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Interview: Xandros and KDE
Fabrice Mous writes "The Xandros Desktop OS is known for their intuitive graphical environment that works right out of the box. Their polished desktop product is based on KDE. The
KDE News website had the privilege to talk to Rick Berenstein, Xandros Chairman and CTO and Ming Poon,
Vice President for Software Development about Xandros and their products and the relationship between
Xandros and the KDE project. Without further ado ... enjoy the
interview!"
I had a quick look at the Xandros OS screenshots, since I hadn't heard of it before (sheepish grin).
Most of it seems to be an exact replica of MS look and feel - the same start button, the task bar, task trays, heck even the colour variations!
Why is this deemed "intuitive" then? Isn't this just another attempt to replicate MS experience on another OS? Or am I missing something?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
$90 a download, I'm not sure really what they have that other distributions don't? I think they have simplified a few processes (look and feel of the desktop) a little for the average user, which is fantastic, but most of which is in some form or the other on other distributions.
Sig it.
I went to Xandros once, then clicked my heels and ended up back Gnome!
You can't re-use code, if you can't find it.
They're merely familiar!
One of those screenshots shows a dialog to switch users. Has that been incorporated into any other distros desktop? I love that feature of XP. Makes it easy to share a single computer with the wife.
*Chuckle* :P
Whoever modded it informative deserves to be shot.
Ok, you might not read the article
but ffs, check the fscking links if you're gonna mod it informative?
(Oh and, why was ol' tubby censored?)
...after that, it's all learned.
-- attributed to Bruce Edigar
sorry xandros , but kde without konqueror just isnt kde. i'll stick with mandrake...
Why the heck are we still focused on emulating windows right down to the exact contextual menus? Why not try to strike out on a new path.
I use OS X and I love it, but I also love mu Suse and I have always thought that a good GUI (ahem...not like windows) could launch linux into the stratosphere. Why spend time and effort "creating" a GUI that is already in use???
C'mon, don't waste your talents for another second!
Why do people have such difficulty conducting interviews properly? They ask "Could you tell us somewhat more about the work that Xandros has done to integrate KDE in their products?" and the answer has all this stuff about XFM. Then they completely ignore the talk about XFM and move on, only to come back and ask "In the Xandros Desktop OS there is an application called "Xandros File Manager"[XFM]. Can you tell us a bit more about it and the technologies it support?" later. Did they just write down a list of questions and not probe the interesting answers?
Okay so maybe they just sent a list of questions and published the list of answers they were sent back, but they really should have tried to integrate this stuff into a decent flow. It reads very badly.
Why is anything anything?
I have heard that Xandros is the only linux distro that does NT authentication and that it is some non-free component ... if any users can confirm or deny that (and how well it works), I'd be happy to hear about it.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Do you not consider submitting bug fixes back to the KDE team giving back to the FOSS community? Read the article.
...and I love it. With the possible exception of Crossover Wine, which seems to be a bit flaky, I have no complaints other than the really nasty window skins and colour schemes.
It's true to say that it might be confusing for a new user. As always, when switching from an OS you've used for years you will find things difficult if you're not used to Linux.
I personally have had few problems with it. It detected my monitor, LAN card, all my hardware. Something even Redhate failed to manage.
Of course, it's not FreeBSD. But hey, it's a start...
When is a Linux distro going to finally try to emulate the look and feel of Microsoft BOB, a truly intuative GUI?!?!?! Jeeesh!
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Jef Raskin says, in The Humane Interface, that people misuse the word "intuitive". In the context of user interfaces, they mean "familiar".
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Many of the posts here are slagging Xandros for trying to look like Windows and are questioning the idea that this makes it intuitive.
Maybe you are all just trolling, because I find it hard to believe that you haven't seen the desktop numbers (or at least heard about them). Almost everyone uses Windows on the desktop, except a few who use the Mac (with MS's full blessing).
The purpose of the Xandros distribution is to appeal to Windows users. It is supposed to be intuitive to Windows users, not Linux users. 'Lock-in' really exists and it is really important: it is very difficult to switch to another OS if you've only ever used Windows. It's not a matter of which is better, it's a question of familiarity.
I personally would like to see more Windows users using Linux (in any form), and I would especially like to see a small dent made in the MS monopolies so I'm glad to see Xandros working on this.
Now, if you want to slag Xandros, there are lots of better ways to do this. Most importantly to me, they don't seem to contribute much back. People are attacking Red Hat a lot these days, but take a loook at the amount that Red Hat contributes to important OSS projects (eg. GCC). Xandros does not. But that is their right - they are not breaking the GPL or anything (to the best of my knowledge). By the way, Dream Weavers (which is included in Xandros and shares some ownership) is also an excellent contributor (to Wine).
It also seems to me that their product is way over priced, but I guess I don't know what their strategy is.
I had to install Xandros on a professor's new laptop and desktop. Selected the packages I wanted installed, clicked "Install" only to have it fail with the error "bad package". No indication which of the dozens of packages I had selected was bad. I ended up installing the systems six packages at a time so when I got an error I could uncheck them individually until I found the bad one.
What a pain in the ass. Naturally, after all that the modem in the laptop didn't work (driver version was too old), neither did selecting the proper resolution for the flat panel using their display control panel (no matching modeline). I fixed the XF86Config file, only to have Xandros overwrite it on a subsequent boot.
