A few months ago we wrote a full review of the Lycoris Desktop/LX operating system, but many releases happened since then and some things have changed. The Lycoris folks sent us the latest official version (+ online patches), we tested it, and here is what we think about it.
The (very easy) installation procedure hasn’t change much since the last reviewed version in March 2002, so you still get to… play Solitaire while the OS is being installed. This time the Lycoris icons (and not the older Redmond Linux ones) are in place in the installer and the OS itself.
I had two major problems installing Lycoris this time. While booting off the CDRom, Lizard, the installer would just freeze. The reason was because X wouldn’t load because the ramdisk size was not enough. Apparently, this bug is around for some months, but there is even a (nasty, from the Joe User’s point of view) workaround for it, however the installation wouldn’t get through without using it. After installing the OS, Lycoris wouldn’t load in X mode, but rather in “safe” text mode with an app loaded asking me the way I would like to configure X. Apparently, the installer didn’t create a valid XF86Config file despite the fact that it recognized my monitor and card, so I had to recreate it by using this text mode app. I installed Lycoris on VMWare as well, and on VMWare everything went fine, but not on my “real” PC.
After doing so, X11 would load and a (modified) KDE 2.2.2 would load too successfully. The icons are indeed similar (and not the same) as in Windows XP, which I find it a ‘plus’ personally, as the target audience of Lycoris are Windows users and not hardcore Linux ones. The theme, colors, background images available and icons give the user an upright feeling, they have a euphoric side in them, and I personally favor them.
Since our last review, Lycoris have released two important components: The Lycoris application packager (IRIS) and the new Control Center.
The “Install New Software” option under the “System Management” submenu on the main Lycoris taskbar menu, will open a (modified) Konqueror window and you will have three options: to install something from a floppy or a CD, or via the net or the option to view/remove existing installed software. The third option just loads the well known KPackage application which comes by default via KDE.
The second option will load another Konqueror window and it will get you to a page that Lycoris has set up with some categorized applications in it. If you choose to install something, the browser will go to SSL mode and you will need to have registered your Lycoris previously with an authentication key (called ProductID, it comes either if you buy the boxed version of Lycoris, or later via the web for $20 USD) in order to be able to download and install these apps. I have to say that the net installation works like a dream, really nice. No dependancy headaches for the user, just… click and run. 😉
The first option does not work well. I put in the second Lycoris CD, to install the developer’s tools that come seperately, but nothing is getting installed. It just returns an error. I haven’t managed to install the dev tools yet via the “visual” ways of Lycoris (without using command line and the rpm command line app that is).
Another great job the Lycoris guys have done is the “Update Wizard” application they offer. You click on it, a window will open and it will connect to the Lycoris web site to see if any new files are available for updating your OS. Lycoris is able to download and update on the fly new XFree servers, kernels, applications, libraries, you name it. I used it twice so far and it works like a charm. The only thing it lacks is to automatically inform the user when there are new updates available.
The Control Center has been revamped and it is now web based, kinda like the one found on Windows XP. Clicking to an item will actually open a real application to modify your system. Some of the pref panels opening are straight out of KDE, but others are purely created by Lycoris and they are therefore unique. You will find unique tools for the init process, bootmanager, networking, hardware wizards to install/remove hardware, change resolution and refresh rate, graphics card, samba and much more. These config panels that truly allow you easily play with hardware and drivers (as well as the installation process of new software) are the two strong key
points and reasons for running Lycoris as a desktop.
In the System Management submenu you will find more goodies, like the Desktop Sharing option (able to connect to a Windows terminal server too).
Lycoris comes with a fair deal of software installed. You will find Internet software, KOffice, some games, Xine, Gimp, XMMS, digital camera apps, TV app, Real Player and more. For $10 more you can buy the Deluxe version of Lycoris that includes more software and Open Office. As we said, you can also download some software via the IRIS, but the big problem here is that IRIS contains less than 50 real applications! While Lindows’ ClicknRun, Xandros Debian mirrors, or even Gentoo’s Portage include thousands of applications, IRIS offers very-very few. I listened to a radio interview of Jason from Lycoris who said that they offer few apps because they make sure that these apps work ok. I understand that less apps means less support headaches for the Lycoris support team, but on the other hand, this truly limits the user! For example, I wanted to download a Yahoo! messenger application, and KYim offered via IRIS just doesn’t work (can’t find the Y! server). And the official Yahoo IM app won’t install manually because of failed dependancies. There is only one game to select from IRIS too! There are no other important applications like Evolution, Gnumeric or AbiWord to choose from (and there is already some GTK+ support however coming with Desktop/LX). While I perfectly understand the argument that “one application for each kind” should be offered, on the other hand, people pay for Desktop/LX and the reason they pay for it, is because they want choice and more applications included in IRIS. IRIS just doesn’t offer enough applications (yet?).
