Slashdot Mirror
LinuxOne Releases a Product
Andrew G. Feinberg noted that Linux Today has a bit about LinuxOne releasing something. They are no longer vaporware: 'Linux Lite' is a distribution, and its selling point is that it coexists with windows and doesn't require any partitioning. Definitely nice for the novice, but there sure is a lot of hype in that press release for what seems to amount to using umsdos and a bootloader that loads the kernel from under windows?
One would have thought that the transmeta page announcing itself as Y2K complient would have made slashdot... Did I miss it?
Well, Slack has done this as far back as I can remember (I think) and that's 2.2 -- I dunno what all the Big Whoop (TM) is about. I loved Slackware and that's how I got used to it. Only problem I ever had was that it was too slow that way. A novice, I suppose, might have difficulties. I didn't realize there had been novice umsdos distros before, though.
Finally, this company plans on changing the source to Linux. I quote from their web page:
Taken from http://www.linuxone.net/companyinfo/ about.html
So what is LinuxOne out to do? Raise money and flee the country, would be my bet. Their CEO, Dr. Wun C. Chiou, Sr., has connections in China. Don't expect him to stay around in the states after he "goes public," because his "investors" are going to be fuming.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I thought it was mostly Red Hat, but that might have been another so-called product of theirs.
-Brent--
I know this is taboo, but how about running Linux under VMware for NT? I tried Linux for the first time this way a couple of weeks ago, and it works well, slowly but still entirely usable (my computer is a humble P200 though).
The virtual machine is completely isolated from the rest of the computer, so there's no fear of screwing up your computer as you learn to install and configure Linux. The fact that you can switch back to NT and scour the web for help as you grapple with the installation is a *very* big plus (setting up the network was the thing that took the most time to figure out).
I learned a lot from the experience -- if I do choose to install Linux for real, I'll be able to do so with much more confidence and experience than I did before.
Is it just me or does Linux Lite sound like salad dressing?
.{redmist}.
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And what is this system of theirs? It seems to be a Red Hat system that they installed on a hard disk using UMSDOS and LOADLIN, and then they copied the hard disk into a folder.
Folks, we need to get the message out that these are not responsible business people.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The guy is a spammer. You think he's gonna take up *honest* work?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Here (Southampton UK) they used to give people Slack, then later Red Hat, and now they don't include a Linux distro on the undegrad CD...
... because undergrads prefer to write the latest distros from FTP using the CDR machine.
There's even an icon "Write latest Red Hat CD" on the desktop of that machine
Unfortunately, the CDR machine still runs WinNT, but you can't have everything (yet)
I've run some checks on it - LinuxONE *is* Mandrake 6.0, with the 2.2.9 kernel updated to 2.2.10 and mandrake-release replaced with linuxone-release, mandrake-desk replaced with linuxone-desk.
The Windoze thing they're talking about has been in Mandrake for quite a while, as well.
And no, it's not UMSDOS, it's a loopback device-driven ext2 filesystem within a FAT file.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Going to the ftp site, it looks very similiar to the mandrake dist, having mdk in ALL the rpm files. Couldn't find the source files. Wouldn't that be a violation of the GPL?
Given the history of scams among the founders of this gem, you might just want to watch that credit card, see if any "unexpected expenses" start turning up on it...
HTH,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Yet, I think that LinuxOne may just very well prove that if you're aiming on making a quick buck (LinuxOne wants to file for an IPO based on this, with no underwriters according to sources) on an open source product without actually committing to the open source community, you'll fail. Well, I hope that happens. From what the posts on linuxtoday state as well as from the Register's article, LinuxOne has done little or nothing apart from scratch out Red Hat's name and put in their own.
I don't dig that. I don't think the open source community digs that either. I don't think anyone will invest, and I hope that LinuxOne realizes that and either does something to benefit the community, or back out. I feel they're trying to make a marketing move, not a move to benefit the community. I'll admit, I haven't really benefitted the open source community myself all that much, I'm no hacker. Sysadmin, yes, hacker, no. Open source OSes, all the way. But at least I promote open source solutions at work to no end. While Red Hat's stuff is all open source, I don't believe it benefits the community if some company just takes those apps and re-packages them without doing anything for the community.
