Lindows.com Inc. announced today the immediate availability of LindowsOS 4.5. LindowsOS 4.5 delivers remote desktop sharing, integrated search features, and translation tools that place six different languages. LindowsOS 4.5 now comes SIP-ready with easy-to-use software, any computer with a microphone and speakers running LindowsOS 4.5 (free upgrade from 4.0) can make free worldwide calls.
LindowsOS 4.5 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Wish somebody would build some of this functionality into regular cordless phones, which, except for their range, have not improved much at all in the past 10 years. I can’t even find a phone that will let me build a damn ‘white list’ of callers (and I’ve actually looked for one too).
I guess the M$ lawsuits (in the Netherlands, Sweden and France) are not stiffling the innovation from this company…
This new release is absolutely awesome. Everyone needs to get this Linux on their machine. Get the lifetime membership, if any are left, at http://www.choicepc.com.
I have no direct problem with the Lindows OS. But making this announcement the same day that Xandros had pre-announced their availability date is not a coincidence. It’s a very deliberate attempt to steal some of Xandros’ thunder.
Steal Xandros’ thunder?
How?
Lindows is quite well known. Xandros isn’t. Not among consumers.
There isn’t any thunder to steal, though one could claim the reverse…
I haven’t used Xandros, and have no opinion on it. I will try the demo when it’s available.
So this post is not a comparison of the value of the two systems.
Lindows is a LOT more well known then Xandros. No need to steal any Thunder. Lindows 4.5 has been talked about for a while on Lindows.com, it isn’t a surprise.
Also, the Xandros 2.0 release has been well promoted. Also, no surprise there.
There’s no thunder for either company to steal.
I’m looking forward to reviews of both.
“It’s a very deliberate attempt to steal some of Xandros’ thunder.”
Phil: Please stop trolling around!!! And be a little bit creative in your too closed mind. I get really interested in this Linux/Lindows/Xandros thing because when 2 big releases happen at the same day it must be something big going on in the Linux Desktop campus, you know. 🙂
PS: Visit our site LinuxEmu — http://linuxemu.retrofaction.com
With all these distros, how do these guys make real money? I love the idea of a REAL viable alternative to Windows, but with all these Distros, it’s just too confusing. I am a Mac OS X user, I don’t see a reason to even check Linux out. In fact, I’d like to, but there’s too many choices… to many distros. Too much. Also, the apps that I use regularly work too well with Panther… Sorry for harpin’
Does anyone know what piece of software they are using for the “Remote Desktop Sharing” feature?
“I have no direct problem with the Lindows OS. But making this announcement the same day that Xandros had pre-announced their availability date is not a coincidence. It’s a very deliberate attempt to steal some of Xandros’ thunder. ”
Phil, think what you want, but I can’t see how Lindows.com releasing a new product has anything to do with another Linux company’s “pre-announcement”. Lindows.com has been working on this version for awhile, and it’s done. What are they supposed to do, wait a couple of days? If anything, the only company Lindows wants to battle is Microsoft. Lindows.com announced the upcoming release of version 4.5 last week in order to blunt Microsoft Europe’s act of agression.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that Xandros is a fine distribution. But, it doesn’t have much market penetration, and it’s not the focus of Lindows.com. There are much bigger fish to fry…
I must have missed 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4.
I have no problem with Lindows directly. In fact, I wish them well. But making this announcement the same day that Xandros had pre-announced their availability date is not a coincidence. It’s a cheap, deliberate attempt to steal some of Xandros’ thunder.
If anyone is interested, I just got the go ahead from Eugenia to add a review of Lindows 4.5 to my debian distro shootout series. I figure I owe Lindows a fair shake since it seems 4.5 may have fixed a few of the issues I had with 4.0. For one thing, they are now using XFree86 4.3. Etc.
If anyone wants to send me an email on specific details and/or issues of this release that they want included, go for it.
Barry
Which one is better? Xandros or Lindows?
“Which one is better? Xandros or Lindows?”
Nobody knows yet except the beta testers, and they aren’t talking. Let some of us get our hands on copies and a few days later you will have more opinions to choose from than you can shake a stick at.
Barry
It’s part of KDE and it’s called KDE Desktop Sharing
At this rate Lindows 340203204 is just a few years away.
Barry, Iw ould like that too. PLEASE add Lindows 4.5 and Xandros Desktop Deluxe 2.0 to the distro shoot-out. It’s only fair.
In fact comparing Lindows to Xandros is proabbaly FAIREST than comparing it to the rest of the dsitributions you had because Lindows 4.5 and Xandros 2 have been RELEASED in the SAME DAY!