Lycoris automatically mounts other supported partitions, like ReiserFS partitions, FAT and NTFS. Lycoris itself comes with the ext3 filesystem and it automounts and autoloads any inserted CDRoms. Default browser is Mozilla 1.0. The Help system is good and functional.
On the down side of Lycoris, is its ugly fonts. I think there is something wrong with either Freetype or the setup of their XServer. All their versions I tried (both on VMWare and on my PC) load this utterly ugly font called “Arial MT”. While I have seen this font rendering on other Linux distros, specifically under Lycoris it just doesn’t render well. I installed the Font Installer utility off the second Lycoris CD, and migrated my Windows web fonts. The official Arial renders better, but it still does not render as well as in other distributions, which leads me to conclusion that it is not even Arial MT’s fault for rendering ugly, but something else deeper in the rendering code. To make things even worse, Joseph has hardcoded this Arial MT font to all the Lycoris homebrewed config panels (like the networking or the hardware wizard one), and even if you change your KDE to use a better font, you will still get apps that use this below par font.
Also, after you change to another font, the KDE terminal loses AA and from that point on, no matter what you do, you won’t be having any AA in it. I also notice that Lycoris does not use the Qt enviromental variable to allow KDE applications that are launched from the terminal to use AA. I hope this will get fixed as well (mind you, there is another bug there that if you actually load the KTerminal from inside a terminal that has loaded the AA variable, the actual font inside the terminal session are not handled correctly – you get tab spaces all over the place). In my opinion, Lycoris is also about looking nice, so this font problem (which was reported months ago from me and a whole lot of others) should be fixed as soon as it is possible.
Another problem with Lycoris is speed and latency. Sometimes, when I open a KDE application, or when I save down a document, XMMS will create distorted sound for some seconds, for as long the action is taking place. I think Lycoris should consider include the preemptive/low latency patch on the kernel because mulitimedia and other performance is just not great.
Also, there are still a few fixes and changes to be made to the UI. For example, on the context desktop menu of “Create New”, you get both a “Text File” and “Text Document” entries, while the included “Illustration Document” is broken, because Kontour is not installed along with the rest of the KOffice. Also, I liked the Xandros way of minimizing the (cluttered by default KDE) context desktop menu entries to absolute minimal. “Less is better” for a desktop OS, and the Lycoris folks already know this. Also, while there is a “Most used applications” placeholder in the Lycoris main menu, there is none for the most used or most recent documents. I think that this should be added too.
The last problem I had with this version is that it pretty much only supported 3D for nVidia cards. By being a small company like Lycoris (4-5 people) it is indeed difficult to test 3D drivers for so many PC configurations out there, but 3D is important for most home users.
I can’t help it but compare Lycoris with Xandros and Lindows, because they have similar goals and targeting audience. Lycoris looks much-much better than Xandros, it includes more software by default and better control panels and software/OS installation/update apps. Xandros on the other hand, offers more options to the panel that allows you to share directories via NFS or SMB, or a panel that allows you to find other printers or computer on the network. As for Lindows, they now offer easy configuration of Wireless computing and they have upgraded to KDE 3.x which offers some more eye candy.
Personally, I feel that if Lycoris fixes the annoying installation and font rendering bugs, add better 3D support and overall OS speed, offer more applications via IRIS, polish a bit more the UI and add some of the pref panels that their competition has, we are seriously looking at a very promising (and fearsome by their competitors 🙂 operating system. An operating system that can easily be used instead of Windows without missing almost anything. I am eagerly awaiting the new version, but even this current official build will be good enough for many.
Installation: 6/10 (that would have been a 9 if I didn’t have the 2 major installation problems)
Hardware Support: 8/10 (no 3Dfx V5 in 3D mode, my digital camera isn’t recognized)
Ease of use: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Speed: 7.5/10 (UI responsiveness, latency, throughput)
Overall: 7.5 / 10
I feel honoured to be the fisrt one to post a comment for this news story lol
Anyway, it looks all nice and yeah I agree the fonts are really ugly. They must do something about it. How about including that Xft hack or something?
it’s true, considering the size of the company that the distro is as sharp as it is. a truly amazing feat.
all i have to say is look out for BERYL! from what the community is told, it will no longer be hampered by the caldera base, and we should expect some amzing innovation in it.
keep up the good work Eugenia..this was one of the best reviews of Lycoris I’ve seen…and I’ve read most, if not all of them.