So, all I can hope for is that LinuxOne sets a precedent here. I hope they fail in their endeavor to make a quick buck simply because they haven't done anything for the community. I'm all for these IPOs. I'd like to see Red Hat do well. Same with the other companies like Caldera. Unfortunately, we can't survive without money, and the more people who make money doing what they love to do, the better. It doesn't have to be millions or billions, I sure as hell don't make that kind of cash, but at least I get to work in an environment I enjoy. I don't see anyting on LinuxOne's site that directly benefits the community, and I hope Wall Street and those other financial bally-wigs notice it too. If LinuxOne doesn't do something for Linux, why should they benefit from it?
sorry for the rant... too much whisky this evening...
Most of the folks in this intro to programing are not in the least CS people... Most take it as a part of general education requirements.
If they were all CS people, of course they should have no excuse not to be able to partition their own junk.
Wow, I'm dumb. That link should be WinLinux
That should learn me to let someone else hit the submit button.
look, they also have something called "linuxmac"L inuxMac
http://www.linuxone.net/products/products.html#
it looks kinda, um, dodgy. apparently will let you transfer files off a mac hard drive from linux. Wow!! They call it the "original solution in file transfer between Macintosh and Linux", which is a truly amazing statement to make since linux has supported HFS (and for that matter appletalk) for a long time. although it seems that the "linuxmac" thing is an actual program that moves files between drives within the program, kinda like the already-existing "linuxdisks" tool for mac, or the ancient pc->mac file converter way back in system 6 for that matter.. On the other hand, there are the already-existing linux HFS drivers where you can simply mount the mac cd/floppies as normal drives.. And which linuxone doesn't go to the bother of mentioning, although i'll bet they raided code from them.
Of course, it's possible that this linuxmac also does HFS+ drives (which would be a complete Godsend) but i seriously doubt it.
Considering the extreme lies-through-omission on this one small product, i doubt anything else linuxone says can be taken seriously..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Ease of use doesn't make them crap. Putting out a distro without having done any work by themselves (it's an almost exact copy of Mandrake 6.0) does.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
UMSDOS is older then VFAT, it was designed when DOS5.0/Win3.1 were the standard config...
When I first started playing with Linux (6 or 7 years ago... I can't remember) This was the way I installed it. Slackware (at that time) had this as a way of installing.
.net extension... and why does the .com address indicate there is no web page here? And why are they claiming on their web page to have a Mac driver, as if it is the only way to read a Mac disk from linux, and Why are they claiming ADSL etc. as something that only their LinuxOne OS does?)
Why is it that this company feels the need to drudge up old technology and publish it as though it was new technology?
(and why does there web page have a
Buyer Beware.
Try this...
From the root console (Konsole?) type
netcfg &
FIll in all the appropriate info for your ISP.Then go and type
usernet &
and click on the [ppp0] button. You could also highlight ppp0 in the netcfg window and hit [activate], but I like usernet cause of the pretty traffic-light feel.
This is assuming you have the modem set up alright. If you haven't already then type
modemtool &
at the prompt and set your com port for it there. Mind you this is all from memory and originally set up on a RH6 system, later upgraded to mandrake packages from the same mag you got...your mileage may vary. If there's an easier/better/more correct way feel free and correct me.
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
this has done before, no? Although i guess i shouldn't say anything until i've actually heard anything about the quality of the distribution instead of a vague press release.
see also LinuxPPC Live, which does the same thing only for the mac (boots off same partition as mac OS). http://www.linuxppc.org/. Ha!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I think it's still mirrored at cdrom.com, does pretty much the same thing, fits on four floppies, IRRC. My first install for Linux, didn't know much at the time.
Still, I thought it was pretty cool.
