LindowsOS 4.5 Laptop Edition Review

LinuxElectrons takes LindowsOS 4.5 Laptop Edition on a test drive.

I thought to myself, “Finally, a Linux laptop OS!”. I could not wait to get my hands on a copy Lindows 4.5 Laptop Edition. Before I knew it, I was burning my Lindows Laptop Edition CD. Lindows.com has an excellent website complete with support forums manned by Lindows employee's. They also offer email based support too. I put all of these to the test.

Feature Set

• Linux Kernel 2.4.22

• Lindows KDE 3.0.1

• Lindows Mozilla 1.5

• Java 1.4.1_02-b06

• Shockwave Flash 6.0 r79

• Cult3D v5.2 Beta 1

• Lindows Mozilla Mail 1.5

• Lindows Messenger (gaim)

• XMMS 1.2.8

• K3b 0.8

Installation

Lindows is a breeze to install. I was very impressed with the feature, “Let Lindows take over your hard drive”. Lindows selected the exact same partition setup I would have chosen. The installer also added a resume partition for resume and suspend functions. “I was in heaven”, I thought, “Lindows will save out the current running session to the resume partition before the battery dies!”.

Booting from the CD

 

 

 

Disk Partitioning

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verify take over of disk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Initializing disk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Installing the OS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choose the root password

 

 

 

Desktop

The Lindows desktop is nothing but eye candy and how sweet it is. Lindows has put forth great effort in customizing KDE to a Lindows branded look and feel. If you are used to MS Windows, then Lindows will feel comfortable.

 

 

However, if you are a Linux KDE power user, you will become frustrated fast. There are no multiple desktop options and other little nuisances. The Gnome desktop is completely missing. Gnome apps will still run, but the Gnome desktop is not supported at all.

 

 

The “Network Browser” is broken in that it asks you for your login and password over and over to protected Windows drive shares. If your Windows shares are not password protected, there is no issue.

My Computer Folder

Internet Tools Folder

Default Mail is Mozilla

Lindows Internet Browser (aka Mozilla)

Software Management

Lindows uses a program called Click-N-Run (CNR) to perform software and system management. This program is a pleasure to use. All the software that an average user could think of installing is provided in CNR with ease of use. Software is categorized very nicely in the Warehouse section. CNR also provides OS announcements, news and system updates from within this program. For every program installed, an icon is created on the desktop and also added into the Lindows menu. Console based programs will have an icon added to the desktop, however, these icons do not launch any software. I guess the icon is installed to alert the user that the program has been installed. Several C compilers were listed and I was confused as to which one I should use, so I just selected the latest version.

Power Management

A review of a laptop OS would not be complete without taking a look a power management. The feature I was hoping to get with the Laptop Edition does not work. The resume and suspend features work in that they write their data out to the resume partition, but Lindows fails to restart (resume) from that data. I tried this feature on two different laptops. The laptops were Dell's, a Latitude Cpx750 and a Inspiron 5100 (P4). They both fail the same way. In fact, this review was held up until I got my hands on a Laptop that was made in 2003. They both use Intel chipsets and Intel bios (Dell Logo). I first posted my problem in the support forum and a day went by and no one answered my question. So I bumped it up again. Finally, another user answered and suggested that I recompile the kernel with APM built in. So I went to CNR to get the kernel. To my surprise the kernel was labeled “untested”. I downloaded the “untested” kernel used in the Lindows Laptop Edition and tried to compile it. I got tons of simple syntax errors. At first I started to fix these errors but quit in disgust. After I posted my results in the forum one of the Lindows “special moderators” suggested that I could email him for any questions. I took him up on the offer. I simply asked “What laptops are on the OS compatibility list?”. I never got a response back. The same day I posted to the forums, I also issued a request to tech support. After about nine days, tech support finally got back and suggested that I turn off power management in my bios settings. I thought,”hmm...what the heck is that gonna do?”. I tried their suggestion and it still fails the same way. After the inadequate response and no reply from the special moderator I gave up on the feature. So essentially the Laptop Edition is really the desktop edition with a patch to allow for software suspend and resume.

Resume Crash

Wrap Up

Lindows opens up end users to increased security risks by running the OS at root level. Lindows should encourage a user level login so that the security afforded by Linux is passed on to the end user. As a power user I was disappointed in the Laptop Edition.

Lindows Laptop Edition is a very pretty OS. Grandma will feel right at home and should be able to navigate easily. Lindows has two properties that should be attractive to first time Linux users; the software and system management has really been simplified with lots of hand holding, and the ease of use that is similar to the structure of Windows.

Distro Snapshot