Seems to slow down my systems considerably, and seeing as how Lycoris is somewhat slow already (At least for me), I don’t think it would be a good idea…
It is not the XFT hack that it is needed on Lycoris. It is simply a misconfiguration of either Freetype or xft. No hacks needed, it is just that the “collision” system of the renderer does not work as well as in other distros. This is a bug, no hacks needed, just a fix.
Quite an honest review. we need more reviews like this for all the distributions, and maybe then we can start seeing some progress in the right direction?
i’m pleased i bought my copy of this distro, coz maybe one day they will have a dozen ppl working there and seeing a real os that can displace windoze.
Xandros vs. Lindows 2.0 vs. Mandrake 9 vs. Redhat’s latest vs. Lycoris …
Man, which one to choose once they’re all released ?
Let’s just hope they manage to survive Red Hat’s upcoming desktop release. Granted, I’m a dedicated RH user, but I also enjoy good competition in the marketplace. In the end, competition is good for us all (excuse the obviousness of this statement).
their work is certainly impressive. How does lycoris plan to introduce this OS to the public ? Most people are not even aware that there are other operating systems that can be used in a pc.
i havnt read a single bad review of any redhat based distribution ever… i wonder if we’ll see one with their “desktop” release.
Scratch that, what has been the goal of redhat and mandrake, upuntil the last month, when redhat said they’ll make a desktop version of their distro? Was it to package a distribution with a goal (ie desktop or server or developer market), or just to package a distribution?
Wasnt v7 redhat suppost to be for the desktop? When did it change?
My point: is this all a set of marketing fud to stop promising distro’s (like lycoris) from making a difference in the operating system market?
Actually, Red Hat and Lycoris _do not_ collide.
Lycoris is aiming to the Windows home, desktop users.
The new Red Hat aims to the *business* desktop/workstation.
So, there is no point on comparing them, their markets are (still) different.
Eugenia, you underestimate the power of referral. As a power linux user both on servers and the desktop, I can guarantee you that, provided RH 8.0 matches the hype of Null, it *will* be the distribution I suggest most to newbies. I can’t say that 100% of the time right *now*.
And it has been proven time and time again, people tend to use at home what they’re used to at the office.
And it has been proven time and time again, people tend to use at home what they’re used to at the office.
When has it been proven? If anything the opposite has been proven that what people use at home they bring to the office. Since you are about to say Microsoft:
1 – When Microsoft became dominant in PCs operating systems large companies were almost exclusively dumb terminal based for their general employees
2 – Windows emerged out of the home market and was not a major player in the office market until Win 95, WinNT 3.5; well after the home market had jumped on the Win 3.0/3.1 releases
3 – Microsoft office moved in on the home market in the early 90’s as a result of a nasty price war “competitive upgrade” where they cut the cost for office applications by 70% overnight. This effected the home market long before the corporate market.
As another example consider Linux:
1) hacker OS + academia
2) Power users at home
and then it moved into corporate servers and embedded systems.
I know tons of people who run Z-os, VMS, and I-OS all the time at work; only two who run VMS at home and none primarily. AIX and Solaris are another example I know lots of people who run this at work and few who run it at home.
I don’t think it’s right for these distro’s to copy the design (look/feel) of Windows, I know they want to level out the learning curve. But what’s funny is with these distro’s is that the average user can’t expand Linux past the point of how to use the UI and after that they are stuck.
What i’m trying to say is, isn’t there a way to be original and provide an easy learning curve that also allows the user to gain some “important” knowledge? I mean the whole way people become very productive with computers is by understanding what their system is doing and how it runs.
Linux is all about this, taking that and covering it with cement and then adding some gloss shows me the lack of innovation these new distro’s have.
Speed guys!more speed!lycoris doesn’t have quick interaction and if we consider the fact that it will be bundled with low-price computers most of the time!so imagine an os running slowly on a low-price pc!!
When has it been proven? If anything the opposite has been proven that what people use at home they bring to the office. Since you are about to say Microsoft:
No, I’m not being specific to Microsoft. This claim is true of any OS that runs on x86 commodity hardware. OS/2, Windows 3.1/95, DOS. Gosh, provided there had been more successful OS’s in the corporate workspace for this platform *these* are what you’d have seen in homes.
I know tons of people who run Z-os, VMS, and I-OS all the time at work; only two who run VMS at home and none primarily. AIX and Solaris are another example I know lots of people who run this at work and few who run it at home.
Your entire post attempts to debunk my claim, rather than provide a qualifiable argument of your own. Not coincidentally, four of the five OS’s you’ve listed as “examples” above are available for commodity hardware. Since when have folks had mainframe hardware at home for running these systems? Oh gosh… I once knew a guy who owned four (count ’em, four) Crays. Guess he skews the whole bell curve, eh?
