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Linux Business Businesses Red Hat Software

Buy Lindows, Get Fedora and Mandrake Too? 234

Posted by michael from the too-many-linuxes-spoil-the-soup dept.
tacarat writes "Lindows has an interesting deal going on right now. If you go to Linuxshootout.com, you can get Linspire/Lindows 4.5, Mandrake 10 and Fedora Core 2 or a mere $29.95 download or $39.95 for the 8 CD set. Yahoo! News covers this story. Quoting Michael Robertson,'Our emphasis on Linspire is ease of use -- making Linux quick and easy to install and use,' he said. 'Other products may have a different focus. That doesn't mean they aren't great products, just that their focus may be different. Every new Linux computer helps the Linux desktop industry, regardless of what company's product you choose'. Also, 'We want to encourage side-by-side comparisons of the latest Linux products.' Interesting strategy. Will their sales go up because people are buying Lindows plus the other two distros, or will it be the other way around?"
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Buy Lindows, Get Fedora and Mandrake Too? More

Buy Lindows, Get Fedora and Mandrake Too?

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  • Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ikn ( 712788 ) * <rsmith29@alumni.nd . e du> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:27PM (#9414985) Homepage
    Their intentions seem well, and I think it's a great example of how the Linux community, even between 'competing' distros, tries to help the movement as a whole.

    • Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MikeCapone ( 693319 )
      Yeah, that too, but it's especially that the guy really knows marketing.

      Incidentally, I'm reading _No Logo_ by Naomi Klein and it's very interesting. In depth look at marketing, branding and the concepts governing both.

    • No help at all. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BlueCup ( 753410 )
      To me, this doesn't seem to be helping the others... Anyone can sell a copy of these distros, and make a profit. Your only costs are the CD you need to burn it on. To me, this isn't a way for Lindows/Linspire to help the other distrubitions, it's another way to make a buck. It's not against the rules, but, it certainly isn't helping Mandrake or Red Hat, if anything its taking money out of their pockets.

      • Re:No help at all. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PaulBu ( 473180 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @06:32PM (#9415647) Homepage
        Well, I would not necessarily agree... People who buy into Lindows do not (usually) download FC2, and they would not get a RedHat boxed set, so no lost sale to RH. OTOH, after they figure out that "this Linux thing" is not as scary and quite useable they might decide to try more advanced distributions and they will have a chance to do this immediately.

        Paul B.

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nametaken ( 610866 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:22PM (#9415334)
      It's really not so much a goodwill gesture. If you look at the last section of the site, you'll see a rather sales oriented comparison sheet. In it, it points out how redhat and mandrake don't come with flash support, in-browser video streaming, etc. The idea is that they give you three distros in the hope that you'll compare them as per their chart and realize that Lindows is the one to pick.

      • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Eric Damron ( 553630 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @08:24PM (#9416277)
        "it points out how redhat and mandrake don't come with flash support, in-browser video streaming, etc."

        Their "fact sheet" seems a bit inaccurate. I use Mandrake 10.0 and it came with flash support. I wonder if it's the old trick of compairing their version that you pay for with Mandrake's version that gets downloaded.

        User's really need to compaire boxed versions of equal cost.

        • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by opkool ( 231966 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @09:49PM (#9416663) Homepage
          Absolutely.

          Both "boxed Mandrake" and "Mandrake from MDK Club" (that is, paying Mandrake) ship with Flash player, RealPlayer, J2RE, nVidia drivers, Winmodem drivers... all that non-GPL stuff.

          I have yet another problem with this 3-in-1 distribution. They are distributing Mandrake 10.0 **Community** edition, that is, the "preview" version for the Official Mandrake 10.0. The Official version (the one that goes into official mirrors (in the form of ISOs and rpms) and into the boxes that you can buy.

          The Community edition needs a ton of updates to fix all the bugs found during the development step "Community-to-Official". So they are kinda giving Mandrake a bad name (insert your conspiracy theory here), as they are shipping a "kown broken" (release candidate with already located and fixed bugs) distribution, when there's available MDK Official version, with all those bugs corrected.