I've checked out a few other Linux-without-killing-your-drive distros before, like the ones previously featured on Slashdot (the names excape me as current...no, wait, one of them was winlinux). They didn't work very well, cruddy vidio, non-functional networking, etc... As a sysadmin for a Linux lab here at Drake University, the folks in our intro to programming course would really like to have Linux on their Wintel boxes simply to be able to telnet and have X and have it actually work, yet seem reluctant to repartition their entire drive to achive this.
Mayhaps this one might actually be decent enough to recommend to people.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Sounds like Armed Linux to me!
Yet another Linux dist, has anybody been counting how many different types of Linux there are? I went to linux.org and it looked like they were missing a few. Is there a better site out there?
Its karma, Kramer.
although something deep inside me shudders at the thought of all these uber-newbie dists, it seems as though they are indeed helping people slowly along the road to linux.
:P
;)
i know a bunch of people who, after hearing me scream religiously about linux for months on end, want to try linux, but fear it a little and don't want to mess up their nice shiny windows machines. i can think of about a dozen people offhand that i know who are using the winlinux-ish thinghies as a "safe" method of testing the waters of linux without going through a full blown install/partition/mess-up/reinstall/etc.
i'm still not entirely sure if this is a Good Thing (tm) or not, but i don't think it'll be too harmful as long as we keep assuring those we know that it's not quite the real thing and not nearly as exciting as doing a "real" install
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
This may strike others as obvious, but why one earth would you want to run a fully functional OS under another OS?
This strikes me as.... overkill.
Partitioning isn't terrificly difficult, however, the process could be made easier... maybe that would be a better product focus.... decent, easy to use, no-fault safe cross-platform open source partioning/defragging software, and a nice x86 graphical replacement for LILO... or at least front end or patch for it. I remember partition-it w/boot-it...
I tried to use it again recently. Apparantly, it supports linux 3.0. (WHAT IS THAT?) and refused to boot the linux partitions that it did find. Oh well. LILO is amazing as is...
You'll eat it and you'll like it.
Have you ever wanted a linux distribution so simple you didn't even need to use a mouse? A linux distribution so simple even a lobotomized flatworm could understand it's installation instructions? Presenting.... LinuxNULL(tm)(r)(c)!
Package includes a CD packed using our patented ReMark technology. Now you can have 100% file compression /without/ the wait! Also includes 1 year of free support courtesy of the Benevolent Operators For Helplines. If you act now we'll also include a special-edition doll of Richard Stallman, creator of "that other movement"! No longer do you need to step your l^Husers through a long and tedious install - with our patented RM technology you'll wipe out all the problems those other operating systems have.
--
This is actually their second product release from what I can see, their first being the somewhat unpopular xclock2000.
From the press release: "Xclock2000 shows our committment to the Linux community by providing the clock necessary to finally bring Linux to the desktop. Features such as 7 independant clock arms, multi-threading and expanded support for the times 2:30 and 7:15 finally bring the concept of clock to the 21st century."
The Linuxone IPO, scheduled for next week, is expected to bring in over $75 to the company. Money the company says will be used to expand their product line in the area of "weed, cocaine or something like that."
Hotnutz.com
But they do give credit to the original page designers provided you look in the right place. (hint: secret messages)
quick link
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Frankly, I'm appalled, and hope this company lurches painfully to bankruptcy, leaving its owners to panhandle while struggling to control untreatable, horribly *slow* disorders of their connective tissue... and may ten thousand camels run rampant through their houses, as well.
But then, I'm an obnoxious opinonated, vindictive b*stard at times. {evil grin}
As others have noted, there's a remarkably informative "Register" article, with perhaps the one oddity that instead of mooching directly off of RedHat, the *few* *all-binary* packages that they've made available for FTP all bear tell-tale "mdk.i586.rpm" extensions, as far as I can tell.
"The Company's extensions to the Linux software kernel will rapidly distinguish its products from all other available Linux software"... well, er, it's GPLed. If it's good, the patches can be used by others. If it's not... needing an eye-patch or a dialysis machine is distinctive, too.
