[H-GEN] X-Windows + Lycoris

[Rick Phillips]

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>
> As some of you may know from talking to you last Saturday I am in the
> process of setting up a Cyber Lounge in the Strathpine area.
>
> To save on licence and administration cost as well as having
> real security
> on each station I am experimenting with putting linux on
> them. Recently I
> tried out Lycoris. It looks enough like MS Windows that our
> paying public
> users would be accepting of it.
>
> My problem is that as nice as it looks I would prefer to use
> Mandrake 9.0

>
I have Lycoris on a single machine in my office for much the same reasons as
you like it - it looks like Windows and it is easier to convince people they
should try it.

It is very "lite weight" as you have no doubt discovered in that there is
not a lot of integrated supporting software.  Open Office has just been
"Lycorised" and is available for download but at a price.

> My question is how do I get XWindows on a Mandrake system to
> look exactly
> like Lycoris?

I think you would have to do what Lycoris have done - redesign KDE. [1]

> Is it just a theme?
> Can I just copy over some icon and config files and hey
> presto it's done?
> Is it a bit more codependant on something else?
> Where do I even start looking?

See [1] above - I don't think there is anywhere to look.

>
> I believe that Lycoris uses KDE, how do I check? How do I check which
> version of KDE it is?

It does but has been "refaced" - see [1] above.

No doubt it will develop in time to add software but AFAIK, it is based on
Caldera so any Caldera RPM's or tar balls for that matter should install OK
but I haven't tried yet.  I know from experience that it does not like Red
Hat RPM's.

The warning is that if you do install RPM's, they will probably look like
KDE 3 programs and will not have the pretty skin that the Lycoris stuff has.

As an aside though, I have had the pleasant experience of putting basic PC
users on the Lycoris box and they were surprised when I told them it wasn't
Windows XP.  They were able to email and browse which 90% of the home users
just do anyway.

Hopefully, someone will tell me I am wrong about being able to "Lycoris"
Mandrake as I am constantly pushing the Linux wheel barrow and it is so much
easier when the offering looks something like what they are used to using.

BTW, Mandrake is my favourite distro - I run it exclusively at home, on my
satellite gateway, my mail server and my file server (Samba).  The look and
feel does not worry me but it could do with a re-polish.  SuSE looks great
but I am too used to Mandrake to change.

Rick Phillips



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