          Aside from that, it's a nice thing to ship 3 distros together. Lots of PC users are still on POTS+Modem, and all those ISOs are a pain to download.

          Peace!
        • I use Mandrake 10.0 and it came with flash support

          I think what they mean by flash support is:
          1. Stick USB flash drive into USB port
          2. Icon appears on desktop.

          I'm not familiar with Mandrake 10, but with Mandrake 9.2, as well as Fedora Core 1 and 2, using a flash disk involves editing your /etc/fstab and issuing a mount command (and sometimes disabling ACPI).

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by snake_dad ( 311844 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:32PM (#9415383) Homepage Journal
      A long time ago there was a cheap cd set available in shops, that had 5 or 6 distros on it. I think it was called InfoMagik but I'm not sure. Anyway, that was back in the day that not too many people had heard of Linux, and it was still pretty popular. So I guess the strategy might work. Lots of people will probably buy a CD so they won't need to download 2 distros that might take them over a download limit... At least people that might already be considering buying Lindows might jump on it with this offer..

      • InfoMagik (Score:3, Informative)

        by Orion Blastar ( 457579 )
        I remember that, our local Linux group used to give it out for free at meetings to the noobs. I got a copy and installed Slackware from it back in 1995, IIRC. It also had a full Linux FTP site on a few CD disks of applications.

        All Linspire/Lindows is doing is what InfoMagik used to do, only without the Linux FTP site on a few CD disks.

        I wonder if they can include a Linux version of the OpenCD or some other OSS installer disk?

        Linspire/Lindows has some customized code to run the same data and media files a
        • It is InfoMagic and the web site was http://www.infomagic.com/ [infomagic.com]. I just visited there and there was a web page placeholder. I guess you cannot buy the Linux CDs any more?

          It was great for people who could not download the ISOs, or did not have access to a CD Burner to make them if they did. IIRC they also had a subscription to their CD set for newer CDs.

          Ah, well at least I still have my memories of them.

    • Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mkavanagh2 ( 776662 )
      It's a very canny move. By giving these away free but charging for the product they are coming with, they will draw people that would otherwise have bought CDs from their competitors thereby decreasing the revenue of the competitors while increasing their own revenue.

  • If you check my ebay auction... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <ieshan@@@gmail...com> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:28PM (#9414988) Homepage Journal
    If you check my ebay auction, I have sensitive and important information on how to get a FREE download of Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake Linux 10! That's right!

    For only $4.99 + $2.00 service charge, I'll email you a very secret link, not found anywhere near www.redhat.com or www.mandrake.com.

    Or... something...

  • Promotion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deutschemonte ( 764566 ) <lane.montgomery@nOspAM.gmail.com> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:29PM (#9414992) Homepage
    I think that anything that furthers Linux deployment on the desktop is a good thing. Whether or not this will have that effect is doubtful.

    • Better Promotion (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can tell you a better alternative- spend $30 on beer, download Mandrake and Redhat ISOs, and burn them to CDs (average cost of CDs should be around $.02).

      Ditch the Linshit/spire/whatever, drink the beer, and install the two linux distros. Trust me, you will be happier in the long run.

  • Order (Score:2, Funny)

    by andrej73 ( 779231 )
    >Linspire/Lindows 4.5, Mandrake 10 and Fedora Core 2

    and extra cheese please.

  • May Not Be A Bad Plan... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lindec ( 771045 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:32PM (#9415014) Homepage
    This isn't a terrible plan if you a truly confident in your product. I think we've seen that Robertson is confident in Linspire, and although he may be controversial, I think he's done a lot to promote Linux. Promotion is not a bad thing, and from my experience, Linspire is not a bad introductory distro, so this is probably a good thing.

  • I applaud their initiative on this one. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LazloToth ( 623604 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:32PM (#9415016)

    When you can encourage consumers to compare your product with others of similar caliber, it must mean you feel you're doing some things right yourself. An interesting move, at the very least.

  • Nice, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by grm_wnr ( 781219 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:33PM (#9415024)
    ... if you check their Shootout list [linuxshootout.com] their motives seem to be less than friendly towards the other distros...

