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Extensive Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review
Ms Pacman writes "This article is the fifth and final installment of Barry Smith's series on Debian-based commercial distros in a Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) environment. In this in-depth article, the newly released Xandros Deluxe 2.0 is being reviewed and compared to all previous distros Barry Smith used and reviewed the past 2-3 months. Of special interest is the blurb about Xandros' customer support."
.. and I like it a lot. I've used it pretty much only on IBM laptops, and the Radeon 3D support is quite lacking. Other than that, it's a dream to work with and use, especially for an experienced Debian user. Xandros has been my primary work desktop since 1.0 and I'm sold.
Besides, as far as I know it's my only option if I want a made-in-Canada distro.
We have used Xandros/1.0 for 6 months or so on our systems, and it was already wonderful. Xandros/2.0 went onto a couple of new systems last week and is simply excellent.
If you have to support MS Office, go for the professional version, which comes with Crossover Office, a decent way of running MSIE, MS Office, and some other applications. It's Wine plus some extensions, and well-integrated into Xandros.
If you don't need this, just go for the basic package.
The best thing about Xandros is that it combines the 95%+ device detection we're starting to expect in modern distros along with a clean and lean Debian-based chassis. You get simple graphical installation of the standard Xandros packages, plus access to everything in Debian unstable via the normal apt-get interface.
The Xandros/2.0 file manager handles pretty much everything you can throw at it. It mounts everything it can, lets you burn CDs, map network drives, and so on.
Just for fun I installed a Lindows 4.5, then took a deep breath, and wiped it with Xandros. Lindows is so *full* of stuff, while Xandros shows the meaning of "less is more".
There is no shame in paying for good software, and Xandros/2.0 gets my vote as the best office distro of 2003. Install it, forget about it. You can't ask for more.
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This is from a post I made on osnews, but it fits for Xandros as well.
Personally I think if your new to Linux you should stay clear of distros like Suse, Lindows, Xandros etc. Try Fedora,Mandrake, or maybe Debian with that new progeny installer first. If your going to bother to ditch Microsoft and their Proprietary Windows might as well do it right. These distros are as good Xandros et al and are Truely Free and totally Open Source. That might not mean too much to you, but long term its REALLY important. Being Truely Free and Open is what got Linux and its ever improving Desktops where they are today. Having the core of say Gnome of KDE proprietary would have just held these products back and prevented them from becoming what they are now. If for example a key developer of Gnome came up with some ubber cool addon for Gnome that made it great and then was hit by a bus or decided to stop coding, Boom. There goes Gnome's neat feature because it can't be maintained or built into future versions of Gnome. You'd think this is just common sense to Slashdot visitors, but I'd bet my life that of the overwhelming number of IE users here some still don't get open source.
To be frank, I'd propose that if your set on cutting a check to Xandros you might as well buy Windows XP. At least that way you'll get a decent stable proprietary desktop that will be around in a few years. Going with one of these semi-proprietary Linux distros is just trading one fault for another. Your just buying into closed technology which literally may or may not even have a future. When/If Xandros goes out of business who is going to be making updates to its proprietary packages? Like I said, long term it just makes NO sense being tied to these sorts of issues.
All proprietary software is Not evil and when it comes down to it, you need to use what gets the job done. You won't hear me rallying against some neat game because its closed source. But please don't shortchange how important Truely Free and Open Source software is to the world and especially Linux. If your going to start using Free software at least "try" to go all the way and see how far you can get with open source. Using and promoting this type of software is what got Linux where it is today and its what is leading to better software for ALL of us now and in the Future.
Well, Xandros includes (among other things) Crossover Office, a commercial package. Presumably they don't have the rights to let people make and distribute copies of a commercial package they don't own.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.