Regardless of whether my statement is causal or coincidental, it’s still a fact.
s/are available/are not available/;
Eugenia,
thanks for the review. I get the feeling that Lycoris have bitten off more than they can chew: All the many minor annoyances and installation hurdles take time to fix, then there is the package management, marketing — I just don’t think they can do it without some funding or a Debian-style grassroots effort. I also immediately noticed the ugly fonts and was just waiting for you to mention them in your review 🙂
Fonts on Linux have been a pain in the ass for me ever since I’ve switched — it’s really time for someone to fix this problem once and for all. Maybe Red Hat — the null screenshots looked nice, and if they continue to provide all their stuff for free, others will be able to easily adopt it (or die). X performance is another issue (wait for the zealots to come out of the woods and scream “X is great! X is superior! X is networked!”). I really feel that X as a whole with all its little differently working differently configured modules is holding back Linux desktop progress. Also, it is a barrier to entry for new Linux distributors — you need manpower to wade through the X crapland and turn it into a usable state. (“De-uglification HOWTO?” WTF?!)
I really hope Debian-based distributions like Xandros take off (and I hope Robertson changes his mind about root — maybe Perens can convince him). What you describe as a reasoanble approach — one app for every purpose — I consider deadly: Sure, a basic configuration is nice, but if you can’t replace one standard app with another standard app, what’s the point of free software? Fuck it then — I don’t want to be locked into Lycoris’ choices. Lycoris will never be able to reach Debian’s level with only a dozen package maintainers or so.
In conclusion, I think you overrate the looks of Lycoris (BTW — nice as this sunflower image may look, it would annoy me in day to day work) and downplay its major shortcomings from installation to daily use. I don’t see it as a serious contender on the desktop market — I just don’t believe they can pull it off with such a small team. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong.
One question: Have they turned Anti-Aliasing on in Mozilla? Has anyone gotten it to work just right? For me it’s terribly slow (AA is already slow in KDE, but in Mozilla it’s even slower) and only works with half of the fonts. Bah. Fonts on Linux — the perpetual nightmare. If there’s a hell for each profession, Linux is the hell for typographers.
I’m not a professional interface designer, but I’d figure that there are only so many interface designs that will be easy to use, and offer the user a high level of productivity. The idea of having multiple, floating windows for example, is one that has been proven time and time again. Now take the next logical step, if you have more than 2 or 3 windows, you’re going to need a way to keep track of them. A list is the most simple way. Now, what’s teh fastest way to click on the list elements to select the active window. Large boxes would work the best; tuck them away at the bottom, top or side of the screen so they don’t get in the way. Now add controls to manipulate the window (one to make it larger, one to close it, one to hide it, one that allows the user to drag-resize it).
Geez, starting to sound a lot like Windows, huh?
Now I’ll admit, trying to copy the default wallpaper and icon set of Windows XP is just absurd, that doesn’t make or break an interface. (however having terribly ugly icons *cough* desktop linux in general *cough* doesn’t help at all)
If you ask me, having a fast, functional user interface should be a top priority.
Just remember, until the interface and applications are standardized across the OS, Linux on the desktop doesn’t stand a chance. The reason that Linux hasn’t become a viable OS alternative isn’t because of the ‘evil empire’, it’s because of the applications (or lack of). Mozilla and Open Office are making great progress, but it’s just not there yet.
I tried it a couple of weeks ago and my experience is totally opposite …
Installation – Still asked way too many things for an average user to make mistake like what I did or understand. Selected 1280×1024@85Hz resolution for my 19″ monitor but it booted up at 640×480@60 Hz instead. Basiaclly, had to reinstall again and pick 1024×768. Picking anything else will boot at 640×480. A very poor quality product.
Control Center – beauty is only skin deep. Afterwards, still pop up with the same old panels that Caldera used to use or the standard kde ones. Some of them are so hard to undertsand and some of them don’t even start properly. Their approach in the implmentation of the Control Centre is basically konqueror running some html with exec URLs. A smart and simple approach but it also means that anyone of their competition can achieve the same thing in less than 2 weeks. Basically, no competitive advantage at all.
I encourage the reviewer to do some real acid tests. For example, try to figure out (as a desktop user) on how to copy some files onto a floppy. Drove me nuts and still can’t unless doing it from the console ;-(
Lycoris is the last thing any desktop user will need.
>I encourage the reviewer to do some real acid tests.
Like I did with Xandros? 😉
>Lycoris is the last thing any desktop user will need.
I disagree. It is not perfect and not there yet. But it is getting closer.
Thanks for the in-depth review, Eugenia! I think you really hit the good and not-so-good points on the head.
I am a big supporter of Lycoris. As others have mentioned, it is astonishing what they have been able to accomplish with 4-5 people.
