Good review of Lindows withdrawn!!!! Please read.

[Mistshadow]

My husband isn't a nerd. He just wants to play a few games and occasionally look something up on the internet. When I mentioned to him how easy Lindows was to use, he said he might like to try it. So I started to do a little more research on their site before I installed it again (yeah, it didn't last long; I was trying out Mepis after 1 day). Lookie at what I found on their site:  

Can you believe this bullshit?! These are all programs that are normally free on any other Linux distro. And if you decide not to keep your membership, they disable the programs you downloaded from your computer. That's right - *they* disable software on *your* computer, software that's normally free for any non-Lindows user. Lindows is set up so that Lindows.com can control your computer - how else could they disable anything on your computer after the install?

Thanks, but no thanks, I'd rather have Windows XP. At least M$ is just spying on you.

So why the hell isn't this common knowledge? Is it somehow more forgiveable because they're battling M$? All the compaints I've read about Lindows are of the more mundane variety, it's too expensive, it's just junk and so on.

In short, the word needs to be spread. Now. I'm sure as hell going to! Please, guys, do the world a favor and help warn people. As far as I'm concerned they're worse than M$. Agree? Disagree?

[ January 29, 2004: Message edited by: Mistshadow ]

[WMD]

the link just gives me a "log in" page.

I doubt they can get away with this one...  :eek:

[Mistshadow]

Sorry about that. Apparently you have to register for an account with them (free) before you get to see that page. I'll get a screenshot and be back soon.

Anybody know a good, FREE image hosting service?

[ January 28, 2004: Message edited by: Mistshadow ]

[Mistshadow]

Found one.

[WMD]

^ dead link.

[Mistshadow]

Ok, trying again:

[TheQuirk]

Eh. Are you sure it doesn't mean it'll stop working only if you download software during the trial period?

[Mistshadow]

It says explicitly that the software you downloaded during your free trial will be disabled if you don't buy a membership. How would the programs themselves know if you paid for a membership or not?

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by Mistshadow:
It says explicitly that the software you downloaded during your free trial will be disabled if you don't buy a membership. How would the programs themselves know if you paid for a membership or not?

Darned good question, Mistshadow.  We might actually want to ask the Lindows people to clarify this.

Alot of the Click'N'Run stuff is GPL, so they CAN sell it to you, but, from what I understand, they CANNOT add restrictions on use of GPL programs.  You cannot sell a GPL program, then  ask for a perpetual membership in click'n'run.  

Hell, I don't think they can't even legally disable GPL programs from the 15 day free trial.  
You let someone download a GPL program, you have distributed it... you cannot add restrictions on the distributed copy after the fact.

[preacher]

I believe that all click and run is, is a fancy graphical frontend to Apt for debian. So why not just download Lindows for free, then use apt to download new software rather than paying?

[Mistshadow]

I tried that when it was installed. Lots of normal debs don't work on Lindows, and I presume vice versa.

They may not be monopolists, but they're definitly trying to keep a stranglehold on their customers. If you think things are bad now, just imagine if Lindows.com overtook M$.

[flap]

So don't use proprietary software. Then you avoid this kind of thing.

[Commander]

a little off topic. but wondering, what's the apt-get version of suse?  i know it;s called something else but cant quite remember what it was.

[Mistshadow]

quote:Originally posted by flap:
So don't use proprietary software. Then you avoid this kind of thing.

Exactly what I'm gonna be doing. The closest thing to prop software I'm going to be using is SuSE Pro (which I finally heard about, it's ben delayed in shipping because of a terrorist alert).

[mushrooomprince]

he has a huge point. you normally don't get this sort of stuff in open source software.  On the otherside, with open source there are lots of things that you don't get either.


If  you want to keep going with Linux I would recomend suse 9.  Go to bestbuy and pick a copy up I think its about $40 for the home user version.