There's also no mention of the licensing on their FTP site, as far as I can tell -- which, according to Netcraft, runs RH.
Their documents on the web site are badly-written and inconsistent. Parts glorify (?!) the ability to work w/o partitioning, while the latter stage figures prominently in their installation instructions... Perhaps that's their "full" LinuxOne OS, and not "Lite", 'tho.
Their web site *strongly* implies that most of the features are *their* features, and not common to most distros.
"Most useful and complete"? Um, no; not unless you're shipping a multiple-CD collection.
"No lost data, no confusion, and no chance for a disk drive disaster"? How, precisely, does *sharing* an existing partition with an OS that is not designed to coexist, and thus can manipulate the filesystem at will, promote stability? Argh. If you want stability, you *isolate* things. Not funky multi-function boards; not strange combos of OSes and filesystems; and so forth. If it dies one day, who's to blame -- Windows file corruption? LinuxOne? The foibles of a novice?
"Simply type 'reboot'" -- are they dropping people into a root shell, without any mention of normal user accounts?
...and, for the Mac...
"All functions available through the computer's mouse."
Right. So, write a Perl5 module for parsing and comparing Bayes Nets, using a single-button mouse.
'cuse me while I go chortling hideously into the night...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
...so the "ease of use" tack that LinuxOne is taking just might the the key that makes them cash.
/. community get pumped about Linux growing and becoming more accepted. It appears that LinuxOne is doing their part to help Linux make it further on the desktop level.
So, having said that, I'm confused. First off, let me say that I am (gasp) not a Linux user. Sorry. I'm too enmeshed in the Windows world to put up with the trouble of dual booting all the time.
All I've seen here is folks bashing LinuxOne. I've been reading Slashdot for about 2 years now, and have always seen the
We all know that the vast majority of computer users are somewhat intimidated by Linux. Installation reviews that appear are contradictory - some installs go smoothly and easily, and some seem to go poorly. A person who is considering installing Linux, just to "see what all the hype is about" just might do that, simply because of the spin that LinuxOne is putting on their distro. Granted, it's nothing new, but hell folks - what in this world is new? Look around and see what new and fancy items that appear are just the same old thing with a new little twist.
Tech businesses today have a difficult job - the world is full of niches, and the easiest to fill are those that complement a larger niche. Riding the wave of success of another product is far easier than creating a whole new "next big thing". LinuxOne is attempting to do that. They may have a history of vaporware in the past, but there's a distro now, and it looks to me like it could really help Linux at the desktop level. It might not be anything "new", but success is largely marketing and spin, and LinuxOne seems to have that under control.
This LinuxLite may just be the next big thing - who, at this point, can really tell?
www.linuxone.net is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix)(Red Hat/Linux) on Linux
From snooping around:
nylon66@milton --> telnet www.linuxone.net
Trying 216.101.248.91...
Connected to rinoa.LinuxOne.NET.
Escape character is '^]'.
Welcome to LinuxOne! This is rinoa.
Red Hat Linux release 6.0 (Hedwig)
Kernel 2.2.5-15 on an i686
login:
A great development effort that is so unlike Red Hat, it nonetheless uses Red Hat's distro.
Seamonster says "cheese."
/* The People's Republic of Chocolatey Delicious! */
According to the article posted by The Register, they've left the nast-ay RH
admin tools available via HTTP. Yikes.
/* The People's Republic of Chocolatey Delicious! */
This can be interpreted three ways:
In case one, they're just using drivers out of the community and/or sourcing drivers back to the community. In case three, all bets are off because market-speak and reality don't have to correlate. In case two, they're keeping driver source to themselves, which may be for one of two reasons: either they're stupid, or they're using technology licensed to them under an NDA and they're trying to make the most of an otherwise crummy situation. In that case, I'll just go ahead and be glad the driver is there at all and work on opening it up/reverse engineering it later.
