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Review of Consumer-Friendly Linux Distro
miketronics writes "Linspire Five-O is a full-featured Linux operating system which is intended for desktop use, mainly as an alternative to Windows XP. XYZComputing has a review of the latest version. The company, which was formerly known as Lindows, has gotten a lot of press for including their OS with pre-bundled computers." From the article: "Once the installation is over with Five-O is ready to go. The first time the OS is used Linspire's tutorial program will activate. This is one of most accessible tutorials on any Linux distro and it should be a great help to new users. Though it does not go into extreme depth, it does give the user enough understanding of the OS to get started. Even if you are a Linux pro it will probably be helpful to check out the CNR section, as this system is unique to Linspire. The fact that the developers have the tutorial voice-narrated shows Linspire's commitment to user support -- this feature makes the otherwise boring tutorial watchable."
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Come on... taking screenshot images of the OS through a Digital Camera?? How about VMWARE? or Video Output? Anything is better than a monitor picture. Jeeesh...
...because you know to install everything on your own without the handholding.
This product is for people who do not have your knowledge, and would gladly pay for the software to install on its own.
That is in the GPL you know.
I am very experienced with Linux and computers in general and I still can't get Windows Media video to work properly on this, and the only DVD playback I have is through MPlayer and I still can't get a GUI working on MPlayer.
What I had to go through to get this far: Download and compile MPlayer. Ok, that's no problem and it plays DVDs. Download and install the Windows codecs pack. Now MPlayer (still with no GUI) can play WMV. That's great. Xine (KDE's preferred video player) can't detect these Windows codecs, even though I put them in /usr/lib/win32, which is where they're supposed to be. So no integrated desktop playback; if I want to play a clip, I download it, save it, open up a console window, and point MPlayer at it. I tried to get MPlayer to compile with --gui-enabled so at least I could have a front-end for it. No luck; it can't find gtk2+ development libraries. I tried to install them and couldn't find them anywhere that MPlayer could find them. I also tried to install a dvddecss lib where Xine could find it so Xine could play encrypted (standard) movie DVDs. Again, nothing I could do worked.
Mind you, this is all with Suse 9.3, the latest and greatest. All of this stuff is supposed to be worked out by now. I can get it to just barely work, with no desktop integration and no GUI, and I'm an experienced and knowledgable user. What are other people supposed to do, just use their imagination?
Oh and the situation is even worse with Flash. In my previous Suse installations, Flash worked fine in Konqueror. Now with Suse 9.3, I get a crash when Konqueror tries to render a page with Flash, so I have to use Moz or Firefox to view it, and guess what, those have problems working with KDE's sound system so I might not get sound with my Flash.
I realize that there are legal problems with codecs and DVDs and whatever. Before Linux is ever going to get consumer-level acceptance, these problems need to be solved, or worked around. A solution would be to get a commercially-developed Linux media player that a) integrates with the desktop and b) works and c) package that with the distro. A work-around would be to make up a media player installer that you just click on, it downloads whatever it needs from non-US sites, and it does all the stuff, and it WORKS.
I'm happy to pay for Linux distros (I think I paid almost $100 for Suse 9.3 pro). If they have to tack on another $10 or $20 to include a solid, well-integrated working media player, they need to do it.
All the other apps are more than good enough right now. OOo is a good consumer-level (and biz level) replacement for MS Office. Firefox is better than IE. All that is lacking is multimedia playback.
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Linux is an amazing kernel regardless of how it's been developed, which actually makes it all the more impressive. The thing is right now there simply are not the resources to develop a competitive desktop operating system based on Linux. Every year Linux gets further behind Mac OS X and soon Microsoft's Vista for typical desktop use in business and homes.
Linux is however superior for servers I think. Everything makes sense. Security, configuration and the many options are at least equal to what is shipped by others and the development tools are fantastic. Nothing as pretty as MS's Visual Studio but functionally Linux can offer anything that MS can. On the desktop, there is no Linux solution that offers the functionality that Windows or OS X have.
I guess I stopped caring about Linux on the desktop a year ago or so. I gladly use it at home to run my various servers but use Win 2000 and OS X based systems for general tasks.
Don't get me wrong, I used Linux as a desktop for s few years and thought it was decent. But after using OS X enough and even Windows 2K I just cannot bring myself to use Linux on a desktop all the time.
