Lindows

[Ed Skinner]

On Friday 04 April 2003 17:06, Kyle Faber wrote:
> I have never used it, but I was just asked to investigate Lindows as a
> desktop replacement for every position here at the office from CEO to
> Secretary.
>
> I have never used it.  Any thoughts?

      I would have two concerns, one major, one minor.
      My major concern would be using the default Lindows configuration which 
runs the user as 'root'. A really bad, bad idea that leaves the system in an 
extremely vulnerable state. But I'm also told that this can be changed so 
that normal users run as normal Linux users. If you do that, I'd say the 
major problem is fixed.
     The minor problem is that your company will have to pay for Lindows 
itself and for the subscription that enables upgrades. If your system 
administrators could be a little more savvy, everyone could be running RedHat 
(without a fee, legally). Upgrades would have to be handled through the 
system administrators but, hey, isn't that what they do now anyway?
     I ran Lindows here at home on my wife's machine (the $200 cheapie from 
WalMart) for a couple of months. But ultimately I decided that RedHat would 
be essentially the same for her, RedHat came with more utilities and tools, 
and it didn't default to running everyone as root. I upgraded the system to 
RedHat and, after a five minute introduction, my wife was off and running and 
just as happy. That was several months ago.
     Last week we had lunch with a still-using-Microsoft person who was 
complaining about his latest crash and the terrible technical support he got 
from AOL [from India!]. Without any coaching my wife commented, "You know I 
just realized I haven't rebooted Linux. Ever!"
     My recommendation would be to sound like you're saying yes to Lindows but 
suggest an even lower-cost alternative that has all the pluses and fixes all 
the minuses: RedHat.

-- 
Ed Skinner, ed@flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/