I became a Lindows Insider for $99 USD. I have downloaded and installed both the image file and the executable on two different machines. I am using the unstable version 1.2.49 and plan to upgrade later because this version doesn't support network file sharing with Windows.

The installs were not too bad. When I clicked the executable in my win98se OS, it walked me through the first few screens (license and such) and then windows BSOD'ed on me. I tried it a few more times, but no luck, so I used the .iso disk and booted directly to Lindows. It seems to have installed OK, but I haven't got any X video. I tried ctrl-alt (+ and -) but it seems to only have one screen configuration. I'm eager to figure out how to resolve this. I'm still focused on this problem, so I haven't had a lot of time to see what kinds of Windows programs run on Lindows.

The other install was easier, although for a novice it would have been a slight challenge. I'm sure most of you reading in this forum have had plenty of experience with changing the BIOS, and I know I have, so when Lindows told me to 'click OK and Lindows will boot from the CD' I was curious how it was going to change my BIOS settings. As I expected, it didn't. So all I had to do was change my boot device and it booted and installed just fine. BTW, Lindows is covered by a 'family use' license, so I don't have to feel guilty about sharing the OS with my father.

Lindows asks only one question before attempting an install...would you like to replace or share your existing Windows? I was a little disappointed that it didn't ask me if I wanted to mess with partitions, but I guess they just wanted to idiot-proof the install, which they did pretty well. Replacing the Windows install wipes out ALL DATA, so I chose the "friendly" install.

A boot screen starts with Lindows as the default. Other choices are: Windows, Lindows Expert, and it found my SuSE partition and gave me that as another choice.

As I said earlier, getting the video to work is my main goal right now, so I'm off to search for more information.

-Mike

Thank you very much for that Mike. That is some very good info on this

How does it look, and if you know, can you tell if it's very "linux" compliant? I mean does the XF86Config file reside in /etc/X11/ ? And things like that. I think you might have some problems configuring your hardware if things aren't where they are supposed to be.

And just out of curiosity, what kernel does it use, and what does "dmesg" and "uname -a" return?

Cool, thanks for all the great info

MasterC, Thanks for the supportave response. I'll be happy to give you selected specific results or a general sumation of sensitive areas, but (maybe I'm overly concerned here) for security reasons I don't think it would be prudent for me to post my dmesg output.

Reguarding /etc/X11, there is an XF86Config and an XF86Config-4. The latter has a current date of modification, so I guess that is the one that is used.

In summary, yes the filesystem is similar, but there are enough changes to make hardware setup a challange for someone expecting things where they belong.

-Mike

Oh yeah, no problem, no need to post dmesg, I am just wondering if it looks like a "normal" dmesg would from a normal linux box. And uname -a would just give kernel info and such.

Cool

Yeah, it looks like Linux, it smells like Linux...

-Mike

PS: MasterC, thanks for understanding my hesitation to post what you asked. I appreciate your discretion.

-Mike

But does it taste like linux? Is it as sexy as say, Mandy?

I'm curious who Mandy is.

Mandy very sexy, and performs constantly! To see a show, and maybe have Mandy perform for you, head on over to www.mandrake.com

Cool

What is it, a lap dancing promotion?

Okay, I got my X windows environment working, but now Lindows doesn't seem to know that there are two network cards installed. One of them is definatly Linux-compatible, so I'm not sure where the problem is. I'll probably try a few more cards and see if one of them is detected.

Now that the window system is up, there are a few very interesting findings to report. To my complete suprise, Quicken 2000 runs! I haven't tested it for full functionality yet, but it starts and seems to work fine. Other windows programs that I've tried are:
Setibuffer-No success
Setihide-No success
Internet Explorer-partial success (it crashed and I didn't play with it much yet)
Microsoft Word 2000- Success!
AVG virus shield-No success
Opera (for windows)- No success

I'll report on how the Click-N-Run system works after I get network connectivity.

-Mike