    • Re:Nice, but... (Score:3, Informative)

      by CharAznable ( 702598 )
      That list looks really weird. I mean, Mozilla has popup blocking and is included with Fedora and Mandrake. Linspire is not the only one to have that. And mp3? Last I checked, I had to go point Yum to livna.org to get mp3 support in Fedora.
      • More:

        They say : How easy it gets to install software not included with the distro?

        Mandrake has urpmi. You set it up with "Easy URPMI" (google for it) and you will have available more than EIGHT THOUSAND packages (see http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/Re l easesHistory), installable either through a mouse-click interface or through a command line utility (urpmi) that works like apt-get.

        Also, the Shootout claims that Lindows installs way faster than the other distros. Well, if you install prac

    • Re:Nice, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sparrow_hawk ( 552508 )
      Which is interesting, because they miss an opportunity to slam Fedora -- it *doesn't* come with built-in MP3 support (licensing issues), and they say it does. OTOH, they say Fedora *doesn't* have pop-up blocking available, and of course Mozilla has included that for a long time.

      Kind of stupid, in my opinion. Still, it's an interesting way to persuade people to try them *all* out -- ain't the GPL great?

    • Re:Nice, but... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Lispy ( 136512 )
      The fun part is that they claim that Fedora Core2 plays MP3 files out of the box wich is not true. Fedora does not contain a MP3 capable player due to license issues.
    • their motives seem to be less than friendly towards the other distros...

      Of course they're biased. I'd get real suspicious if anything like a shootout list looked friendly toward their competition.

      Any distro will have its own set of priorities and biases and will attempt to optimize its own distribution according to that set of priorities and biases. This makes for a mind-set and they will view everything according to that mind-set.

  • why pay for free downloads? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vivek7006 ( 585218 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:35PM (#9415040) Homepage
    Bill Claybrook vice president at market research firm Harvard Research Group, said he can't see the point to Lindows' three-in-one packaging. "Who is going to pay money to download three Linux distributions?"

    Retail-box is also useless because one order mandrake and fedore CD from chapbytes.com and host of other websites for less $$

    Looks like lindows is having hard time selling their *own* product ...
    • Retail-box is also useless because one order mandrake and fedore CD from chapbytes.com and host of other websites for less $$

      I know plenty of people who don't believe that any piece of software that is downloaded is of any worth. Retail boxes are the only way that these users will buy a piece of software.

      Backwards perhaps, more expensive certainly, but that's the way they feel comfortable.
    • Slap a cheaper-brand label on the same hardware and sell it at a reduced price.

      Slightly OT. I miss the boxed RedHat Professional Server. Nice box, although they got smaller and thinner after 6.2. Never mind that I only used what was on the first few CDs. Never mind that I could just about as easily downloaded what I was using for free. I can't really blame RedHat. Those boxes were profitable but not lucrative. RedHat's main asset is its name, and they aren't selling it so cheaply anymore. CheapBytes may we

  • Not Too Bright (Score:4, Insightful)

    by illuminata ( 668963 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:36PM (#9415059) Journal
    I think Robertson's shooting himself in the foot here. Lindows is stripped down so much that probably only the extreme newbie (as in computer newbie, not so much Linux newbie) will find it suitable. The other two allow a bit more breathing room.

    He better hope that the people who buy this package try Lindows first and decide not to install Mandrake or Fedora Core otherwise there won't be too many CNR subscriptions coming his way.

    In summary, he's going for the wrong market. Stick to bundling it with cheap Wal-Mart PCs, Michael.

    • Re:Not Too Bright (Score:4, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:43PM (#9415107) Homepage Journal
      Maybe he's hoping that consumers will lose all their data due to a Fedora bug and never touch it again. Not sure what his angle is on the Mandrake tip, though.

