Several people have asked me why I haven’t tried out Lindows or written anything about it.  The answer is simple:  I can’t download it.  Normally I like to try something before I write anything about it.

Lindows is a Linux distribution designed to look and feel very much like Windows.  It has a simple and fast installation, and includes everything you expect when you buy an operating system today:  Web browser, email client, instant messaging, games, networking, multimedia support, etc.  I don’t know what all else comes with the distribution.  I suspect there’s an office productivity package and probably some other stuff.  I’ve had a number of people tell me that they really like the system.  It’s $60.00, though ($50.00 for the digital-only version), so it’ll be a while before I give it a whirl.

One other thing.  If you buy LindowsOS, you get a “free bonus LindowsCD.”  LindowsCD is a CD-only distribution similar to the Knoppix distribution that I’ve mentioned before.

Knoppix is a Linux distribution designed to be used from CD.  With a Knoppix CD in hand, you can run Linux from CD on any supported PC that can boot from the CD drive.  If you want to save your work, you’ll have to mount a drive or store it to an external device (USB thumb drive, diskette, CD-RW, etc.).  Knoppix comes in handy for a number of things:  booting failed systems for troubleshooting, demonstrating Linux without having to install it, or quickly booting any system for use as a quick network test.

The last was especially useful to me this week.  I was setting up a test server on its own little network and needed to test the DHCP server.  My test client was a 400 MHz Dell that had XP running, but I didn’t have a user ID and password to log into the box.  Rather than reinstall Windows on the box, I booted Knoppix.  Three minutes and I was ready to test.

The coolest thing about Knoppix (and I hinted about this last week when I mentioned Damn Small Linux) is the possibility of putting it on one of those thumb drives.  A 1 gigabyte thumb drive goes for about $320.  A full Knoppix distribution will eat up about 700 MB, leaving you 300 MB for data.  For most of us, 300 MB is more than enough to hold our current work.  You can carry your working software and your data on your key chain, and use any modern computer as a workstation.  Forget wireless hotspots in hotels and coffee shops.  Imagine instead public computers with no hard drives, CDs, diskettes, or other data storage devices; just a USB port and a connection to the Internet.  Walk up, plug in your thumb drive, and you’re working.

The biggest problem with doing something like this is that it’s just a gimmick unless those computers are ubiquitous.  I guess that’s how wireless got started, though.  Just a few hot spots at first, slowly building until even McDonald’s is selling wireless access with their Big Macs.

I’ve examined 8 different Linux distributions over the past week, and I’ve been quite impressed with how much more polished they’ve become in the past couple of years.  Sure, some are still hard for a non-techie to install (Debian and Slackware, for example), but others like Lycoris and Red Hat are just as easy as—maybe easier than—Windows.  When you factor in the added complexity of installing additional Windows applications, the Linux distributions are easier.  That is, when you’ve finished installing Red Hat, Lycoris, SuSE, or one of the other major desktop distributions, you’re done.  The office productivity software and most everything else is there.  Once you install Windows, you still need to install Office and any other applications you need.  I’ll be charitable to Windows here and call installation a draw.

In almost all respects, there is Linux-based software available for all of the basic home and office uses.  The most important missing piece—and this might turn out to be the killer app for Linux—is a personal financial management package.  GnuCash exists, but as I mentioned in an earlier entry (see August 12), the project is in trouble.  And, quite honestly, people expect a certain amount of accountability from the software that’s keeping their books.  Whether or not it’s true, people feel better with the thought that Intuit stands behind Quicken. They’re not going to get that warm fuzzy feeling for a bunch of hackers who work on GunCash in their spare time.  I would expect Intuit to come out with a Linux version of Quicken in the next 2 years.  If they don’t, somebody will come out with something to fill that space.

The other relatively recent innovation that’s impressed me is the emergence of CD-based distributions.  Knoppix in particular has really opened my eyes to some interesting possibilities.  More on that tomorrow.

I downloaded the beta version of Lycoris Desktop/LX, burned the image to a CD, and installed on a spare partition of my hard drive here.  Lycoris (formerly Redmond Linux) is a Linux distribution, based on Corel, that the developers have modified so that it looks and feels more like Windows.  Lycoris is unlike any other distribution that I’ve tried.  Previously I’ve used Red Hat and SuSE, and have built my own system from scratch following the instructions on the Linux From Scratch site.

What’s so different?  When I booted the machine with the Lycoris CD, the setup program automatically started, detected my hardware, and walked me through a handful of very simple screens on which I confirmed the keyboard, mouse, and video hardware, selected DHCP, and created a user account.  It automatically detected the unpartitioned space on my hard drive and began installing.  No package selection screens or other stuff to complicate the installation.  After 20 minutes of copying files (during which I tinkered with the solitaire program that they so kindly provided), I created a rescue diskette and rebooted the system.

Lycoris installs the GRUB boot loader, which on startup let me choose between Windows 2000 and the new Lycoris installation.  My only gripe here is that GRUB placed Lycoris as the first boot choice, and it gives me only 5 seconds to choose Windows 2000 before automatically booting Linux.  I’ll need to change the default to Windows 2000, and set the delay to a more reasonable 20 seconds or so. 

OS boot time is comparable to Windows 2000, and when the system comes up I’m presented with a graphical login screen.  Lycoris installs the KDE desktop, an office productivity suite, Mozilla Web browser and email client, and a host of multimedia tools.  Some games and system utilities round out the installed applications.  The default UI settings are very nice and, unsurprisingly, very Windows-like.  Unlike other distributions I’ve tried in the past, everything that I’ve tried so far has worked as expected and I haven’t had to futz with any settings.  I’ll want to adjust the mouse sensitivity and make a few cosmetic changes to the desktop appearance, but those are minor.  A bigger problem is the speed.  I expected the UI to be a bit more responsive on my 700 MHz Pentium 3.  Mozilla and KWord take a long time to start, and video performance is a bit sluggish.  I hope they fix that before they release the next version.

I’ll have to use the system for real work before I can say for sure that I like it, but my initial impression is quite favorable.  Installation was painless, and the distribution appears to have everything that a casual home computer user would want for a starting system.  It’s still Linux, and I’m free to download and install any other packages that I want.  Desktop Linux has come a long way in the past three years.  I might just be on the verge of recommending it as a serious option to Windows.

I downloaded a Linux distribution today called Damn Small Linux.  At just over 48 megabytes, this Knoppix-based distribution fits on one of those little business card-sized CDs.  It’s designed to boot from CD and operate without touching a hard drive, using a RAM disk instead.  It’s also possible to modify the distribution slightly to fit it on a USB memory stick.  With a 128 MB USB memory stick, you could carry your OS and a good bit of your work around in your pocket, and use it to boot almost any computer.  Carry the OS and the data, and borrow a machine wherever you are.  Now that is portability.

The other (or perhaps the primary) use of Damn Small Linux is as a diagnostic or troubleshooting tool.  With it, you can boot a crashed system, mount the hard drive volume, and explore to find out why the system isn’t working.  I burned a CD and added it to my little toolbox.  I know this one will come in handy.