look at their website, they claim to be able to run Direct X apps without modifying a single line of code. If this was true and more or less all Windows Direct X games could be run under Linux, this would be a radical breakthrough in terms of Linux for the Desktop/Average User.

Re:Another one

[FooBarWidget]

Because not everybody has the same needs. Isn't that obvious? What if none of the I-don't-know-how-many distros fits your needs, and then one day, someone comes up with a distro that does *exactly* what you want (not not what other people want)? How would you feel if Slashdotters massively scream "OMG WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER DISTRO?!", mentally destroy the developers who made that distro, and thus destroying the one distro that exactly fits your needs?

Denying people to make their own distro is denying them essential human rights!

Re:Another one

[NodeZero]

I agree. Not everyone has the same needs in a computing environment. I don't see why people are like "OMG another linux distro.. jeez", that's like saying.. "OMG another SUV" or "OMG another car" People love having choices. So cars are a lot like linux distros in a way, lots of different models/makes and have a lot of the same "packages". Would you like a cd player? 6 speakers? sunroof? moonroof?

Why get crazy when someone introduces more choice? I think this world would be pretty dull with only one fast food chain and only one type of car available. I would rather have 300 OS choices, instead of conforming to only one choice.

uhm

[Quai]

If I wanted windows, i would be running windows.

Slackware is more my thingy :)

Well, I guess this will provide them with more stable computers atleast.

Ps, stop making Linux-Windows dists. and start making apps that they could use insted of windows-apps.

And btw, my english sucks.

good, but....

[KrisCowboy]

Well, being able to run word and powerpoint sounds great..but 2.4.20 and KDE 3.1 with an old mozilla doesn't sound quite great. Looks like this distro's gonna need lot of upgrade

I have this terrible feeling of Deja Vu...

[bcmm]

Wasn't Lindows going to provide near 100% compatiblity with windows?

Haven't there been endless attempts at windows-compatible linux distros?

Agreed, this is crazy.

[RealityThreek]

... not that there's another Linux distribution, but there's yet another that tries to be Windows. Every day, I care less and less if Linux becomes a mainstream OS.

You want 100% Windows compatability? Run Windows. :)

Re:Or...

[WIAKywbfatw]

The day that companies start worrying about needing a stepping stone to help migrate users from Unix/Linux to Windows is a day most people here will look forward to. For one thing, it will mean that the usability and ease-of-use of Unix/Linux will have surpased that of Windows.

Winning the battle

[pubjames]

In many companies, a much easier battle is to get the company to move, say, for Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird, or IE to Mozilla. Also of course MS Office to OpenOffice. I think this is a much better battle to try to fight than trying to get the whole desktop moved to Linux. Once the company has moved the desktop applications over to open source ones, then it is time to move to Linux.

Trying to get companies to move to Linux by moving MS Office to Linux is nuts.

Re:Winning the battle

[Albanach]

In many companies, a much easier battle is to get the company to move, say, for Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird

FOr small companies that use Outlook only as an email client perhaps. Thunderbird is no substitute for Outlook when you start talking about company wide contacts sharing, resource scheduling, shared calendars, meeting invites, voting buttons and all the other things organisations are used to using on a day to day basis.

You might argue that an email client isn't the place for such features but no-one's going to drop their client that offers them in favour of Thunderbird when no other app is available to offer the missing feature set.

Like it or loath it, until there's a real Outlook replacement linux lacks the groupware companies are used to and desktop adoption will be restricted.

Re:Questions to pose:

[CdBee]

I've been a prat.. that isn't KDE. I'm going outside to shoot myself now.

grr.

[SinaSa]

It's projects like this that really piss me off.

Sure, the goal of the project is very admirable. More compatibility, no matter where (as long as it isn't breaking things) is a good thing.

But why didn't these uni students spend their time helping the projects that are already there. Now, we have an extra project, using existing tools (presumably hacked to be better), and now the existing tools have to find out what hacks were used to make their improvement.

These guys have put themselves an unwanted middleman in the compatibility/innovation process, and it annoys the hell out of me.

Re:grr.

