News from PANUG/BizNix - February 6, 2003 http://panug.org - http://biznix.org RESUME WORKSHOP PANUG will be holding a workshop on how to design your resume on Tuesday, Feb 11 at 6:30pm at the Novell Office. PANUG members may attend for free. Non-members pay $5.00 at the door. Please RSVP by replying to this message. WILL LINDOWS BE POPULAR? Both John McKean and Christian Bayer responded to Lorraine Renard's question about whether Lindows will become a popular desktop. Their opinions are quite different. Note that Lindows is intended to be a Linux-based desktop - not a server. PANUG has contacted the Lindows company and they may send us an evaluation copy. If they do, we'll have it evaluated by a few more people who will also post their findings here. by John McKean I have been using Lindows since the .9 release (It is now in production as Version 3) and I must say that I am (while wearing my non-techie) hat rather impressed. Especially the method that Lindows uses to install software. It is slick to say the least! If I had to choose any distribution of Linux as a front runner for the desktop Lindows would get my vote. by Christian Bayer - http://www.bayerwerke.com In order of importance, I predict that Lindows will be popular if; 1) Lindows does not fail to be adequately capitalized and does not absolutely burn all it's bridges to the Linux community. See: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-01-30-021-26-OP-BZ-EV http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-01-17-014-26-NW-BZ-DT http://linuxpr.com/releases/5525.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-981257.html 2) People do not realize there are far superior alternatives. 3) It sticks with it's marketing tactics, which resemble Microsoft's, which are very effective at selling an inferior product. If you are attracted to Lindows, take a close look at Lycoris and Xandros. These are examples of Linux distributions that operate in a method opposite of Lindows. They speak sincerely and deliver functionality. Lindows makes bold claims and fails to deliver, steals whenever possible and threatens when it's opportunistic. Sound familiar? See: http://www.lycoris.com/ http://www.xandros.com/ Also, the new, non-free (as in beer) versions of SuSE and Red Hat 8 appear to be focusing on the same market segment. See: http://www.redhat.com http://www.suse.com Lindows is based on Debian Linux. Even Debian has a way to deal with the RPM method of installing software in addition to it's native apt-get. See: http://www.debian.com Lindows (I have only tested versions 1.0 and 2.0) has broken that capability in apparent attempt to drive the user towards its subscription-based software installation which is nearly useless without a broadband internet connection and charges a pretty steep yearly price for software that is often otherwise available for free. Even with a broadband connection, it would be like downloading iesetup.exe and installing software from the internet for every corporate desktop, a nightmare for admistrators. Lycoris has a similar service, apparently included with purchase. (albeit, with fewer titles currently available.) Xandros is negotiating with Corel for distribution rights of WordPerfectSuite for Linux and Corel Draw for Linux and the purchased Deluxe version of Xandros comes with Crossover Office and Win4Lin. See: http://www.codeweavers.com/home/ http://www.win4lin.com/ If Ximian decides to produce versions of it's products for Xandros, Windows is history from my desktop (I own copies of WordPerfect Suite and Draw for Linux already) and I will BUY the Xandros and Ximian products, or, buy SuSE and Ximian (Crossover Office is also included with SuSE), or, go with Red Hat, then buy Ximian and Crossover Office. (Win4Lin is not that significant to me because I own a copy of vmware for Linux.) See: http://www.ximian.com/ http://www.vmware.com/ While I considered putting a link to Lindows on my web site when I heard that Michael Robertson (of Lindows) put up the reward money for porting Linux to the Xbox, I realized his ill intent. I think it's good to be able to pose a credible threat to Microsoft, but by being better rather than an imitator. See: http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php The only issues I have with converting entirely to Linux right now are; I should be able to attach to a Netware network at an NDS level (as opposed to just bindery, the Now-well client MIGHT work) and most of my email goes through a Groupwise server, although Ximian may be able to provide an adequate connection. If anyone has answers to these, please contact me at cbayer@timberlinelodge.com. See: http://now-well.sourceforge.net/linux/now-well/ Why the Linux community or Novell has not addressed these issues is a mystery to me. Users of Netware and Groupwise may be prime candidates for using non-Microsoft products. OpenOffice.org really should have WordPerfect and QuattroPro import/export filters for similar reasons. (Yes, I know Netware 6 does not require client software.) See: http://www.novell.com http://www.openoffice.org Macintosh would be an equal consideration to Linux for me if up-to-date software other than MS Office were available to deal with QuattroPro and WordPerfect files. The Netware client is old, but exists, the possibility of Groupwise connectivity is unknown to me. I think Groupwise really sux, and sure, I'd support converting Netware servers to Linux running Samba and Windows desktops from Netware client to Microsoft client while making a transition to Linux desktops and NFS, but it's not currently my position to make such decisions within my present organization. Also, the ability to convert WordPerfectSuite for Windows licenses to WordPerfectSuite for Linux is not available at the moment and may never be, however, mass file conversions to those used by OpenOffice.org would not be much worse than when we migrated off of Lotus 123 and WordPerfect for DOS.