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General discussion

Lindows

Dec 1, 2005 6:55AM PST

Lindows didn't pan out? I beg to differ. Lindows is now Linspire and is being sold on computers at Wal-Mart, Staples and SEVERAL online retailers.

I'm not a HUGE fan of Linspire (you gotta pay for it, I prefer Ubuntu) BUT, they do a lot of really nice things.

For a beginner, Linspire would be a great Linux distribution. Everything works right out of the box. One of the biggest reasons I like it, you don't have to install codecs to watch a video, it just works!

I prefer Ubuntu because its got a lot of support and its free!

Discussion is locked

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Apparently it works well
Dec 1, 2005 7:57AM PST

All right I feel like Dvorak here but come on, Lindows has failed. It was touted as putting Linux on the average person's desktop and competing head to head with Microsoft.

I wasn't saying Lindows was bad or even a bad idea. But it got a lot of hype and didn't pan out as a success. Not many people use it. Not yet anyway.

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Linux Geek
Dec 1, 2005 8:31AM PST

Ok, sorry Tom. I did misunderstand you. I apologize. I do agree with you though, it was suppose to be able to compete head to head with Microsoft and no, it is not doing that. I was looking at Wal-Mart and Staples just now and it is actually a bit harder to get a system with Linspire or Xandros on it (ok, not hard, but you have to look for it), they are not promoting these as much as they use to.

I'm just one of those Linux geeks who wants to see Linux on everyone's desktop, lol. Simply because, I'm tired of having to clean up everyone's crud! lol BUT, unfortunately, I too have to use Windows.

Its sort of like the open document standards, I have a friend who is blind and he cannot use many of the Linux distributions because there is simply not enough projects out there. There are a few, but they are still in the very early stages and have not released anything yet. (From all the ones I have found)

Same thing goes for Firefox, my friend cannot use Firefox because none of the applications he has tried will work with Firefox.

And, if I am wrong about this, someone please let me know, I'd really like to find another app for my friend.

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P.S.
Dec 1, 2005 8:40AM PST

Also the fact that Dell is now selling a PC for $299 & $399 with Windows (XP Home). Its almost like "Why bother" when you can get a cheap box like that.

I hate that! lol I really do!!! Ok, I don't hate Dell for doing that because a lot of people who can't afford a computer can have the chance at owning one for a good price.

Open Source, its a Love/Hate relationship!!!

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Good point about Xandros
Dec 2, 2005 3:21AM PST

I actually had a dual boot system with Xandros on it (until the hard drive fried last weekend) and loved it. But it never caught on either. It was a great desktop implementation though I found it hard to configure sometimes. I couldn't get apps to run as easily as I could in WINE on Red Hat. I also could never figuroe out how to reorder the bootloader so Windows was the default installation. This led to hilariousness when my wife used the computer and we'd both yell 'XANDROS!' when it started to boot into Linux and she wanted Windows. Then we'd race to the keyboard to try to change the boot option in time.

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I loved it
Dec 2, 2005 6:52AM PST

A while back I purchased the Xandros Deluxe Edition, I LOVED IT. I used it on my computer at the school I was working at. I had it installed as the only OS (but there were Windows computers all around, lol) BUT, when I left there I installed it on my main system here at home and had it running for a month. I finally had to revert back to Windows because Dreamweaver and Fireworks would always crash, and I HAVE to have those apps!

I put Linux on an older computer a while back for some younger relatives of mine. They LOVE it, especially because of all the games they can get! (Tux Racer mainly) And it is SO nice not having to go clean up their crud all the time!

So, theres an idea, lets get schools across America to stop teaching proprietary software! lol