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Redmond Linux

April 14, 2002 2:00 AM UTC
There is finally an end user version of Linux.

You will appreciate this.

I downloaded and installed Lycoris Linux (previously known as Redmond Linux).

http://lycoris.com

I installed it on the machine on which we had installed XP and Office XP. Those two took over 3.5GB of drive space. And the install/patch process took over an hour.

It took me 15 minutes to boot the installation CD, install Lycoris, reboot the box, install and configure the network-attached printer (do this after installation, as the install routine doesn't understand TCP/IP print) using CUPS (Common Unix Printing System - a great way to manage printers) and run the update wizard (download and install patches, of which there were two). And I didn't have to reboot after patching.

Fifteen minutes to do all of this.

The programmers have tried to make it look and act like Winbloze, and they have succeeded about as well as you can with Linux. I am impressed.

The entire install takes 761MB. This is OS, KDE2, Mozilla and Koffice. Less than 800MB for all of this. On an older machine. It runs faster than Winbloze.

My wife was stunned. She did a complete reinstall. She took every default (you get to play solitaire on the screen while the installation runs - nice touch) and rebooted. She then went through a short tutorial showing how to use the GUI (she isn't a Unix person), opened Kword (typed a few lines, then realized she couldn't print until she installed a printer), Kspreadsheet, Kpresenter (a Powerpoint clone), and Korganizer. She then installed the printer and ran the update wizard.

Grand total: 26 minutes. She installed an operating system and an office suite, patched them, learned the basics of the GUI, and was able to start using the office suite in less than half an hour.

These folks have done something right. For Harry Homeowner this looks like a winner. My wife is taking the CD to work - she will get her boss and a couple of other people in their lab and make one of them install it from scratch (they know even less Unix than she knows). They are about to go through the yearly M$ licensing purchase. This could save them a fortune.

Granted, there are still issues - converting documents, patching the OS from a central location - all of the standard IT issues - but she sees that there is finally an end user version of Linux which can save her company hundreds of thousands of dollars on licenses and get them out from underneath the M$ heel.

Sargon

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