I would love to see what you think of Xandros. Personally I preordered version 2, the company has always been very laborious in their work, but they haven’t got the same marketing machine Lindows has and so they are little known. I really hope that this will change soon because Xandros is a great distribution and needs more exposure.
Lindows was originally based on a Xandros Beta before Xandros became 1.0.
For those who didn’t know.
Xandros: “Hey Lindows…who’s your daddy?”
Lindows: “You are”
Xandros: “That’s right…..”
They are both superb distros, but Lindows is more of a big “commercial” for click n run, while Xandros Networks just gets the job done.
Xandros also comes with Crossover Office and Plugin….so if you’re a windows user looking to switch it’s a big plus.
Lindows is an awful lot prettier though….
Xandros comes with everything you need to be happy, while lindows comes bare bones….
It’s a toss up really. They are the two best linux desktops. Period.
I find it ok this way. Lindows and Xandros are targeting “Joe user”. Other big Boys the Corporate market, whereas the debian, slackware or gentoo appeal more to geeks. Libranet and some others are somewhere in between.
I reckon MDK will have to be very careful and decide which market segment they want to target. At the end of the day, all distros are competing against each other in they respectiv markets.
I don’t think I will ever touch Lindows, but I have to admit that they are doing a great Job promoting Linux; they are much smarter than MDK who want to be everything to everybody and at the end they are nothing to nobody.
BTW, why do you think MS is trying to destroy Lindows and not MDK? Who is the greater thread to them?
Concerning making calls using SIP in Lindows 4.5, Does one have to buy a SIP Phone or Adapter? (adapters are $79.95 according to the SIP web page), or can one use a speakers/headphones and mic setup for PC?
“BTW, why do you think MS is trying to destroy Lindows and not MDK? Who is the greater thread to them?”
A valid point. One thing that struck me from the first about the strong arm tactics MS is using in europe is the tiny size (relatively) of the threat. In the Netherlands if I understood correctly, there was ONE single solitary computer dealer who wanted to start marketing Lindows. MS found out about this ONE single solitary guy that wanted to market Lindows and unleashed the full weight of their Justice Dept. corrupting legal team upon his hapless head. Rather odd behavior for a multi-billion dollar megapoly.
In fact, it is basically the same story in Sweden and Norway from what I understand. A tiny little business wants to start marketing Lindows and MS jumped on them like a mountain lion on a rabbit. I don’t know what the situation in France is, but I suspect something similar.
This makes me like Lindows a lot more than their OS alone could ever do. Anybody who can scare the crap out of Billy Boy that badly deserves support.
$100 for a lifetime membership. Never have to pay for upgrades or customized downloads for the rest of life. Worth considering.
Barry
hehehehe, you could just run debian, that’s what your basically doing with xandros or lindows.
I can speak to this. I’m a Lindows Insider and I beta tested Xandros 2.0. With the Release of LindowsOS 4.5 they win. I almost gave it to Xandros, but LOS 4.5 has really come on strong. You would not believe how fast developement was this last 2 weeks. Engineers were in the forums daily squashing bugs and introducing new stuff. It was really fun testing and watching 4.5 come into play. I’ve also tried Fedora 1, it’s not even close, trust me.
The last beta is currently running on my Compaq laptop and it all work; wireless, specialized buttons for Internet e-mail etc., it all works and works well.
correct, but 99% of users do not know how to install Debian, let alone configure it ….. as a matter of fact, many PC-users struggle with windows as well. Ask one of your “joe-user” friends to install and configure Xp on his/her machine (connecting to the net, different user-set up, etc, etc. Have you ever had to explain to somebody why “dfrag” is important to do from time to time? what about cleaning up the registry?
The point is that while Debian is great for enthusiasts (as Slack and Gentoo are), it is not “Joe-user-friendly” for the great mass of people who don’t want to fiddle around with their PC.
Keep in mind that Lindows caters foe a different breed of users
Apparantly Lindows is showing some success, and MS trys to make it as hard as possible for them. a) Most people prefer to purchase a boxed version than to have to download it from the net. b) a small business owner is easly discoureged and intimidated and might drop out.
Obviously, MS wnts to stop it before it spread out too much.
Anyway, why don’t they rename “Lindows” to “Lindoor” or better still “LinGate” ?
Cause they gain publicity with a name like Lindows.
Just see for yourself – now they have succeeded in proviking MS to lawsuites, and directly they are out of life time membership offers and are being written about in lots of medias.
