Lindows - Migrating people off of Windows?

This was an older article I found after doing some research on Lindows:

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With a $99 price tag, Lindows.com is aiming to slowly convert computer users without a hard transition to the competing operating system by running LindowsOS alongside Windows.

"The ultimate goal is to migrate people off of Windows."

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Read more here from the original article...

What do you think is going to happen?
From everything you know, what is your overall opinion of the Lindows OS?

It sounds too good to be true...just wanting to know what you guys think.

Well, they are charging $99 to get a copy of lindows, and it is still a beta project. Their marketing is definatly taking after windows....

I still think it is funny that MS sued over the name lindows. Whoever has the patent on the name x-windows (unix gui server) should sue MS for their name....

This single page scared me the most.
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products.php

Oh yeah, in case you didn't know, lindows did win the case....

http://www.lindows.com/lindows_micha...hives.php?id=7

AOL! *dies laughing*

Apparently, as of last month, Microsoft was planning to file an appeal against the judge's decision...Here is the article:

ZDnet.com News

I haven't been able to find any good updates since then....Still looking.

Yeah ive read about the Lindows thing for a while now... Their intentions are good, but will it work?? I dont really think so.... Even if they do develop it so that all Win32 apps and all *nix app can run on an OS as stable as Linux they still dont have the right marketing.... they are going to do this online?? the only people who would have any interest in downloading this are the current linux users, but they wouldnt want to buy it..... the only way such a thing could take place is if you mass produce it and ship it out pre-installed in computers.... regular home users dont even know if they have XP or 98 let alone care what linux is...

Its a wonderfull Idea but i dont think it will work.

There's been a lotta controversy over the "upcoming" LindowsOS. For one thing, a lotta people are upset that it's not open-source in beta (even though it's supposed to conform to the GNU project license). http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24827.html

Secondly, if you look around - you'll find that those who have tried Lindows Beta2 are still pretty disappointed... it doesn't support too many Windows Apps in reality. As far as Office, the latest beta release can only view and print Word docs, but if it does fully support the MS Office program, that might just put it in competition with Windows (w/ a friendly GUI of course). http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/17232.html

As all the hype (keep in mind - most of the hype is coming from Lindows.com) is saying it's gonna support MOST Windows applications - there really isn't any proof to either support or refute that point. I can still hope that it will be great, though (based on Debian sounds good too ;)

Hi

for my part it'll give me an opportunity to dump windows. I'm not a happy windows user, however my biggest problem is I need certain applications that to the best of my knowledge are only avaliable on windows platforms.

My next biggest problem is, that i'm too freaking lazy to get of my fat arse, and learn a new operating system. (despite having an X-Term on my desk at work) It sounds to me like Linux that can run windows apps could be fantastic, I could learn bits in chunks, and eventually save myself £1,000s on equiping my machines with OSs.

As for family use .... most home users today never install an operating system, it's going to take some really hard marketing to persuade them that they can install Lindows on an existing PC. Also I seriously doupt that they will manage to get any sizable PC manufacturer to offer it as an alternative OS. Imagine what microsoft will do to the seller that offers lindows as an alternate OS for home users. Come to think of it, it's hard enogh to buy an empty box that you can stick Linux on (without paying windows tax). remember at this point most families don't build their own PC's, like i imagine most of the people here do, they nip down to a seller, and buy one.

As a conclusion to my rambly 2c, as soon as its been released, and proven stable I will buy me a copy and stick it on one of my machines. If it does what I want, then Micro$oft will never see another penny of my money.

Good luck to them.

Regards

I Think that the only way this Lindows will really be out in the market is if Microsoft themselves buy the name and build a stable operating system w. a Linux Kernal that can run Win32 Apps and is user friendly.... Is this gonna happen? NO! why? Cus they dont want to loose money.... Why do they need more money then the billians they already possess? God only knows...

Dont get me wrong, im gonna check out this lindows thing just for the hell of it, but i dont think it will hit the industry very hard.

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I need certain applications that to the best of my knowledge are only avaliable on windows platforms.

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Like what? The only program I have seen so far that can't be converted to linux easily is MS access. And thats because Access isn't true SQL, its a pain in the ass. Other then games, just about anything else can run in one way or another on Linux (and with wine, even the games may be soon). i.e. you can use openoffice to view any word/excel/powerpoint file, evolution to replace outlook, gimp to replace photoshop, intellicad to replace autocad, etc etc.

Guys, one of the fundamental disagreements I have with the way Lindows is approaching things is that they're setting it up to run like Win9x. Everyone has root user access, there will be no separation of users.

This opens the door wide for concept virii to start proliferating, and then you'll see lots of people trashing and badmouthing linux like many do now to MS for building systems without fundamental security. It's not an image thing, rather a functionality thing. Take the power of unix, make it all UID(0) essentially, and you've got a VERY bad combination.

Especially if this thing ships with server software.

See they are going to have to market it better, reason being...
Look howmany OS's have crashed in the sense of not makeing it as big as MS cause of marketing stratagies...I rest my case.

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Originally posted here by souleman


Like what? The only program I have seen so far that can't be converted to linux easily is MS access.

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well there's a **** load of Novell applications such as NWadmin32, Pconsole, Rconsole amongst others. Microsoft Terminal Server clients. yadda, yadda, yadda. N.B I did say "to the best of my knowledge"

I'd love to be wrong

Regards