    • Re:Not Too Bright (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @07:10PM (#9415831) Homepage
      Lindows is stripped down so much that probably only the extreme newbie (as in computer newbie, not so much Linux newbie) will find it suitable.
      This weekend I bought my father a $150 Great Quality machine from Fry's. They used to come with Thiz-Linux, and now they come with Lindows preinstalled. I actually went ahead and installed FreeBSD on it instead, but I did take Lindows for a test drive, and in some ways I was really impressed. Heck, maybe my dad would have been better off if I'd left Lindows on it. One cool thing was that it automatically configured itself correctly for my piece-of-**** LCD monitor, which, e.g., Knoppix choked and died on. Although it was a little disconcerting to find out that typing `man' in an xterm gave `bash: man: command not found,' it really looked like a reasonably nice system for people who just want a GUI. The desktop was configured a lot like Windows, which I'm sure would be comforting for a lot of switchers. I mean, not everybody is a slashdotter -- there are secretaries where I work who still are afraid of Word three years after being forced to switch from WordPerfect.

  • This doesnt seem right... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Scottm87 ( 689558 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:41PM (#9415094)
    The site is produced by Lindows, and the bias is obvious. What makes me laugh even more is the example shootout with the "magic eraser" that makes it clear that they think Lindows is the best distro available. There is no talk about compensating the Fedora and Mandrake products, and there is only minimal support included. If a site doesnt clearly display such an important bias, I normally write it off (just like MartinLutherKing.org [martinlutherking.org] ... yet another example of where a (very important ) bias is not discussed)

    • Re:This doesnt seem right... (Score:4, Funny)

      by mormop ( 415983 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:57PM (#9415519)
      What makes me laugh even more is the example shootout with the "magic eraser" that makes it clear that they think Lindows is the best distro available.

      Yeah but let's face it, until there's an entry in the list that says "relays 3,000,000 pornographic spams to a harvested list of users" (tick) it'll never really replace Windows.

  • Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by r.jimenezz ( 737542 ) <rjimenezh.gmail@com> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:41PM (#9415095)
    I think I should play devil's advocate here, for all comments I've seen so far are very positive :)

    I agree in that this seems to be a great idea. However, it would be interesting to see the "comprehensive" checklist they've included with that bundle. Notice how the screenshots on the Web site only show pictures for Linspire.

    I think it's clear that Michael Robertson believes in Linux. I don't think he intends to compete with other distros in a dishonest fashion. Lindows are clearly entitled to use this bundle to promote Linsipre not only over Windows but over said other distros... I just wonder how are they doing it? (If they are doing that to being with)

    In any event, it's a great marketing trick. Hope they manage to attract enough customers with it!

    • Robertson and Carmony want Linspire to become the Microsoft of the Linux world, that's the problem... And they see nothing wrong with that.

  • "Have your own shootout ..." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cyburbia ( 695748 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:42PM (#9415101) Homepage
    From the site: "Pit the best Linux products against each other!" Okay ... so can I get a CD package with Slackware, Debian and Gentoo on it? /runs away from inevitable distro war Seriously, I wonder why there's no comparison of other desktop/newbie oriented distros, such as Xandros and Lycoris? Seems like that's the real competition to Linspire.

  • Rather disengenuous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by damiangerous ( 218679 ) <1ndt7174ekq80001@sneakemail.com> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:42PM (#9415103)
    They refer to Lindows in the third person throughout the site, in the same way they refer to Mandrake and Fedora. There's a small copyright notice at the bottom, and of course when you get to the store it's Linspire.com, but the site reads like an objective third party site. "We chose Lindows because..." Well, you chose it because you're selling it. Then there's support and referring to "their [Lindows] forums." They're not "their" forums, they're your forums.

    Then there's the supposed comparisons in their "shootout", which are just opinion in the top section, while the middle and bottom section are just outright lies.

    Kinda scummy, in my opinion.

    • Do you normally get your product reviews from the company you are considering buying the product from?

      Guess what - a company advertising their product extends the truth and bends the rules for truth in advertising all the time. Is it "scummy" [as you put it]? I suppose but why would you rely on the manufacturer/retailer in the first place? There's a reason organizations like Consumer Reports exist and they didn't just crop up overnight after this whole Lindows report came to light. This has been going on a

  • Root Power anyone (Score:2, Interesting)

    by provoix ( 730200 )

    Can anyone explain to me why I would want to give someone a distro that runs the root user as the system default (a.k.a. windows baggage).

