Lindows faltering?

It seems that the much-hyped Lindows OS has painted themselves into a corner. After they've been hyping their vaporware like crazy for over a year now, they've finally figured out that Windows compatibility based on wine just isn't going to work. Trouble is, they've already inked a deal with Wal-Mart to sell Windows-compatible Linux PCs. I wonder how Wal-Mart is going to feel about their new focus.....

I can't say this surprises me. Frankly, I'm amazed that anybody really believed it to begin with. Sure, wine is a nifty little gadget and you can do some cool things with it, but anybody who has ever used it knows it will NEVER be ready for Wal-Mart. I've always thought Lindows was a lot of smoke and mirrors.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-954729.html

I think that's the end of Lindows... I never thought they was gonna port every MS app to Linux but they would have something going for them if they just could port the most popular, like Office, Internet Explorer etc. Apps that Joe Average has gotten so familar with that he just can't let go of them.

Now IMO they've got nothing that haven't been done before, both Mandrake & Suse are easy to use Linuxes and has already gotten a crowd of followers that ain't gonna jump over to a distro with such a reputation as Lindows.

And the click&run feature sounds like old news too. How about the suse yast feature? Can things get any easier?

hmm another part in "winlin"-history that has to be closed. i don't know if i would have such a thing, linux and windows are 2 worlds. they can make linux-systems for the "normal" home users but no "winlinux"...

but: office qnd other good programs have to be ported, no emulation please, with 500Mhz that isn't funny

@Wal-Mart managing: congratulation!

The problem with the click and run warehouse is that they want you to pay $99 a year for access to stuff that anybody can download from Freshmeat, and that comes standard with most distros anyway. I mean.... look how much stuff SuSE comes with. Is it 7 or 8 CDs now? And I don't see how their click and run software can possibly be any easier to use than Debian's apt-get or Gentoo's emerge. I mean, crap.... how much easier can it get than "emerge gnome?" :D

Actually, Lindows is kinda like Microsoft. They speak in BIG words about their product, and when it gets down to business the product is an overpriced piece of crap.

I mean, one year of marketing and then you find out they can't even deliver the goods? Give me a break...

Whoa! Hold on there! It looks to me like Wal-Mart has already committed to Lindows in some way:

Lindows at Wal-Mart

While it may not do what they thought it would, Wal-Mart will probably sell a few of these things for Lindows. I'd be willing to bet that they're not dead just yet.

I agree with most of you, though. I always thought Lindows was a bunk idea to begin with.

Roswell... Yes, I said that in the first post. They inked that deal a while back, but now Lindows is saying they can't deliver what they promised. Therein lies the problem.... they've sold Wal-Mart a bill of goods and now they're left swinging in the wind. I don't imagine Wal-Mart will be happy to hear that Lindows can't deliver Windows compatibility after all.

On the other hand, Wal-Mart also has a deal with Mandrake in place for preinstalled shipments, and I see that as MUCH more likely to be a positive for Linux. Say what you will about Mandrake (and God knows I have :D), but it really is the best hope Linux has for making an impact on the desktop market. If Wal-Mart can move Mandrake PCs, I think there a good chance on the desktop.

Here's my real fear: Lindows will end up being a complete bust and give Linux a black eye after all the hype they've put out, and Wal-Mart will sour on Linux altogether. The whole thing could turn out to be a huge setback for other distros trying to break into the desktop market. I don't think these Lindows guys have done us any favors at all.

PS.... to the one who gave me negs and said I've never used Lindows, what gave you that idea? I've seen it in action, and I was unimpressed.

Ooops! You're right, problemchild. Sorry for restating the obvious! :bigsmile

Well, if Lindows is a big disappointment, then wait until UnitedLinux ships out there first Beta version by the end of this month.
More details here:
http://www.suse.com/us/company/press...tarelease.html

I've never understood what market Lindows was trying to sell to.
If you are home user Windows is a good platform to play games on, and if you want something more secure/flexible for net access/general programming then you can easilly set up *nix as dual boot anyway. When you are playing a game you will want to squeeze as much as you can out of your hardware, so running an emulator is a no no.
If you are going for the professional market presumably the attraction of this type of product would be that it is cheaper than the MS offering, whilst offering the same functionality.
Which is obviously a nonsense with Lindows, as you would still have to pay MS to run Office or whatever, and at a reduced speed - why bother?
What would sell is a combination of *nix together with robust Office like packages to provide the functionality the customer is looking for - although you would need to provide tools to enable MS documents etc. to be converted, as like it or not, MS is the industry standard for this sort of thing.
I'm talking about normal end users here - for servers most flavours of *nix or Win2k do a good job, and again why would you want Lindows running on these??

Well all I can say is this, what ever OS floats your boat catch it. This points out a major problem in the software industry as a whole though. Stop and think about any other product you buy or use every day. Auto maker puts out ads and releases for a car that will do 230 MPH and places in the market place a car that will not do 55 it is called false advertising. FTC should look at these sort of claim including M$ .NET they even say ah err well after all the hype we are not even sure what it is. Laws were passed to prevent snake oil cures and yet software is somehow exempt from all the laws every other company that makes a product must live up to, this is not right. Snake Oil cure not vaporware call a con by what it is a con just cuase it happens to be software is no excuse.