I have never like desktop pictures and use the default background color. Lycoris looks like Windows, yet it does have a look of its own too, in a way. You spoke of it, Eugenia, it’s sort of a light breezy, airy look. Not what you usually see in a Linux distro. I really commend them for that.
I was excited when IRIS finally went up, yet it does offer very little still, as you said.
The font problem needs no more comment, lol.
I’ve been thinking, remembering job situations where I ended up trying to juggle too much at once. It’s sort of like the comment above about biting off more than they can chew. I found, in those situations, I lost the sense of how to prioritze – everything seemed of equal priority and, as a result, everything suffered. I hope those poor 4-5 people aren’t in that boat. But, it would seem they would have to focus on one or two things and get those going right and then follow with the things they did not consider to be at the top of the list. I would think they would get their best results by doing that.
I think they should first focus on the font problem and on IRIS. I say that because they have an interface that is very pleasing and don’t have to do anything big right now with it – except fix the font problem. That will make all the difference in the world. Their Update Wizard is excellent, so there’s no problems there. So, focus on IRIS. They don’t have to go crazy on it, but get some more software in each category. That will increase usability and interest.
I stop at those two because asking more would be too much, I think. yet, I also don’t know what they have in store for Beryl or when it might arrive (with KDE 3?).
Some have given good arguments for Lycoris having a hard time staying afloat. I hope those arguments are wrong, but they are legitimate and need to be examined. I am rooting for them because they have made Linux attractive in the visual sense, in a sense that makes people want to use it. It attracts the eye in a good, pleasing sense. And not with eye candy, in the true sense of the term, either, but by the overall look itself.
I was somewhat disturbed that Eugenia had trouble installing (not the developer tools, but the distro itself). That is crucial to Lycoris. Ease of use and installation is so critical to them, they would fold up immediately if that came into jeopardy. Eugenia, do you have any idea why that might have happened? Bad CD? Was it the double Celeron or Microtel?? <g>
One last thing – speed. The first time I installed Lycoris was on my Microtel and, after installation, it was very slow. Then I rebooted and everything was fine. In my heavy use of Lycoris, speed has not been an issue really. On the other hand, the Microtel has 1.6 MHz Athalon XP and 1 GB RAM, so it’s pretty fast.
Thanks again for the great review!
It’s amazing to see all the Linux distros coming into bloom.
The fact that they all seem to offer something interesting, one way or another, is a blessing for the Linux community.
For the same reason that Todd Hoff wants to switch to Mac, I hope many users switch from Windows to whatever flavor of Linux they like best —
Todd Hoff writes:
I’m a Windows-only user and I plan to switch to the Mac on my next purchase because of XP’s DRM approach. Using XP would be like voluntarily entering a jail cell and closing the door.
And the Microsoft DRM in Windows XP is a teddy bear compared to what their BigBrotherInside OS is going to look like in the future.
Voting for freedom is switching from Windows to either Linux or Mac.
#m
> Eugenia, do you have any idea why that might have happened?
Yes, the ramdisk was the problem. In some machines (I used the dual Celerons) you will run out of ramdisk and X won’t have space to load.
Joseph of Lycoris is aware of the problem, in fact he was able to reproduce it in his lab for some time now, but it is still not fixed.
“I’m a Windows-only user and I plan to switch to the Mac on my next purchase because of XP’s DRM approach. Using XP would be like voluntarily entering a jail cell and closing the door.”
I got my copy of XP w/SP1 slipstreamed from alt.binaries.cd.image and as far as I can tell, DRM doesn’t exist in my copy
“Voting for freedom is switching from Windows to either Linux or Mac.”
I’ve said it many times before .. be careful what you wish for. If you get too many people on the Linux platform and away from Windows, The Corporation will soon follow. After that, Linux will become exactly like Windows is now. Hell, based on some of the screenshots I’ve seen around here lately, it’s already on its way
While Lindows’ ClicknRun, Xandros Debian mirrors, or even Gentoo’s Portage include thousands of applications, IRIS offers very-very few.
Lindows CNR has thousands of apps? Wow, I didn’t notice that when I was at http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_categories.php
Lindows CnR has already 1173 applications over there. Debian and Portage *do* have thousands.
IRIS has around 50.
Maybe I suggest that you look at the freetype source code, what has been disabled, why and how it can be corrected. Want someone to blame for the poor font quality, blame Adobe.
No, I won’t blame Adobe in this case, I will have to blame Lycoris, because the _same fonts_ render *better* on other distributions.
Great review, and a very promising product, though I’ve always thought that of Lycoris – one more major version with a few more clean-ups and I’ll seriously consider buying it, if for no other reason than to help them stay afloat. As has been said, they’ve acheived a remarkable amount so far.