--
This is not my sandwich.
---
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
I've seen xservers available for NT that allow you to connect to an actual unix/linux box running X and run stuff on it. (all processing is done by the nix box and display comes up on the NT box)
:)
I've used these before and it really works well, u can pretty much alt-tab between windows and linux (in appearance) of course you still dont get happy linux stability if your windows host goes away.
One that I've seen was called Exceed by Hummingbird software and it worked well. I've tried to use others but with my minimal effort/interest in them, I didnt get them to work.
BTW, Exceed is commercial software from what I recall.
They run their company out of a condo? ::smirk:: Oh well, guess even Microsoft had to start somewhere...didn't they start in a barn or something? And I guess running your company out of a condo isn't as bad as running it out of a garage, eh, Steve? hehe
If enough newbies buy this product, I'm sure they'll move. Although I'm still preaching Slackware on an extra hard drive/partition [to the beginners].
miyax
We can't do that :(
I know one of the honours students has a debian mirror on his machine, and theres a local redhat disssstricution with isos, so most of us get someone in college to burn it for us.
Sydney Uni's CS department has its first year students use a teaching language called Blue.
Theres a sunos version (for the uni servers) and a linux version.
All CS students get given a CD containing the full version of RedHat, plus an installer for a UMSDOS partiaion of linux. The CD also has stuff like Java, Mesa, an updated python and a few other things for 2nd and third year students.
If you run install, it uncompresses from a self extracting zip file ionto c:\linnx, and puts an icon onto the desktop. The first time you run it, It runs a command line mouse/cd inerface (this was before redaht had mouseconfig/linuxconf). Only a few packages are installed, but you can easily install any others from the CD.
It hasn't been updated for a while, so its currently RedHat 5.0 + some updates + a CD you can borrow from the Dept with updated XServers, but I believe that it will be 6.1 next year.
thought....
:/
It'd be nice to have a linux distro that ran as
an application on windows that wouldn't require you to re-boot to get back to windoze...
but wait... that would suck as your stable linux
would now be prone to windoze faults...
then again.. (if you have the resources) there's
VMware and the like....
Still this does seem the way to go for some folks...
I've a few friends myself that are trying out linux
using the umsdos loadlin method... *shrug*
I figure when they get confident enough they'll switch
to a REAL distro...
It's not their fault they were MS-netized a long time ago..
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
Unlike LinuxONE, which requires WINDOZE, our new and MUCH IMPROVED LINUX-ZERO requires NOTHING !!
Yeah, you read it right, NOTHING.
Our LINUX-ZERO is SO ADVANCE, it exists EVERYWHERE and yet it requires NOTHING to run on, and it produces ABSOLUTELY NO SIDE EFFECT !!!
Want to test drive our NEW AND IMPROVED LINUX-ZERO?
Here is the way you do it: Look around, and then smile.
Yeah, SMILE, DAMMIT !!
That will sure bring our LINUX-ZERO out. Because our LINUX-ZERO is made for one thing in mind - to BRING HAPPINESS TO ALL !
By the next millennium, we will bring out our LINUX-MINUS-ONE, which will be EVEN MORE FANTASTIC !!!
Just wait and see.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Wow! Why didn't anyone ever think of this before?
-----
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Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
This is the worst kind of joke! The one that isn't a joke.
This page has been around for quite some time (I remember seeing it months ago) and they really have no products. They have a couple of repackaged distributions, none of which are doing anything new or inovative. They claim to be a 'leading-edge developer of Linux software' but no one has ever heard of them.
This seems to be a total ploy to cash in on unsuspecting people, both users and people who would buy stock.
The Register reported that they reported to the SEC that they had $17,000 in expenses and no income last quarter. What kind of business is even CONSIDERING an IPO with no revenue AT ALL?
This is a ridiculous scam . . .