    In fact, I went to Frye's the other day, saw the Lindows demo, brought a manager over and showed him how to foobar the entire distro in 10 seconds by changing the /etc/passwd file (with the default root environment)

  • "Buy Encarta for $29.99 and get Windows XP, .NET Studio, and Office 2003 free"

  • Who's the market? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <lawrenceperson@@@gmail...com> on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:51PM (#9415156) Homepage Journal
    Let's face it, if you're the type of geek that likes playing with multiple distributions, you're exactly NOT the type of geek likely to pay for them. (For that matter, you probably want to compile all your kernals from source code anyway.) As far as I can see, the only real market for this might be:

    1. Hardcore geeks on dialup, a set that's getting smaller all the time, or

    2. A corporate IT center who wants to elvaluate multiple distros for a production environment, and it's just easier to buy three distros from a single source.

    Moreover, this would seem to be exactly the opposite of Lindows/Linspire's current target market, i.e. people who want a computer that sorta/kinda works like Windows, but is cheaper than paying the Microsoft tax. Joe Blow picking up his $299 Lindows box at Walmart is the last person who needs multiple distros (or, for that matter, even knows what a "distro" is).

    What am I missing? Who's the market for this package?

  • Learning curve? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BaronGanut ( 780013 )
    To me it seems like three diffrent levels of distros in userfrendlyness, to the new linux user.

    - Lindows for the newbie
    - Mandrake for the more novice
    - Fedora for the more expreienced and experimenting

    This could be the package for people new to linux wanting to try it out.. And ready to blow their machine up some times.

    Lindows is indeed a soft switch for those migrating to linux from windows. But somewhat locked into that position.

    This would perhaps mean that the user buys at least one CnR licens
    • difficult to use != advanced user

      Thanks, but if I want problems to crop up, I'll use Windows. I don't think I'll be dabbling with the mess that is Fedora anytime soon for that very reason.

      RPM is just a broken system, anyway. Fedora has no advantage over Mandrake, as far as I'm concerned (and I don't use either regularly).

  • Its silly FUD/Proganda against real distros (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phreak03 ( 621876 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:52PM (#9415160) Homepage Journal
    I actually see this as good/evil marketing.
    If you go through the site it seems to be a pathetic means of pointing out Lindows as a better distro.
    By pointing out the fact that Fedora takes WAY TOO F'ING LONG to install, and that mandrake and fedora are "harder to use" and lack things like flash, support, and effective auto device finding (I still can't get my prism2 based wi-fi card to work under mandrake 10)

    True things like apt, urmpi are freaking easy to use, but they have to be configured, and lindows is a "newbie" os.

    The target market for this is newbies, and press/tech editors who don't know any better.

    For a real Shootout may I recomend modified fedora and mandrake distros like

    Blag Linux - A live Fedora based distro with the stuff you really need, and is only on 1 cd.

    PClinuxOs- a live mandrake distro with synaptic, a front for Apt-get

    Knopix- A debian based live cd, that has tons of great stuff, and dosn't use the root acount for everything like linspire (which is debian based)

    PS. Someone AIM-daphreak07, icq -17654783 if they can help me get my wi-fi card working so i can be free of winblows XP once again... Help a poor college student :)

  • $49? whatever happened to cheapbytes? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:52PM (#9415165) Journal
    Sometimes cdrom set is more convenient than an .iso. But even then, it makes little sense to pay more than a pittance for a distro if you aren't planning on exploiting the support that comes bundled in with boxed versions.

  • Nice, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MP3Chuck ( 652277 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:53PM (#9415166) Homepage Journal
    Who's gonna INSTALL the other distros? If you're paying to ship/download Lindows, Fedora, and Mandrake ... chances are, you're doing so because you want to install Lindows. Otherwise you'd just go get Fedora or Mandrake.
    • Maybe i should offer a deal at the flower shop. Buy a dozen roses and get fedora core2 and mandrake download edition FREE. It stikes me funny to give away things which people dont normally pay for anyway.

  • Every distro needs to include knoppix... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yaa 101 ( 664725 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:54PM (#9415176) Journal
    In my opinion...
    I think that is much more clever than including a installable distro...