I don’t see how you can complain about their install process – to my mind, it is easier and friendlier than Windows, and certainly nicer than a lot of other Linux installers. There are a few hardware detection issues to be sorted out, though.
To those who think X should die, take a minute to think about how this would ever work in the current scheme of things. You’d no doubt lose compatibility with all the existing X apps (of which there are now thousands), not to mention losing the very nice ability to do remote desktops, a feature that is now built-in to Windows XP and becoming more and more popular in Windows, and thus is more likely to be missed. No, I think the way this problem will be solved is if the XFree86 team come up with some major improvements in XFree86 5.0, which from what I’ve read it sounds like they are planning to do.
I just had a look. They’re still using KDE 2.2.2, which has shocking Anti-aliasing results. It would be great if they moved to qt 3.03/KDE 3.0.3 for better anti-aliasing results.
Lycoris has an update to Freetype2 in their beta section. I haven’t tried it, but it could improve font rendering.
Anonymous: i havnt read a single bad review of any redhat based distribution ever… i wonder if we’ll see one with their “desktop” release.
You obviously haven’t read the reviews on KDE’s mailing list. But as an ex-Null user, I would say the only thing wrong with Null is many KDE apps can’t work (except those bundled with RH) and also there is no proper PPPoE config client, CLI or GUI, forcing me to download one and it is quite an inconvience compared to Mandrake or Windows.
Anonymous: Wasnt v7 redhat suppost to be for the desktop? When did it change?
Red Hat never intended for Version 7 to be for the desktop, it was just easier than usual that many reviewers thought so. Many also thought that 7.2 would be for the desktop with the inclusion of GNOME 1.4, but it was dissapointing.
Eugenia: Lycoris is aiming to the Windows home, desktop users.
The new Red Hat aims to the *business* desktop/workstation.
So, there is no point on comparing them, their markets are (still) different.
Except that most people normally use the same OS (same version too) at home as they do in the office, especially those not the geekish kind, or not willing to learn two different UIs and use two different UIs.
But nontheless, I think you got the target markets wrong.
Lycoris: For ultracheap PCs, similar to that from Lindows.
Red Hat: For profit 🙂
jbolden1517: 1 – When Microsoft became dominant in PCs operating systems large companies were almost exclusively dumb terminal based for their general employees
Both OS/2 and Microsoft Windows were faster in getting customers from the corporate market than from the consumer market. Yes, before Windows 3.1/NT 3.5 and OS/2 2.0, many companies were using terminal based computers – if they are using computers anyway, but they were switching to OS/2 and Windows much faster than the consumer market.
Why? Many consumers don’t have PCs. When people started buying PCs, the growth seems larger because there isn’t any other strong players there in the market. While in the corporate market, Microsoft and IBM’s OS/2 division were taking market share from terminal based computers.
jbolden1517: 2 – Windows emerged out of the home market and was not a major player in the office market until Win 95, WinNT 3.5; well after the home market had jumped on the Win 3.0/3.1 releases
Windows 3.1 can be considered the first corporate offering by Microsoft alone. It had also developed a version of Office for it. Besides, before Windows 3.1, Microsoft and IBM had been making serious inroads in the corporate market with OS/2. (Windows 3.1 is the starting point of their divorce, BTW).
jbolden1517: AIX and Solaris are another example I know lots of people who run this at work and few who run it at home.
Because these two we originally created for high end workstations, servers and mainframes. I doubt I want to buy an IBM mainframe to check my personal mail when I come home from work. The point being made here is for desktop OS.
Xirzon: X performance is another issue (wait for the zealots to come out of the woods and scream “X is great! X is superior! X is networked!”).
I’m not a zealot, but current performance of XFree86 is really good. Most of the blame should go on lack of drivers, as drivers provided by XFree86 isn’t really optimized for the hardware.
I once had problems with performance with X, but that for around 2 years ago. Come on, stop critizing XFree86 4.x for 3.x problems.
kyle: Just remember, until the interface and applications are standardized across the OS, Linux on the desktop doesn’t stand a chance.
Oh boy. I didn’t KNOW that. Hehe. People would judgde Linux by the distributions and it is up to the distribution to choose an desktop and push it to the maximum. Free Desktop standards is really helping bring the GNOME and KDE worlds together. Probably one day with KDE 5 and GNOME 4 (based on .NET, hehehe, kidding) would have each other applications look completely native in both GNOME and KDE. Who knows?
Besides, I would move to another OS if a choice for what desktop I want is taken away from me. I don’t think that normal consumers should be overwhelm by forcing them to choose, but I think it is an right decision to allow them to choose if they want to. (like Red Hat’s approach).
