Would you recommend the product? no | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 3
|
Pros:
|
Looks and acts sort of like Windows
|
|
Cons:
|
Looks and acts sort of like Windows
|
I purchased a Linare desktop from Wal*Mart and it had Linare pre-installed. It didn't come with a disk to reinstall it, but I assume that was related to the same technical glitch that also kept it from coming with a mouse (not that I would have used that el-cheapo one, anyhow.)
Here's the actual review: While it did look nice if you like emerald green and had a few nice features, I was not impressed overall. A Windows user would feel somewhat at home with the layout and terminology used. Even the terminal is called "Command Line"! It came with a good assortment of entry level programs.
On the downside: I had a hard time customizing it, especially the taskbar. I like Virtual desktops and could figure out how to make that happen. Remember that this came preinstalled from Linare Corp. when I tell you about the next part. It would not recognize the built in video card on the motherboard and insisted on using "VESA" so the screen was hopelessly flickery. And slow. Everything happened at a crawl. Like nearly a minute to load Konqueror. I'm sure a fresh install would have done the trick, but since I didn't have the CD or really didn't care for the dist, I installed Mandrake 10.1. Another problem was the documentation. Or lack thereof. Linare has zero available online. (They have a toll-free number, but I hate those and didn't use it. Phone support usually involves asking me questions like, "do you know where the power button is?") This is supposed to be a jazzed up FC2, but I had a hard time finding config files, especially the GUI versions. I had a lot of difficulty configuring X-windows.
Their goal of a entry-level product is fine, but it needs some refining. They also need to work on QC with their hardware. If you buy one of these, just think of it as a barebones system and get a different distro.
|
|