Head over to Slackware and check out ZipSlack and BigSlack. Both linux distros for the UMSDOS filesystem only requiring winzip and a simple edit of a batch file to install. ZipSlack is bare bones (~80meg) and BigSlack is bigger with KDE and X. This LinuxOne stuff is a total joke. I wish the SEC would stop this IPO since it is obviously a bunch of garbage. I thought that a company had to have 4 million in assets before going public. I would be surprised if these jokers did.
from their products webpage:
"A key feature of LinuxOne OS is its ability to run on the most advanced PC workstations with devices that increase communication bandwidth, such as ADSL and cable modem. LinuxOne OS will support these new technologies with its sophisticated proprietary device drivers (software that provides an interface between an operating environment and its associated hardware)."
Don't you just love proprietary device drivers. I know that's what I look for in a product. (I also need what a device driver is explained to me).
ok i dont condone such activity but i just KNOW some skr1pt kiddi3s out there are going to root linuxone.net
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
It seems everyone and their uncle is trying to make their own linux distro "specifically tailored for novices". End result: confusion and a thinning of the linux support market.
---
...so the "ease of use" tack that LinuxOne is taking just might the the key that makes them cash.
Strange, Caldera and Red Hat have been going head-to-head over ease-of-install for a while. Corel's about to jump into the game. Two projects are underway to create a more-or-less "standard" GUI for Linux. But hey, it's who can pump out more press releases, eh?
It appears that LinuxOne is doing their part to help Linux make it further on the desktop level.
By swiping Red Hat's distro and doing a mass replace of "Red Hat" with "LinuxOne"?
They may have a history of vaporware in the past, but there's a distro now...
Yes, either Red Hat's or Mandrake's (itself a modification of Red Hat, but at least they made some actual changes and improvements).
It might not be anything "new", but success is largely marketing and spin, and LinuxOne seems to have that under control.
That's a very Gatesian/MS way of thinking; success = marketing. Yet, Linux has rocketed to prominence this year on little more than a reputation and one company with an actual unique product going public. A lot of the spin pumped out by LinuxOne could easily do more to hurt the Open Source movement than help it. Since they seem to be doing nothing but swiping other distros, it's anyone's guess what kind of tech support the company will provide, if any. I'm also willing to bet the company will put out some horrid license that contravenes the GPL. Red Hat has a reputation of good products and tech support. LinuxOne has a reputation of vapourware and marketing hype. I have serious fears that this fly-by-night opportunist could do lasting damage to Linux and the Open Source movement by making a mockery of the whole thing in the news media.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Straight from
http://www.linuxone.net/products/products.html
"A key feature of LinuxOne OS is its ability to run on the most advanced PC workstations with devices that increase communication bandwidth, such as ADSL and cable modem. LinuxOne OS will support these new technologies with its sophisticated proprietary device drivers (software that provides an interface between an operating environment and its associated hardware)."
Okay I don't mean to flame... but wtf? proprietary??? These people must definitely not be into contributing to the community as they falsely say in their press release on linuxtoday.
In order for RHAT to start talking about developing further software, they had to get hundreds of millions of dollars invested, and waste considerable time planning.
In contrast, LinuxOne has moved rapidly to deploy the results of the $250 that they raised.
They have clearly achieved their goal of unchallenged availability of applications and platform support, which no other IP has been able to accomplish.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I don't get it. LinuxLite uses (crappy?) UMSDOS and all that. It's not new as far as I know. What do all the other Windows/Linux distros use that make this so special.
There PhatLinux, WinLinux 2000, Armed Linux and a coupla others besides. So LinuxLite is a wee way down the list.
Speaking of PhatLinux, don't be too quick to dismiss it. Last time I looked it was number 1 over at download.com's linux section.
having pored throught their web page, I don't believe linuxone runs _under_ windows at all. It's not a VMware-like thing at all. They just are installing into c:\linux, or some such, and using loadlin to boot linux from there... slackware has been doing this forever. Also I know someone who has one of their disks, and It's apparently a repackaged redhat, with the name linuxone replacing redhat where ever it shows up....
a bunch of poop
dronf!