    That does not say that the intention is very well indeed...

  • Not cheap (Score:4, Informative)

    by wwwillem ( 253720 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @04:59PM (#9415209) Homepage
    Am I the only one who doesn't think 40 bucks for 8 CDs is really cheap. I just bought for half that money FC2, Mandrake 10 and a third distro (Arch Linux) just for fun. In total 10 CDs for 22 bucks with free shipping. Sites like linuxcentral.com or osdisc.com usually charge 2-3 dollar per CD. So, especially since this a shootout deal, you would expect it to be a bargain. And it isn't.
    Of course downloading is even cheaper. YMMV, but when I can get a CD set in my mailbox for only a few dollars more than downloading and burning one myself, that has always had my preference.
    • Yes, you are. Linux is cheap but the developers that write OS/apps aren't. I've bought at least 1 set of CDs a year (Libranet, Mandrake, Redhat, OpenBSD, SUSE) and the cost is usually around $30-60 dollars for one set. My verdict on the price? Dirt cheap. Even if I could get the ISOs burnt to a CD for me for $2-3 bucks.

  • Clever... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i love pineapples ( 742841 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:04PM (#9415240) Homepage
    This seems like a pretty clever plan to get people to try their distro. They give the user the "comfort" of being able to thing "Oh, this is good... at least if I don't like Linspire I can try out the others... there's bound to be one distro I'll like," and even if that person does end up choosing one of the others, at least they made a profit.

    Were I a newbie looking to try out Linux, I would probably test drive Mandrake or Fedore before giving Linspire a spin, so this seems like a clever way to profit off that tendency.

  • I've made up my mind (Score:5, Funny)

    by TechnologyX ( 743745 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:13PM (#9415283) Journal
    "Pornography web filtering available?: Yes ( Linspire ) No ( Mandrake ) No ( Fedora )"

    I'm thinking a big no on Linspire.

  • When will Microsoft do the same?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by OlaL ( 70511 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:17PM (#9415309) Homepage
    I wonder how long it takes before our beloved mr Gates gets the same idea and offers a couple of linux CDs with every Windows to "try them out"...

    That'll be the day!
    • Don't worry, they've already posted an entirely unbiased analysis of Linux [microsoft.com]. Clearly, there's no need for Linux when Windows is so much better.

      *cough*

    • Those who try it, will install linux, try to get the sound card to work, and will fail... try to get their HP or Epson printer to work, fail, and decide: "hey, this looks neat, and all, but I don't know how to add software, I don't want to learn this text command thingy, and I can't hear or print anything"... they leave linux, never wanting to try it again, and are thankful they have winodws... it would be DETRIMENTAL to linux, for Microsoft to bundle in linux..

      and yes, it is virtually impossible to reall

  • My own shootout (Score:3, Informative)

    by MooKore 2004 ( 737557 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @05:18PM (#9415311) Homepage Journal
    I have tried all these distributions, and here is what I think of them.

    Lindows. I got this back at an Osnews promotion a while ago. While it was easy to install, the software selection was limited and if you wanted more you had to pay for click and run. It was just a spiffed up KDE and a few flash demos. Didn't stay on my system for long

    Mandrake. The best out of the three, very easy to use, large software selection. I used the cooker for a while but I got bored of Mandrake and tried Fedora Core 2 instead.

    Fedora Core 2. Easy to installm but takes a long time. Uses GNOME by default but a castrated GNOME. KDE was screwed too. The Nvidia drivers on it sucked so out it went.

    I now use SuSE 9.1, which in my opinion is the best Linux yet. It so easy to use, with a massive software collection, including loads of GAMES, the NVIDIA patch makes it easy to set up, so this is the distribution that has won the shootout.

    I have also tried Debian (too hard), Gentoo (too easy to smash the portage tree), Ark (weird), Xandros Open Circulation (Too strange), Windows XP (worst of all, uninstalled in less than an hour).
    • >I have also tried Debian (too hard)

      While I concur that SuSE is an awesome distro, I disagree about Debian being too hard. My first Linux install was a purchase of 4 Debian Potato 2.2r4 CDs. While I did mess up my system very quickly (ahhh newbie meets the power of root), 2nd install was great. Woody even easier. I must say though, my distributor gave me a printed guide on how to install Debian. Following that was a doddle. Real easy.

