Re: Xandros review

[Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>]

On Sat, 2003-01-18 at 22:17, mike808@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
> > I still stand by my general impression of the company, though.  If
> > Lindows manages to only screw up a conference in their rise to
> > prominence, they'll still be doing better than lots of others.
> 
> So what's up with their rift with Codeweavers? Were they miffed CW cut
> a deal with Xandros and weren't the only "bundled" distro anymore?
> I heard there was some sort of stress in their relationship (CW & Lindows).

Maybe their "rift" is just that CrossOver isn't perfect (which it
isn't).  They got pretty embarassed with their claims of Windows
compatibility, and possibly felt it prudent to back off totally rather
than have it haunt them.

At any rate, I wasn't aware of any other friction.

> Also, Xandros should get some credit for putting "yet another pretty face" on
> the Debian install.

Well, so did we (Progeny).  Except that we didn't keep our pretty face
to ourselves; we gave it back to Debian, just as we promised we'd do. 
And you can use that pretty face to install real Debian today, without
licensing fees, or EULAs, or any other behind-the-scenes shenanigans to
distract you.

Now, I'm not complaining about the credit we received for that.  We got
plenty, not the least of which came from Debian itself, who isn't
terribly used to that kind of behavior from commercial interests.  We've
come a long way to help Debian forget Corel's behavior, I think.

I'll admit to not liking Xandros at all.  Call it a bias, if you want;
the effect is the same without good reasons, which won't be forthcoming
from me.

> As for Lindows, I'm not convinced why I need to pay
> $99 to access their "library" deal. From what I've read in the reviews, 
> the base OS comes pretty stripped down. And their "pay to be in our beta
> program" with a NDA was pretty weird. An NDA to work on GPL software?

That (the beta) was something they were grilled on pretty heavily when
they met with a bunch of us.  My conclusion from that conversation was
that Lindows was naive; they didn't understand the problems, and just
did what companies normally do with betas.  They promised to do better,
which they seem to have done up until recently.  Single stupid event, or
the beginning of a trend?  Time will tell, I suppose.

As for Click-N-Run, who knows?  Maybe it'll work, maybe not.  I think
that apt is plenty good (and lots cheaper) for getting new software and
updates.  But Debian isn't exactly well-known for its desktop
friendliness, so perhaps I don't know as much as the Lindows people do
in that regard.

BTW, the price for the distro includes a year of Click-N-Run, so it's
hard to fault them for shipping a stripped-down base if you can install
add-ons for free.

> Does anyone have first-hand experience with Lindows and care to comment?

I've seen it running and talked to their developers about it.  In
particular, apt still works, so you don't have to use Click-N-Run if
you're comfortable with apt.  It looks slick, and appears to be "user
friendly" as far as that goes.


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