Where To Get Help
You can always post a note in the Desktop Linux Reviews Forum and we’ll do our best to offer feedback or at least point you in the right direction. As of the writing of this review the official Lin-X site and forum are not available so I can’t refer you there for assistance.
Final Thoughts & Who Should Use It
This is definitely one for the distro-hoppers to play with and enjoy for a while. It’s cool to see and use a Mac-like version of Linux. But it remains to be seen if the developers will actually continue on with this since their site is down and little or no information exists as to what their intentions are with Lin-X.
I do not recommend that anybody really consider Lin-X as their main distro until there is some kind of confirmation from the developers that they intend to continue on with it. And getting their site hosting bill paid up might be a good start.
Beginners should definitely not bother with Lin-X.
It appears that the Lin-X team has not paid their hosting bill.
Summary Table:
| Product: | Lin-X Linux 1.1 |
| Web Site: | http://lin-x.info/ (Official Site) and also try the Lin-X Softpedia Page. |
| Price: | Free |
| Pros: | Comes with a very well done Mac OS X look and feel. As close to making Linux look and feel like Mac OS X as we’re likely to come. |
| Cons: | Developer site is unavailable as of the time I wrote this review so there’s really no support for this distro or information about whether or not it will continue to be developed. Live CD requires login but no ID or password is provided. |
| Suitable For: | Definitely one for the distro-hoppers that want to play around and check it out. Non-distro-hoppers should probably avoid this and stick with regular Ubuntu or one of it’s other remastered versions. |
| Summary: | Once you get it installed it’s fun to use a Mac-like version of Linux. But after you get over the coolness it’s just another remaster of Ubuntu. |
| Rating: | 2.5/5 |
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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I guess I’ll just have to get over the coolness of this distro. Without enough information to really deal with it and no assurance that there will ever be an update or any further development, this is a hard one to go after, but just like before, I always enjoy reading about these niche distributions. Sometimes I even go out on a limb and get a few of them, but I tried the Hannah Montana Ubuntu variation, I actually have instances of Live Android working in my Virtualbox OSE, plus I have Tiny Core, Tiny Me (in a Unity Linux 3.7 prototype skin), a really off the wall version of Debian called Canabix, so I think I have enough unusual distros in my collection right now. I use them for research and for amusement, but return to my every day systems for most of my activities, and my every day system remains sidux right now (with antiX, SimplyMEPIS, and Debian Stable providing a solid core, and backup should anything “happen”). That’s enough for right now. Besides, SimplyMEPIS is starting to gain steam on their 8.5 effort, and I want to help out with it, and antiX is bound to be active testing its next release soon, and I want to be an active part in testing and promoting those two – a couple of my long term favorites.
Yep, I’d classify this one as a fun curiosity but not something to really be used on a day to day basis. Distro-hoppers might have some fun playing with it.
While I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, this is clearly NOT the best way to make your desktop look like a Mac. Rather than relying on a shady offshoot of Ubuntu with little support, why not just re-skin your existing Ubuntu install? That’s what I’m running right now, it looks and feels great, and the only problems I’ve had are people unfamiliar with GNU/Linux thinking its some sort of Mac ripoff (grrr).
Anyway, a combination of the Mac4Lin theme, Avant Window Navigator with the OSX skin, OSX fonts, the Global Menu bar, and a few other tweaks, you can make your fully Canonical-supported Ubuntu distro look just like this. In fact, here’s a tutorial: http://mihirknows.blogspot.com/2009/05/turn-ubuntu-jaunty-into-mac-osx.html . Its easy enough to do or undo for your average GNU/Linux user, and is a fun little project that shouldn’t take nearly as long as setting up a whole new distro.
Actually Lin-X Linux is based on MAC4LIN project
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin/
Its developed by Anirudh Acharya(infra_red_dude)
http://phoenix-ani.blogspot.com/2009/06/mac4lin-ver10-released.html
You can see more screen shots at
http://143sachin.tumblr.com/
Jim, i have a suggestion for you…
while doing reviews about linux distros,please give their performance in multimedia…while most of the famous distros does not support multimedia on the spot,it will be useful for news users….
That is one advantage given by Lin-X live dvd…you can test everything on the spot (multimedia,AWN etc) and it will help newbies….
If you already have installed ubuntu no need to download Lin-X LInux…just download the 33 mb tar file from mac4lin project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin/
For more, you can find step by step procedure in how to forge….
http://www.howtoforge.com/mac4lin_make_linux_look_like_a_mac
I remember years ago using some distro that allowed you to pick a MacOS theme from the selection of themes. This was the “old” Mac OS desktop complete with wrong sided window buttons.
It too was fun to play with for a while, but eventually I switched back to the default KDE.I think they eventually got threatened by Apple or something as I have not seen it since.
No matter how hard I try, I just cannot get into the Mac interface. It is just slow and cumbersome to me. Since this is just a Mac’ed up version of Ubuntu, I would just rather stck with that.
Beyond that, this seems like yet another distro built by the author to prove that he could.
how to install software in linux??
linux is very difficult for me…
Is this distro dead? I’ve look on distrowatch and it’s not listed anymore.
[...] reminds me of the version of Linux designed to look like Mac OS X. Heh. I don’t know how many people would really want to run this though. Don’t people [...]
i cant find link to download lin-x, it seems pretty cool
all the links are unavailable…the site of lin-x shows just the logo
can someone plz post the links for downloading lin-x???
Hi Sid,
It’s entirely possible that it’s not available any more. I wrote the review a while ago, so the distro maker may have discontinued it.
Sorry.
Try this http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S48VLV7Q Downloading right now for my father, I use Ubuntu 10.10. Still alpha, but I like testing stuff :)
hola buen dia :
lo descarge el lin-x 1.1 , y tengo un problema con la instalación,el username y el password
It doesn’t exist anymore. If you wan’t it download ubuntu than install macbuntu (google it). Result will be the same or even better, because it is updated version with a lot of bugfixes…