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Another Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review
JimLynch writes in about his review: "If we had to define Xandros 2.0 with one word, we'd pick 'usable.' This time around, the folks at Xandros have refined their product significantly and come up with something that makes Linux quite comfortable and easy to use, even if you're a total newbie to the OS. Obviously the Gentoo crowd won't be interested in this distro, but Windows users who haven't used Linux before or have had bad experiences with other distros will particularly enjoy this release. The time to begin the desktop migration to Linux might very well have arrived with Xandros 2.0." An earlier review was also favorable.
did you see the screenshots?
That's a lawsuit just waiting to happen... All the sub-apps like the Task Manager and all the Properties windows are a perfect copy! Very impressive.
The review doesn't mention one of the most important criteria: what are the copying conditions for Xandros?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Hmmm is this really any improvement? The biggest complaint many people have with Microsoft and Windows, is that its proprietary nature stiffles any innovation. I'd much rather see someone make a desktop that expands beyond XP then tries its hardest to emulate it. Id be more excited about a DEXP, Doesn't Emulate XP then an XPDE.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
Linux on the desktop will happen when its ready to happen. All this pushing does nothing to aide linux.
All that will happen is less experienced users will hear all the fuss and see phrases like "A free windows alternative" and attempt to give it a go.
Assuming they find their way through the installer, they will find that their modems, web cams etc dont work and various other niggly issues that still cause alot of problems.
The brave end-user that tried it out will head back to windows, never to enter linux territory again and whats more, will likely tell all his friends not to bother. The hype will be countered with anti-hype and things stay as they are.
When linux is viable on the desktop (for Joe Public) it will happen, trying to push it before this point will just be detrimental.
I cant understand the push anyway. Does the linux community need to validate its existance by taking on the evil empire?
I almost agree with you.
If you want to lure them away from Windows, you have to offer them something better.
That something better changes depending on who you are talking to. To the majority of the users of desktop operating systems, better means: like Windows so it's familiar, but sell it for less. And make sure it just works. IMHO, OS X is there.
If you want to drag them away from Windows, then you are talking about people who have no choice in OS (i.e. employees). Make it familiar so retraining costs are minimized, make it work well, have a corporation behind it for support, and make it cheap.
I don't think anybody is just copying crap blindly. A familiar interface is not necessarily a bad thing.
-ec
If you want a Windows experience, use Windows. If you're openminded and you want to try Firebird, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Gimp, XMMS, Korganizer, Evolution, Gramofile and the tons of cool apps available for Linux, then try a distro.
I don't mean this as a troll but you're setting yourself up for a major disappointment if you just want to have a Windows experience on a Linux machine. Linux is not a cheap Windows. It's Linux.
Why does everyone knock on Gentoo claiming it's hard to use. I'm a linux newbie and have been for about 5 years. I tried Caldera, couldn't get the hang of it. Tried Red Hat didn't like it either. Tried Gentoo, I love it. It's the first distro that didn't leave me confused after the install. Sure Red Hat and Caldera installed easier, but Gentoo was better documented, and since I had to do many things manually I learned what would need done in the future if I needed to change something. For instance under Red Hat I didn't know what I needed to do to add another hard drive to my system, or to change network cards.
With Gentoo during the install I learned how to create filesystems, configure and compile the kernel, and lots of other stuff. It takes more work, but I wouldn't call it difficult. Grandma couldn't do it, but my dad or my 13 year old cousin probably could.
Non gratis rodentus anus
If you had said Linux is not ready for the average Joe Consumer purchasing their first computer at Best Buy, you might have a leg to stand on. But it most certainly *is* ready for the desktop. You can't make the claim that just because it doesn't run every single Windows application out there, that it isn't ready, because Mac OSX doesn't either, and no one with more than two brain cells would claim OSX isn't ready for the desktop.
I could be wrong though. I don't use Linux. I use FreeBSD. But considering that the GUI/desktop portion is exactly identical to Linux, I don't think I am. I use FreeBSD/XFree86/KDE on my desktop at work and at home, including a laptop. I still have a Windows partition, but that's ONLY for the use of ONE highly specialized program. Everything else is native FreeBSD. Web browsing, email, word processing, spreadsheets, digital cameras, photo processing, music, etc, etc. There's no common task you can do on your desktop that I can't do on mine, and just as easily.
What's holding Linux and BSD back is not the desktop. That battle has been won. What's missing is easy to perform system administration. But for many systems, that's not too far off. It was actually easier to install and configure FreeBSD on my laptop than it was to do the same with WinXP.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!