      I use SuSE on a Laptop, just for a quick install with oddball har
  • Not only is this a good idea because it helps to spread Linux as a whole, but it gives a nice taste of the various distros, and gives those who feel they are ready to dive a little deeper two solid distros to try out. I can see a user purchasing the set, starting with Lindows for a while, then eventually switching to Fedora or Mandrake once they are a little more comfortable with their environement... However, both Fedora and Mandrake are fairly easy to use on their own (and Mandrake 10 is just flat out aw
  • First off lets just point out that Lindows has a DVD Player available that was built for Lindows. Hrm my 90 dollar copy of SuSE 9.1 does not and it's a pain to get it installed.

    Lindows has many packages that provide features that WindowsXP provided such as a pictures organizer and other stuff available to the users.

    Other distro's who want to target the desktop enviroment would do well by taking a look at how Lindows/Linspire, Xandros, and Lycoris are pushing their wares.

  • SuSE did a similar thing long long ago... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Wudbaer ( 48473 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @06:06PM (#9415546) Homepage
    Some years ago (IIRC something around '96-'98) SuSE regularly produced a multi-CD set with several popular distributions (SuSE certainly, Redhat, and perhaps Slackware and something else, too long ago to remember). Was also not too expensive, something around 25 EUR for six or seven CDs. Back then it came quite handy as downloading a whole distro via dialup was not really fun.

  • They should fix CUPS while they're at it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chiph ( 523845 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @08:19PM (#9416259)
    Spent the weekend at Mom & Dad's house trying to get Linspire (nee Lindows) to print a test page on his Epson inkjet (connected via LPR/LPD on a DLink print server). Started: 4pm; Finished: 9am the next morning. Next I loaded RedHat 9 -- same thing.

    Stuff like this is why OSS software will have a tough time displacing software from Redmond.

    Chip H.
  • When Lindows was first announced, I signed up for the Insider program. Recently I received a coupon for a free copy of Linspire 4.5 and a 5 month full membership to their warehouse feature. Quite simply an offer I couldn't refuse. I downloaded Linspire 4.5 and checked it out, and I'd have to say it's pretty tight. My hardware all worked out of the box with no configuration (other than switching the network settings away from DHCP), and the click-n-run feature is drop-dead simple. In no time I had a queue of

  • Michael Robertson (Score:3, Informative)

    by fhic ( 214533 ) on Sunday June 13, 2004 @09:50PM (#9416665)
    In the past I've had a lot of respect for this guy. But in the last year, it's been nearly completely eroded. He seems to think that it's still the 1990s, and you can run a business by jumping from one buzzword to another every couple of months.

    Michael, here's a clue: concentrate on one thing until it's done, before you jump on to the next thing. And keep your personality out of it!

    I've drunk the Lindows/Linspire Kool-Aid. It seems like a worthwhile project. I actually went out and bought copies, and I've installed them on friend's and family's machines. It's a nice distro, as far as it goes. Few Slashdotters would be happy with it, but for someone whose whole world has been Windows-based, it's perfect. And CNR is darn near brilliant.

    For a couple of months, a lot of the Lindows developers' focus was going into one of Michael's pet projects, NVU [nvu.com], which was going to be a free, open-source replacement for MS FrontPage. Great idea, right? Well, it got to version 0.2, which almost-works but appears to be completely stalled. The announced 1st-quarter release date has long since come and gone.

    This month his focus seems to have shifted over to this silly "shootout" between distros. Hey Mike, another clue: Lindows is a pretty nice thing, but you haven't got a chance in Hell of competing with Fedora or Mandrake. They're aimed at a much different target audience, and that audience doesn't need a pre-installed GUI. And your average Lindows user is going to take a look at Mandrake and run away fast.

    Last month it was his VOIP startup, SIP-phone or whatever it's called. It sounds like a great idea, but I'm not buying it, because I don't know if his focus is going to shift to something else while this one falls by the wayside in a month or two, half finished.

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