Like I said, I enjoy using it for my servers, routing and some programming but it has a ways to go (and a fleeting ways at that) to catch up to commercial offerings. It doesn't take anything away from Linux and you don't have to tell me that Linux can be used as a desktop. I just think Apple and Microsoft provide better systems for day-to-day desktop use. Linux provides equal and better services for networks/servers.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Tell that to my computer-challenged mother, who uses Linux. A friend at work who uses Linux and has no idea how to admin it. My best freind's 68-year-old father, who uses Linux.
Linux doesn't *HAVE* to be any harder to install or use than any other OS.
But the hacked drivers never use the hardware to its full potential. They don't have the specs so how could they? The linux drivers are enough to get by and make it work but you never get what you paid for.
What? just because you are using a GUI, you automatically don't have total control over the install? And just because you don't have a GUI you automatically have complete control? That makes no sense. Here's a mock up of a non-GUI installation that gives you no control.
Would you like to install Linux? (Y/N)
It does everything for you, as soon as you say yes. Does that give you complete control? I'm tired of people who think GUI = No Control. You can have plenty of control with a GUI. It's just that usually you don't.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
About drivers..
Many people are already familiar with Windows. Not that is any easier then Linux but being familiar makes it easy. Keep in mind, there are people familiar with Linux as well.
An example from today.
New XP machine and a new HP9050 printer on the network with an IP of 192.168.0.100.
Start --> Printers and Faxes. Select add new printer. I select next at the Add printer wizard box. I am given the option of "Local printer attached to this computer" or Network Printer. I select Netowrk Printer.
"What printer do you want to connect to?" I try all three options with the printer ip address. None of them work. I go back and select "Local printer attached to this computer". Odd, it's not attached to my computer, it's on the network but I'll try it anyway. I select next and a box pops up and says No PNP printer found, press next to continue. I guess the box "Automatically detect and install my PNP printer" was checked by default. I browse through the list of available ports and do not see my network printer. I choose the other option called "Create a new Port". Standard TCP/IP Printer port is my best guess. When trying to create the port I recieve an error saying the port could not be created and i needed administrative rights to do that. I log off and log in as local administrator. I get back to that point and create the port with the printers IP address. I immediately get a prompt telling me to indentify what type of device I am trying to connect to and given a list of devices. I had the printer turned off so i turned it on and tried again. Ah, it determined it is a HP Jetdirect card now and Windows is asking me what type of printer am I trying to install. I am presented with a list of drivers I'd like to use. I browse through the HP printers and do not see the LJ 9050 listed. I cancel the process and hit HP's web site. After some searching around I see 2 drivers that look good for XP, a PCL5e and PCL6, I assume I do not need the 9050 printer system which is over 50MB in size. I browse the readme files and I have no idea which one I need or which is better. I decide to get the PCL5e because it only 5.8MB. I download and run the install. I am presented with two options. Automatically install the drivers and delete the temp files on completion or if I'd just like to expand the files into a specific directory. I take the default to perform the install automatically. That process completed. Well, what was that? I see no printers installed and now I have no idea what just happened or what was supposed to happen.
For a forth time, I go back into "Add Printer". I selected Local Printer and add port again, type my ip address in and this time recieve an error that the port is already installed on my system. Oh, I canceled out of the add printer wizard earlier when I realized I need drivers but the wizard did at least create my port. I am now presented with a same dialog box asking to pick my printer model. I still see no HP 9050 printer listed under the HP printers list. I tried to browse the HD for the driver but not only do I not know what I am looking for, I do not know where to look. I will run the HP9050 PCL5E driver file again. This time I select to just expand the file into the c:\hplj9050 directory. For about the fifth time. I go back to "add printer", select my previosuly configured port, and this time select have disk and point to that directory on c:\. Finally, it shows my printer and installs the driver. I can now print to my 9050!!!
Okay, in all honesty, I do this all day every day and it would really only take me about 3 minutes to get this installed but did you see those steps? Those are real steps and a realistic process of what a non computer geek would have to go through to get this printer installed. For someone NOT already familiar with Windows XP, this is by no means easy. It seems easy to you and others because you take it for granted because you have been using and messing with the OS for years. For someone who has not been, the process would be no easier then installing the same printer on a Linux system.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on all my systems and don't have any devices which don't work out of the box. I dislike microsoft as much as the next Linux using slashdotter, but I don't think its fair to compare a modern Linux to a 4 year old Windows...now it is their own fault for not releasing a "better" version of windows in those 4 years...just my 2 cents