UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat Lindows OS

Anybody have any experience with Lindows OS? http://www.lindows.com

What do you think about it. Pros, cons.

I'm looking at buying a new pc and am considering going with a linux derivitive instead of MS Windows.

i just know that the guy who started mp3.com started lindows, and they've been involved in a lawsuit brought upon them by microsoft, who was trying to stop them from using l'indows, because it was too close to windows - trademark infringement.

i've never used it. i use w2k at work, because i have to, i use OSX at home, because i like to

What ever happened to close only counting for horseshoes and handgrenades?

Sorry, no experience with Lindows. I've only had experience with different Windows versions.

I purchased a pc with lindows supposedly already installed. It was from wintergreen systems. I ended up putting XP on the machine and sent an email to lindows.com to let them know about the poor initial experience I had. They replied that they were still working with wintergreen systems to get them to set things up correctly or something like that. They also offered to send me their operating system in place of the restore disks that were included with the pc. I have yet to take them up on the offer but I do intend to. I don't believe the problem was lindows but the guys putting together the wintergreen systems computers. The documentation and packaged software was third rate at best. Perhaps purchasing a lindows pc directly from the lindows site would be a better route? Lindows is Linux and I do like my Mandrake Linux for the desktop so perhaps Lindows will be alright when installed directly from original cds.
</2cents>

It was reviewed on The Screensavers back in 2002. They were luke-warm on it. From what I understand, the first version or two were a little buggy. Supposedly many of those bugs were fixed.

All it really is supposed to be is a more user friendly Linux, and nothing more. Originally they made claims about running Windows software on it, but they've really backed off that, and are more touting the easier Linux functionality.

If you like to tinker, I would recommend just putting your own hardware together and downloading either Mandrake or Red Hat.

I'm like tackaberry, I have to use XP at work, but chose to use OS X at home. I get real tired of coming in to work and finding my XP machine completely locked up about three times a week, while my Mac wakes up from sleep mode without a glitch about 6 times a day over the last 18 months.

I have Mandrake at home as well, but I use XP Pro about 90% of the time since most of my programs/games aren't Linux-friendly. I really wish I could go 100% Linux, but that would seriously limit the programs/games I could use.

I probably hate Micro$oft as much as you SWFan, but I've never had XP lock-up on me. I'm willing to bet it's either a hardware or non-OS software problem.

As for Lindows, when I first heard about it I heard that Wal-Mart was bundling it with the computer's they sold and I thought Wal-Mart made the OS. I laughed it right off because of it. I also heard that it was supposed to be able to run most Windows applications/games. So they're shying away from that now, eh? That sucks. I guess I'll stick with Mandrake for the time being. I've wanted to look into RedHat. My ultimate goal is to be able to install and run Slackware!

I'm not a Micro$oft advocate but I think XP's stability is greatly dependant on the machine and the drivers in use. I am using XP on a MSI Dual AMD MP motherboard with 2 gigs of ECC DDR and usually only turn it off once or twice a month. (start feeling guilty of the power it's using when I'm not around... LoL)

I have Apache, MySQL, Zone Alarm, Zen Studio, Klient, Outlook (now outlook fails from time to time and restarts), Ulead Photo Impact and Dream Weaver (which fails now and then also) running almost always.

I don't know though. Perhaps I'm just lucky so far.

I also run XP - and too leave it on - usually it is fine, but for some reason it rebooted itself last night. I have it backed up by a UPS, so I can keep working, when the lights go out How sad!

Well, the main reason I was thinking of Lindows was for the familiarity that my wife and daughter would have because of the 'windows' look. But the more I think of it, my daughters games wouldn't run on it anyway. I bought Mandrake 8.1 at Wal Mart some time ago and installed it on my laptop. (I bought it because I didn't have a cd burner at the time and needed the cd's.) My laptop wasn't completely compatible so I ended up taking it back off and reinstalling the restore disks, which is Win 98. On my desktop I upgraded to XP home edition, but I still have problems with lockups and such, and every time I turn around it wants to send MS a report of some sort. I don't like that one bit.

JustDave, maybe you could give me a little insight on running dual OS. On my desktop I have XP home. I used Partition Magic and have extra partitions, and I also am using the Boot Magic. What I want to do is install the Mandrake 8.1, but when I read the install instructions it says something to the effect that the install will partition my hard drive for me? Isn't there a way to install it without doing this, since I already have partitions made up? Or did I miss something in the manual?

I still say get a Mac

Your wife and daughter get an easy to use computer. You don't have as much overhead in keeping it inline. Plus you get an excuse to go into the APple store everytime you go to the mall

I installed Mandrake 9.0 along side my Win XP install. If I recall correctly it will ask you to chose a partition that already exists or to create a new one. I purchased the CDs online from unixcd.com which I don't think is around any longer but there are a number of other low cost distributors around such as cheapbytes.com and it looks like they have Mandrake 9.1 for $6.99. I am on dial up so downloading the ISO is out of the question unless I want to tie up the computer for a couple of days. I may be switching over to Linux completely (will still keep windows around to test things with IE) now that I have found a PHP development application that also has a WYSIWYG editor for HTML. The product is located here: http://www.nusphere.com

Hope that helps some

[]AKD96 said:
I probably hate Micro$oft as much as you SWFan, but I've never had XP lock-up on me. I'm willing to bet it's either a hardware or non-OS software problem. [/]

It could be, but our IT department never could figure out the problem. I was the first computer to convert to XP, and the last, for now. After they spent about a month of installing and re-installing the OS on my computer they finally got it to work. This also included getting me a new computer. However, we still have reliability issues and compatibility issues with our existing network and software. As such, the whole XP conversion was put on hold indefinitely. Right now we're sticking with Win98 and while it needs to be rebooted several times a day throughout our office, it works with everything we have in place.

Well use Win XP here as well with no problems. I would welcome a Linux windows like interface however the limited applications have kept me a Gates Software user. The Problem is that when one has a monopoly like windows it is hard for anyone else to compete.