Re: Lindows.com - Friend or Foe? [LWN.net]

Re: Lindows.com - Friend or Foe?

Posted Jul 1, 2003 13:38 UTC (Tue) by wookey (guest, #5501)
In reply to: Re: Lindows.com - Friend or Foe? by Ross
Parent article: Lindows.com - Friend or Foe?

I'm very nervous about the root thing too. I'm actively looking for a
distro to give my mother, who's grasp of computing is 'tenuous' at best,
and Lindows sounds ideal except that I feel I can't, in good conscience,
give her a box with everything running as root.

So in fact, if there are technical intermediaries, it's not getting to
it's desired target audience due to the apparently complete disregard for
user security. There was a time when this wouldn't matter, but sadly it
is now long gone.

to post comments

Re: Lindows.com - Friend or Foe?

Posted Jul 1, 2003 15:18 UTC (Tue) by ris (subscriber, #5) [Link] (1 responses)

Lindows does not force people to run as root. It encourages people to set up user names with passwords, it just doesn't insist and will allow people to bypass that part if they want to. Most novices will follow the instructions and set up user accounts. It is the people who think they are Windows power users who are most likely to skip this step and run into trouble.

I believe the first version of Lindows only ran as root, but that is not the case any more.

lindows does not force you to be root

Posted Sep 11, 2003 6:09 UTC (Thu) by gwx03 (guest, #14980) [Link]

I would like u ppl to get your facts right before commenting... lindows does allow you to add users and not run root. Though it runs root by default, now it adds the 'user manager' link onto the kde menu and also under a pop-up box which starts after it is installed, the 'advanced' button, it allows you to add users. Besides, advanced users who can use the terminal can by all means set up othe rusers and not use the root a/c.

plz get your facts right. Im no fan of lindows but i feel its a great and easy2 use OS though the ease can be irritating to me ( lindows is not the def. OS i use; i use redhat. ).... its quite insecure ... but not to the extent of windoze i guesss.

The only thing which bugs me is that lindows imposes a fee onto its open source software and contribute very less back..

the lindows software costs tens of dollars and THEN.... look at their click-n-run. four dollars a month to run a cache of software that can be available for free on the web ! (like opera, mozilla, gimp )!!!! is this some big, evil moneymaking scheme??