Jay: It attracts the eye in a good, pleasing sense. And not with eye candy, in the true sense of the term, either, but by the overall look itself.
I wouldn’t call it beatiful. Yes, the icons are as nice as those on Windows XP, but the window decoration, the Qt style etc. is so ugly…. and it is still ugly if the font issue is resolve. May be personal preferences, but I rather use RH Null which has a more professional and light look.
Michael: I’m a Windows-only user and I plan to switch to the Mac on my next purchase because of XP’s DRM approach. Using XP would be like voluntarily entering a jail cell and closing the door.
And the Microsoft DRM in Windows XP is a teddy bear compared to what their BigBrotherInside OS is going to look like in the future.
Idiots. Running away from Windows because of DRM? It doesn’t affect the way you enjoy your media you have. So how does it affect you anyway? You would be able to download, obviously for a fee, DRM media and play it. Don’t like the approach? Don’t buy DRM media. As if you can buy DRM media on Mac OS anyway. So the switch for Todd is not educated and stupid.
Darius: I got my copy of XP w/SP1 slipstreamed from alt.binaries.cd.image and as far as I can tell, DRM doesn’t exist in my copy
DRM is for media control. What you are speaking about is illegally nad immorally stealing ones product, and you aren’t getting a product without DRM, but without WPA.
Eugenia: Lindows CnR has already 1173 applications over there. Debian and Portage *do* have thousands.
Most of CNR applications in Ultilities are standard KDE apps installed on Lycoris (no need for downloads). Stuff like Language Packs is already loaded on Lycoris’ CD, not made available on CNR. And so on. I think the number would drastically lower if Lindows put back the ultilities back into KDE.
Yeah, but IRIS still has little apps, but CNR doesn’t have “thousands”
Paul Eggleton: You’d no doubt lose compatibility with all the existing X apps (of which there are now thousands), not to mention losing the very nice ability to do remote desktops
Many of these apps aren’t suitable for the desktop *yet*. Plus some of them are made for high end workstation stuff.
Besides, remote displays isn’t a feature on X11 could have. Fresco for example has this feature (not saying Fresco is ready to kill X but….).
I know I know, I’m about to say really stupid things, but heh..
What I do not understand is how it’s still possible in 2002 to not come up with a cool desktop linux distro. I mean, hell, I should just ghost my linux instalation and make it publicly available on the web and call it “D’s amazing usable desktop Gnu/linux thingy” or something. I mean, we’ve got it all! It’s all there, someone needs to grab the play doh and mold it into something awesome. I do it every single time I test a new version of slackware or redhat or whatever, name them. How come I read that “almost there” line everytime I stumble upon a linux review?? We’ve got KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, Windowmaker, etc, tons of tools for configuring and customizing, it’s all there. It’s a great community, but still, I get the feeling everybody’s too busy fighting over what desktop environment REALLY kicks ass, who’s wrong, who’s right, what’s cool, what’s not, windows is better, blah, blah, blah, instead of doing stuff with what we’ve already got. Ah, I know, you’ve heard it all before, I should do something instead of just bitching on the forums, [add your own insult here]. Well I’m not a programmer, but I’m a passionate user, I love to love my OS. And I do love linux. And everytime I read your posts I get sooo depressed. It feels like it’s more important to have strong opinions and bash people than anything else. It’s sad, but I guess that’s just the way we are.
Well, since Lycoris is trying to make similar appearance to Xp, I really think they should change default theme, I really hate this non-flat win 98/2000 theme. If they change it to flat I buying it.
Well, most people see Xfree86 and think that is X. It isn’t until one uses a commercial X, when the tune starts to change.
For example, SGI IRIX uses X, and people don’t complain about the performance. Regarding Linux/FreeBSD, if it is so bad, why not go out and buy AccelerateX? heck, you’ve got the OS for free, why not spend a few dollars and get really good performance by using a commercial X server with optimised drivers.
Great review, and a very promising product, though I’ve always thought that of Lycoris – one more major version with a few more clean-ups and I’ll seriously consider buying it, if for no other reason than to help them stay afloat. As has been said, they’ve acheived a remarkable amount so far.
Maybe you should buy a copy now, and make sure they do release the next version?
Which is exactly my point!
Glad we can agree for the FIRST time 🙂
Ahh, you are almost there.
What is wrong with Linux distributions making progress? What is wrong with reviews questioning some parts of an Linux distribution and say it isn’t ready yet. Eugenia is a reviewer, probably don’t have any plans to make a new distro.
What’s so with constructive criticism?
Great review, and a very promising product, though I’ve always thought that of Lycoris – one more major version with a few more clean-ups and I’ll seriously consider buying it, if for no other reason than to help them stay afloat. As has been said, they’ve acheived a remarkable amount so far.