[TheClarkey]

If you'd read the website you would have seen that the goal of the project is to allow the University to showcase the talents of its students and staff.

What many people forget is that there are a whole lot of people coming out with degrees in comp sci and se, you have to make yourself stand out from the pack. This is a great way for them to do it.

I doubt this initiative is about trying to make any money from linux, its about making students more employable after they graduate.

Support?

[ObviousGuy]

The company is 4 guys who cobbled together a distro out of existing parts.

They can't even keep their webserver up. What would make anyone think that this support for this new splinter distro will be sustained for any period of time?

http 404/403 error

[themusicgod1]

In the meanwhile, I wonder how "Free" this distro is. Is it merely a hack-together-proof-of-concept or hack-together-lets-do-some-cool-stuff or is it more of a serious-linux-distro-that-we-can-distribute-under- the-terms-of-the-GPL-or-LGPL?

I've been wanting to use windows for awhile, but despite shitty software the main reasons are all legal -- I don't want to give microsoft any money, or agree to anything that I havn't read and agree with(namelessly any shrinkwrap EULA). the GPL I have read many times and agree not only with it as a 'oh...kay...fine whatever.' but as honestly agreeing with it in spirit.
If it's not Free that's fine with me, I still like to see progress in the direction of windows...but...I'll be particularily interested if it is, in fact I'll likely devote a computer or two to it in the future ;)

Compatible with windows?

[ciupman]

Why not make it compatible with all the linux distros around? Like same /etc structure (conf files and init), package compatibility (rpm, apt, tgz, deb, etc), etc, etc. Linux doesn't need windows compatibility, linux needs uniformization, stable libraries, stable and well documented API, a good programming IDE, and less application bloat. Linux needs to draw the attencion of the windows developers, for them to start developing good NATIVE apps for it. Please stop throwing at them the EMACS editor, i might like it .. but a MS Visual Studio user will just laugh at it.

And to be on topic again, the minute i saw "fedora based" i though to myself ... naaa! If you guys had based your distro in LFS i would be more sympathetic with your "noble" cause!

Re:OS/2

[Daneurysm]

I recall all of my Windows apps running perfectly, if not better...though I had no dedicated DOS/Win install to directly compare it to.

What I believe did Os/2 in (aside from IBM's hamfisted marketing department)--and this is the same scenario--is that if it runs Windows apps too there is no incentive to develope native apps, 'cuz developing Windows apps means developing for Linux (then Os/2) and Windows at the same time with no added overhead to the development cycle, save for perhaps bug testing.

Though, I think Linux is in a vastly different circumstance here. I do actually think it will encourage migration--though slight. This will (very slowly) attract developers.

Remember, Linux has no bottem line to answer to. Though, perhaps the Linux community could learn a couple tips from IBM's marketing department.

Wheres the OpenMarketing initiative?

They need that...that and a OpenInterface consortium. Get the coders away from the interface.

Re: Unrivaled compatability with worms & troja

[elwinc]

You get your choice on that. There are 2 win4lin choices that affect worm & trojan compatability. One is the choice to have it use its own IP address rather than sharing address and borrowing some ports from the host Linux environment. If you select sharing the Linux address, you lose a few features, but you are less vulnerable. Choice two is where you read your mail. If you choose to read mail with Windows/Outlook, heaven help you! On the other hand, if you read mail in Unix, and never configure any Windows mail client, the email vulnerability is gone. Which ever choice you make, you'll still have to worry about Excel and Word macro viruses. There is still no excuse for not running windows update regularly.

Another interesting point about win4lin: it uses the underlying linux filesystem. In linux, you can copy a file into or out of the windows directory. This means you can simply tar gzip up your whole windows installation and save different versions of it. I have a basic installation saved on a CD rom, and a few more versions on the hard drive in .tgz files. If I get a virus in Windows, I can go to linux, copy out my documents and spreadsheets, rm -fR the whole infected windows file tree, and untar a clean version. Elapsed time: 5-10 minutes. Then I'd better get the clean version patched before I get re-infected, and save it as my new checkpointed version.