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

Gamer's answer?

[Raztus]

Could this possibly be the answer to gaming on Linux? As an avid gamer, the main thing that has kept me from using Linux as my primary OS is the fact that its support for the games I grew up loving is very limited. While I love the newer open source games, I'm just too attached to my old games to fully migrate to Linux...

screenshots

[fewnorms]

I am a bit wary of a Linux company that posts screenshots of their 'product' while being root every time. What kind of message does this send out ... "Yeah, it's ok to log in as root all the time" ?

OS/2

[Ent]

So wasn't this same thing tried with OS/2? Better multitasking and the ability to run Win32 apps just as if you were on Windows? Only the apps never worked as well as they did on Windows and while some things were better - it was basically just a waste of time. I think there are enough Office Like apps that copy Office enough for usability, the focus should be on interop with file formats - I see that as what is really holding adoption back.

Bottom line.

[Willeh]

Will these guys be able to offer a valid alternative to the Linspire/ Lindows trainwreck? And will they not get crushed by the 800 pound gorilla that is the MS legal department? (I'm sure they're going after these guys, and 4 college students don't exactly sound like they have a lot of assets). Let's hope they survive, choice is good for us all.

Wine/Codeweavers Crossover?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything they claim is perfectly able to be done with existing sudo-emulators.

For instance with Suse when you buy a retail version you get a liscence for Codeweaver's crossover stuff.

You can then run Office 2000, IE 6.0, Quicktime, Quicken and other applications.

So if you do want to run Linux but will not because it doesn't have support from your favorite windows apps, then there are options.

Almost any distro can be made to work. But I suppose it would be convenient to have one that was designed specificly to work with Windows apps right out of the box.

Questions to pose:

[CdBee]

1) Is Ignalum a source distribution, built from LFs, or an enhanced version of an existing distribution?

2)Are exe files associated with WINE so Windows installers just work

3)Kernel version?

4)Obviously KDE 3.x from the s/shot linked above, but is it a full or stripped-down version?

5)Are they using a Windows driver wrapper to allow win32 device drivers to function as well?