Heck, here in Sweden there was a whole page article in both our biggest newspaper and biggest financial newspaper.
I won’t question how Michael Robert plays the game though – he’s smart and even though he certainly doesn’t do this for a “good cause” like for the OSS, I think we should encourage him as long as it is in our (MS-skepticists) interest.
Go Lindows Go!
I don’t know how good the distro is but they are certainly writing the linux marketing book right now.
Others would be well inspired to just COPY what these guys do.
Variety is one of the favorite aspects of Linux. Mac users are accustomed to little selection and just assuming their only option works.
Linux users like variety, choice.
And the distro’s break up quite well:
Lindows, Xandros, Mandrake are all good ease of use Distro’s.
Slackware, Gentoo, Arch are all fast.
Debian is extremely stable, and very “gnu”
Vector is really light (625MB install for the lite edition)
i have tried elx linux, and i should say apart from some minor problems which could have been handled by their support, had i bought it, and find that it is one of the finely polished distros. especially samba;
it recognizes and provides a read only access to the windoze partition ;
and that shows up as a folder in konquerer;
almost all the distros based on kde look very similar, and offer similar features;
but elx stands out for good integration of several components, and also the launchpad concept;
i happen to have met the founder of ELXlinux in hyderabad in august; unlike a few other flyby night software shops , theirs is a good work place, and they have good plans for the future too;
but the forums seem to be very very inactive compared to any other distro.
request euginia/otehrs to review their offering too!!
cheers
ram
ps: mean while now, im running FreeBSD5.1 RELEASE with kde ;
and with some effort hopefully i should be able to install java ;
i tired today afternoon but it was a big pain.
ill post the whole incident later to my journal on slashdot;
cheers
ram
Well i had Microsoft buy lindows for me with the money they owed me from the settlement. Lindows isnt all that great for a hardcore to medium harcore linux user like my self, and their support is really bad, they just need to tell you they dont support any part of their product up from. Lindows needs to try harder, develope new things like a windows layer or a new replacement for X stuff they can actually use to create a unique OS you cant get from any other distro. Thats what they claim but its really just another KDE distro with a kool installer app. I suggest gentoo if you want a good way to install applications
“Lindows was originally based on a Xandros Beta before Xandros became 1.0.
For those who didn’t know”
? Xandros bought Corel Linux after Corel gave up Linux to recieve money from MS to help them out of their bankrupt status a few years back.
I use both Lindows and Xandros (Not Xandros 2 yet) And I find Lindows has a more 98/ME feel (Which is what they want) and Xandros has a more NT like feel.
I think Lindows is better for home users and Xandros is better for office use. Lindows has focused more on installing software and more on customer support while Xandros as of version 1.1 seems to be focused more on Windows intergration and networking (With their Win 2000 like domain login screen and switch user function)
As far as ease of use, I have given Lindows machines for presents to my Mother, Sister, Brother, Girlfriend and Roommate and after showing them how click and run works besides the “Does this windows program work in Lindows” question I get from time to time they seemed to have taken to Lindows pretty well.
The same with my co workers when I came in with my Gateway Laptop with Xandros 1.1 installed. Most people seemed to love it and comment that it felt like NT.
Me I love both Distros. I use Lindows 4 everyday at work in my office (Using crossover office to run Outlook to connect to my exchange server and run my Remedy client) And using Star Office 7 for all word processing and spread sheets.
The only advantage I see right now is marketing, Lindows has a almost MS against Apple type situation going. That even if Xandros has the better product people will know Lindows first. Their name is out there, their customer support is better (I wrote Xandros sales dept 2 days ago to see about buying and upgrade and still have not gotten back a response) but I pay the $60 a year from phone support with lindows and can just call in and get an answer right away. (Xandros doesn’t offer phone support yet)
Also I read: “ODD, I must have missed lindows 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4.”
Most people don’t know that you can go here:
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_updates.php?info=iso
and see all the product updates for the lindows os.