Maybe you should buy a copy now, and make sure they do release the next version?
And so? there will always be new distros, if one go down next will come
rajan r wrote:
> Many of these apps aren’t suitable for the desktop *yet*.
> Plus some of them are made for high end workstation
> stuff.
Yes, but they’re better than almost no apps, which is what we have for alternative desktop display systems. There are a huge range of X apps, some of which are reaching maturity. It would be utter stupidity to throw away the work done on these apps. X is not going to go away – it’s just going to get better.
Its is easy to find solutions to problems like in speed (a Xfree problem, BTW), features, fonts, and the list goes on and on. But it is impossible to correct one of the most worse fundamental design decision by X (from the early ages of X1 to X11). The lack of standard UI widgets. This causes UI inconsistency as different solutions came out to fix the problem.
Are there other window managers as options? Can’t stand KDE. Did they fix the mouse problem?
From all desktop Linux distros I have read about so far, I think the best ones are XandrOS, LindowsOS and Red Hat 8 especially XandrOS. I wouldn’t go for LindowsOS because of their insider program so I have to become an insider if I want to download LindowsOS. Well I don’t want to become an insider. I will either stick with XandrOS (most likely) or Rad Hat 8.
I was wondering if maybe it was a problem with my specific configuration as far as the latencey problem goes. I’m almost glad to know it’s not just me, though. I have a Athlon XP running at 1533MHz with a Quantum Fireball HDD. It takes about three minutes for install/remove software to even give any indication that it is loading!
Also, the OS installer won’t even start if my Promise Ultra33 card is plugged in (neither in vmware nor on my ‘real’ system).
I had much fewer problems with the initial release of DesktopLX.
Wine still won’t run any of my applications out of the box. It won’t run the two most important applications to me (Outlook and Trillian). I couldn’t get it to run any other applications, either. Why do they include Wine if it won’t run any software?
i’m pleased i bought my copy of this distro, coz maybe one day they will have a dozen ppl working there and seeing a real os that can displace windoze.
No one will take you seriously as long as you feel a need to be ‘1337.’ Use capital letters, use punctuation and for goodness sake, please don’t use hacker jargon. I learned this on a BBS back in ’92.
At least this time Eugenia actually tried out the product rather than looking at the screenshots.
Sounds nice, BTW. I do not plan on running this distro, though, due to the fact that Lycoris has been rather strange about copyrights in the past in relation to their icon sets. These guys like taking from the Free pool, but they do not seem to want to give back.
Eugenia, I’m just curious if your BIOS was set up as ‘yes’ for a plug & play aware OS. I remember after crashing my Suse install that Suse support (yes, they do exist:) asked me to set that parameter to ‘no’ while installing the OS after which things were fine. I have only seen vmware in action once, so I think it emulates the entire bootup process (BIOS & all)? If it does that, you might want to compare the default BIOS settings in vmware to that in your physical BIOS.
‘PnP OS’ is on “no” in my BIOS.
As I said, Lycoris know of the problem, it is a race condition I think.
LOL, I actually got a reply from SuSE once too 🙂
Mac OS X is based on BSD Unix. If this one is not a desktop OS, I don’t know what it is ! (Ok, maybe one of the developpers’ dream…)
So why can’t the free software community do the same ?
I think X is really a problem. X was initially made to have one giant box serving hundreads of dumb terminals. In my school there’s still a 2 rooms full of X terminals served by an OpenVMS.
But X is not the ideal desktop graphical server. Who use remote displaying of apps everyday ? Not me. Maybe 10 times a year, half of them just to impress friends.
Everything that appeared recently in X just seem to be (maybe not so) dirty hacks for me (thinking about DRI/DRM, Xinerama, Xaw).
With Mac OS X Quartz, you can also have a rootless X server to keep the compatibility with X apps, anyway.
Having a small number of default apps is good for the everyday user, again, look at how Apple is marketing iApps. To add one more thing in this way, IMHO competition with free software is something crazy. If people are targeting the same directions, they should work together, share source, knowledge and time !
I’m suprised no one mentioned SuSE 8 as a desktop OS. It is one of the best OSes I’vbe ever used. It’s absolutely fantastic, you should all try it!
Lunar: With Mac OS X Quartz, you can also have a rootless X server to keep the compatibility with X apps, anyway.
With extreemely slow speeds, yeah.
But you haven’t gave a compeling reason to move away from X11.
Anyway, I don’t agree with limiting competition. If GNOME isns’t around, I doubt kde-usablity mailing list would be around, nor would KDE would be where it is right now. Friendly competition helps. It also helps to have compatiblity between projects heading for the same target audience, something both KDE and GNOME is working on.