Re: Review of Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 posted

[Dave Gudeman <dgudeman@azstarnet.com>]

Vince Veselosky wrote:

> I have just posted my review of Caldera's new OpenLinux 2.2, for those
> interested. The URL is:
> http://www.control-escape.com/desktoplinux.html
>
> I didn't have time to get as deep as I wanted to in the review, so I'll
> probably post a follow-up later with some more technical info. The new
> GUI installation procedure is easy-breezy, and my general impression is
> that this is now the very best distribution for Windows-only users who
> want to give Linux a try. It's easy to install, boots you straight to
> the GUI, provides real help screens at every decision point, and bundles
> the software necessary to run a real desktop computer. It would be a
> good idea to raid this distro for goodies to include in Indy!

I've been using OpenLinux 2.2 and I have to agree that it's the
easiest-to-use Linux I've seen so far (I've tried maybe four or five
distributions in the last year). One important feature of OpenLinux 2.2 that
the review does not mention is COAS, the Caldara Open Administration System.
This is an effort to provide Linux with system administration tools that are
user friendly (http://www.coas.org/). COAS is open source and could help the
Independence project meet its goal of avoiding command-line interfaces.

However, it is not fully mature yet and has some UI bugs. For example every
time you start a COAS program you get a pop-up window telling you what COAS
is. And you can only use it as root. If you start it as a non-root user it
asks you for the root password and then exits. Not very useful :-).