You will see that they came out with:
4.0.302-General Release (That was version 4)
4.0.385-beta
4.0.477-Revision (Like a service pack)
4.0.548-Revision2-beta This version is intended to be the final release candidate for revision 2 of LindowsOS 4.0
4.0.579-OS & 4.0.581-OEM (They now have a Full (Which includes Open Office and some other apps and OEM which is just the OS)
4.5.1 This version is the first beta release of the 4.5 product.
4.5.37 This version is the second beta release of the 4.5 product.
4.5.58 This version is the third beta release of the 4.5 product.
4.5.72 This version is the fourth release of the 4.5 product.
4.5.101 This version is a release candidate of the 4.5 product.
Current release: Date: 12.15.2003
Version: 4.5.121 (oem)
Version: 4.5.122 (full)
Size (oem): 423 MB
Size (full): 490 MB
Engineer’s Note:
These versions are the final candidates of our 4.5 product. Please read the other 4.5 release notes below for a complete list of changes between the 4.5 and 4.0 series. Developer edition, LindowsCD and the upgrade will be coming soon. For an overview of all package updates please go here. Thanks,
-LOS Eng. Team
md5sum (oem): 3f3edf641f411e4f2e5408b42335723a
md5sum (full): 2a998ded51d192e3d196dae70e58b6f8
Bug Fixes:
* Minor Lindows Internet Suite UI fixes
* File Manager fix for Icon and MultiColumn view toggling
* Stabilized Samba, WiFi and suspend/resume functionality
Unlike companies like Xandros, Lindows I must say does not let you get bored, they give you updates to your current OS or betas of the new stuff at least once a month. Which keeps me interested.
I hope both companies do well but I think Xandros has some catching up to do as far as getting a paying user base.
1) Better Tech Support
2) More updates and previews
3) More Products and Preloaded PC’s
4) More vender outlets.
5) Better Marketing to non Linus users.
More options for their products. Like with Lindows I bought version 3 for $50 on top of that I got 3.5, 4, 4.5 and I would have gotten 5 because I was paying the $5 a month for Click and Run. (But I signed up at Choice PC .com and got a lifetime membership and free versions of the OS forever.)
One thing I noticed in this thread that I keep seeing all over the place, and have been seeing ever since I started using Linux. People coming out with the equivalent of, “Oh that’s a great distro. I don’t use it myself but I really liked it when I tried it last (week/month/year).”
I can’t help but wonder why not? In comments to one of my reviews I was scolded for daring to make a critical remark about one of the distros. The post included something indicating that I was unfair and harsh. Even though “I don’t use it myself anymore” or something like that, he still thought it was wonderful.
I keep coming back to that. I can’t help wondering why not? I see this on user forums also. People post complimentary remarks, but then they admit that they don’t use the distro themselves but they like it anyway.
If I believe I have found a solid, flexible, attractive distro then I am going to keep it. I haven’t found much functional difference between distros to tell the truth. They all run OpenOffice, They all run Mozilla. They all run Gaim. They all run Gimp and Scribus, etc. I can’t think of any modern distro that won’t run all of the applications that I use with negligible speed differences.
So the only differences are stability, hardware recognition, appearance, maintenance & upgrade flexibility, and intangibles like esthetics. Why keep switching if you find one that you really like working with? I am puzzled. I have been hopping from one to another because I could not find one that offered everything I wanted. As soon as I settle on the most attractive option, I am sticking to it like glue.
Why do people abandon a distro that they really like? Confused.
Barry
Is there a JVM/JDK 1.4.x (or 1.3.x) available for Lindows or Xandros? Has anybody ran Eclipse, JBoss, or NetBeans on Lindows or Xandros?
Why do people abandon a distro that they really like? Confused.
I have several nephews who say that Windows is for them and they would never switch to Linux. Everytime I talk to them, they have re-imaged their machine and put a different version of Windows on it (95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, and various betas). Each version of Windows is a different distribution. Each with their strength and weaknesses. While they haven’t abandoned Windows, they continually abandon distributions of it. Why? They are just playing. They keep trying out new versions as they become “available”. Not everyone is looking for an operating system to last the rest of their lives.
“I have several nephews who say that Windows is for them and they would never switch to Linux. Every time I talk to them, they have re-imaged their machine and put a different version of Windows on it (95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, and various betas). Each version of Windows is a different distribution. Each with their strength and weaknesses. While they haven’t abandoned Windows, they continually abandon distributions of it. Why? They are just playing. They keep trying out new versions as they become “available”. Not everyone is looking for an operating system to last the rest of their lives.”
There is a big difference between distros of Linux and “versions” of Windows. Yes Windows 9X and ME are different then NT, 2000 and XP but really between the 9X versions and the NT versions there are more bell and whistle changes then anything.
But if I install Lindows and install Redhat you end up with 2 different OS’s that are designed in different ways using a lot of different technologies .
For instance I used to love Mandrake. They still make a great distro, but it is not as easy as Xandros, Lindows some other distros to throw into an exsisting Windows or Novell network.And the Apt-Get package management system for deb files ROCKS. LOL! So I am now a convert and happy with that. 🙂