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Lindows PCs hit Europe
Tuesday, October 08 2002
by Ciaran Buckley


UK consumers will soon be able to buy low-cost PCs with Lindows OS pre-installed,
as the upstart software company defies Microsoft and raises eyebrows at AOL.



UK PC manufacturer Evesham said on Monday it will begin selling PCs with a
pre-installed version of the Lindows operating system in its 16 UK stores and
from its Web site, Evesham.com, where
Irish users could buy the new computers. 





The Evesham E-Scape sells for STG250 and includes the VIA C3 and the VIA Apollo
PLE133 integrated chipset, a 40Gb Hard disk, 256MB DRAM, a well as a CD-ROM,
modem and a mouse. A monitor, speakers and other peripherals must be purchased
separately. In terms of basic software, Lindow OS system runs Sun's StarOffice,
which Sun Microsystems markets as an alternative to Microsoft Office. 





Lindows.com, the maker of Lindows OS, is marketing its USD200 PCs as "AOL PC's"
in the US, on the basis that the machines come with Netscape 7.0 pre-installed as
its default browser. 





AOL says that Lindows.com is just one of 70,000 firms that had simply filled out
a one-page form on Netscape.com to obtain a licence to distribute the Netscape
browser software. The company denied that there was any relationship between the
companies and that it was surprised by Lindows.com's "misleading"
announcement.

 

Lindows is based on Linux, an open-source variation of the Unix operating system.
Although Linux's impact is apparent in the server market, it is considered far
too complex for consumer desktop PCs. Lindows is hoping to change that
perception. Lindows was originally billed as a non-Microsoft operating system
that would run many popular Windows applications, but the company later backed
away from that claim.



Also this week, Lindows announced that it has filed a motion for summary
judgement in its legal dispute with Microsoft, claiming that its use of the name
Lindows is not an infringement on Microsoft Windows trademark. The motion
contains detailed information on the history of the term "windows" when
referring to graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in PC technology. The motion traces
the history of GUIs from the early 1970s and their use at Xerox and Apple
computers, prior to the commercial release of Microsoft Windows in the early
1990s.