LinuxQuestions.org - Lindows 4.5 first impressions

Before I get flamed for even attempting to run Lindows, let me say that I run Slackware 9.1 at home and I am completely happy with it. I took advantage of the free download offer that Lindows had yesterday just to see what Lindows is like, so, here we go.

They say first impressions are often what makes your mind up about something.

If that were the case, I'd throw the newly burnt Lindows 4.5 Developer edition in the bin right now, but I'm willing to try again later.

I booted the Lindows install from CD and was presented with a fancy (for old DOS 8-bit games that is) fading effect into a Lindows boot screen with a logo and two options :-

1. Install
2. Diagonostics

Being the geek that I am, I immediately went to diagnostics, which looks like familiar Linux booting up, with a few differences.

I noticed that it had trouble installing my firewire services, but I never use that anyway.

Then I noticed something unique for a Linux install - it installs the official Nvidia drivers for Linux - I noticed that because I saw the customary warning when you install the Nvidia module

Anyway, I finally ended up with a terminal that said something like:-

Hit exit to quit or startx to start the lindows installer

Ok, I type startx

I'm presented with a black screen with gibberish characters on it - looks like X windows which the installer no dought runs on has crashed.

Ok, lets try again with a default install.

I reboot and this time I start the installer the normal way.

So far so good. I've got the lindows logo with a status bar indicating that the installer is starting up.

It starts up, but once again I'm presented with a screen of gibberish.

Lets reboot and try again oops, same problem. Num Lock still works, so it means the system hasn't totally crashed, but a screen full of gibbersh doesn't make an install easy.

I leave it for 10 minutes.

Nada.

Lindows has a loooong way to go it seems, as my work machine is a stock standard Pentium4, Asus motherboard and Leadtek Ti4200, there's nothing exotic about it.

I suspect what Lindows has done is to try to load the official Nvidia drivers or the XFree86 Nvidia drivers for the install instead of choosing the safe option of standard Vesa drivers which all modern video cards support.

If this is the case (and it appears that it is), it's a huge error of judgement by Lindows as the Nvidia Linux drivers are very fickle and often throw up errors like this.

Just to add some boring geekness into the mix, my work system will run on the official Nvidia drivers, but only if I add an AGP option to XF86config. It runs the standard XFree86 nv drivers without any issues.

I'll try again at home tonight on a spare machine...