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A First Look At The Xandros Desktop

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the rising-from-the-grave dept.

Gentu writes "OSNews has an exclusive article regarding the awaited Xandros Desktop. Xandros is the company who purchased the Corel Linux source code and rights, so in essense, this is the second generation of the once promising, Corel's Linux. OSNews previews beta 3b and they say that this distribution, along with Lycoris, Lindows (and possibly Red Hat 8), is the one to compete for the purely-for-the-desktop Linux market."

3 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Is this the way to win new users? by fmita · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I realize that Linux is all about choice, and users can choose to have their distro look like Windows if they want, but is this really the way to win new users? To the average joe, an OS's GUI is its most recognizable characteristic. So doesn't it kind of compromise part of Linux's uniqueness? I know this argument has been made before, but what happens to the Lycoris or Xandros user if he or she ever has to sit down and use Blackbox or something of the like? MacOS and BeOS both have/had GUIs that were part of their personality. Linux should, too. I'm all for new users, but I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't taking it too far. Distros aimed at new users should be user-friendly, but perhaps not so much like windows.

  2. not supposed to be a troll... by papasui · · Score: 0, Redundant

    but it might sound like one. I think its great that theres a desktop push to provide some competition for the big guns in the computer market. Yet those screenshots look almost exactly like Windows + IE with some different widgets. It looks like Windows without the windows applications. I'd like to see some innovation instead of everyone bashing the Windows OS and then providing a clone that acts like it.

  3. Geez... does it have to look like Windows? by jerkychew · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Look at the screenshots. The icons, the property boxes, even the fonts all look like they came straight from Win9x. Explain to me why this is good.

    Now, I understand the point of this distro is to bring Linux to the desktop, and if the UI is familiar, average peeps will be less scared of it. But where's the innovation? If it looks and feels just like Windows, why switch from Windows?

    I'd rather see a desktop that has its own unique look and feel, yet is still user friendly. Why is this so difficult? I've just started playing with OS X, and it seems to be really sweet so far. If you're going to rip off another product's UI (And yes, this is a blatant copy of Win9x), why does it have to be Windows? I would LOVE to see an Aqua clone on X86 that's marketed to the average user.