For his money and my trouble, he basically got an old Debian sid snapshot with an XPesque Playskool theme, plus the CrossOver plugin. Big whoop.
If you're going after a market dominated by Windows, you try to make it look like Windows. People aren't terribly good with new and unfamiliar things. Don't believe me? Try standing sideways in an elevator while everyone else is facing forward. People around you will get uncomftorable...the same way they will if there's not a "start menu."
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Bing! http://www.jefraskin.com/ points to a user environment which, although unfamiliar, is much easier to use. For example, the system NEVER discards your keystrokes. If you're pointing at a piece of read-only text (e.g. somebody else's web page), typing at it forces the cursor to slide over to the end of the read-only text. So if you just walk up to your machine with somebody's phone number in your head, you can just type it in without caring what context you're in.
For another thing, you never have to save anything in The Humane Environment. It autosaves (with undo!) for you.
For another thing, you don't have to start programs in THE. You access your data, and it takes care of starting the program that manipulates the data.
We can do this all, and we can do it long before Longhorn comes out.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Since all the comments above me are from people who say that "Xandros is no more than Debian + KDE + Codeweavers, just go compile your own", I figure I should add something.
I moved one of my machines to Xandros 2.0 last December. It was my first machine to move from Windows 2000. I hadn't switched until then for a few reasons:
1) While I can figure out technical things, I want some basis of familiarity to start with. Most Linux operating systems are completely foreign. I had previously installed Debian once, but I had no idea what to do to make my sound work, and no real way to find out without wasting weeks of my free time on my own, or going to a newsgroup to get unhelpful advice.
2) I had been very nervous about making an -insecure- Linux box. Back in college I had a SGI workstation with Irix. I learned a good bit about the OS, and even reinstalled it once from scratch. I didn't learn until it was too late, however, that buried somewhere back in section 6 chapter 7 page 35 of the documentation was a list of default accounts with no passwords! The machine was exploited. I waited until Xandros 2.0 so I would have a Linux operating system with the simplicity of Debian updates to keep it secure.
Xandros 2.0 has worked very well for me. A few accomplishments:
1) In four years, my wife and I have not been able to get Windows networking to function on our six computers. Her second machine could see my second machine in the workgroup, while my second machine could see her primary machine. None of them could see anything else, even though they were all in the same workgroup and even attached to the same hub, with all of them set up the same way. We used FTP to transfer files, and moved the printer cable manually. With Xandros, I set up a fileserver with (almost) a right-click and "share this folder". Amazingly, even now when the machines can't see each other, they ALL see the server. Samba does a better job of Windows networking that Windows does!
2) I have an old HP scanner. The HP driver for it blue-screens Windows 2k on boot, and they never provided an updated driver. I haven't used it in two years because of this. When I used Xandros Networks to install their scanner program (Kooka) and then plugged in my USB scanner, it just -worked-. (The first day.)
3) I have several Windows applications running well in Xandros with Crossover Office, including Excel (didn't like OO.o), tax software, GURPS character creator, etc. This helps build hope that I could leave Windows entirely one day.
Now, that said, there are some things that have gone wrong:
1) That Samba share worked great for all the Windows users, who could great and modify files in the shared directory with ease (when I had permissions set correctly in the graphical dialogs). To get my user on the Xandros machine to be able to also create and modify files at the same time, I had to dig through the Xandros support site and the Samba online docs to find the right setting to make in a config file.
2) The mouse in Xandros was "sticky". The cursor wouldn't move until I had moved the mouse a certain amount, and then it "jumped". This made it VERY hard to do things like resize columns in Excel. The fix was adding a "resolution" line to the pointer's configuration, which again I had to go to support forums to find. I have no idea why this wasn't configurable from the control center.
3) After using my scanner the first day, two days later it completely didn't work. Again, after digging around on support sites, I found the solution - it was a permissions problem. (Why did I have permission the first day but not on later days? I have no idea.) Anyway, it works fine again now, and I was even able to help some other folks who had the same problem.
In summary - Xandros 2.0 has a market. Maybe it's not a market for most Slashdot readers who work in IT or are in college or high school and grew up with Linux and PCs. But it has a market for this electrical engi
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
...will any Linux distro forego familiarity and try to revolutionize a new desktop? People are familiar with Windows, but, as stated here, is it really that intuitive? Not unless you've used it for some time. So why not develop the next gen desktop and trump MS. I know IceVM and the like are vastly different, but I don't know how Joe Sixpack would adapt to the interface. Who knows, maybe he would... but I would definitely like to see some innovation in the desktop as it has been untouched for decades, really. Christ, I remember GEOS on the C64 that was an 8bit, 64k version of today's desktop. End of rant... informative or not...
I can say why it's easily worth the price tag.
1. On every PC we've installed it on (about 10 in our company) it just worked, with the exception of a notebook that had some CD hardware problems.
2. It installs smoothly and gives you a good set of applications without overloading the UI.
3. It has an excellent one-click GUI update manager that is based on apt and is compatible with it.
4. The Xandros File Manager really _is good_. Whatever file you have, you click and the 'right' thing happens. Want to burn some files to CD? Selected them, right click and select "Burn to CD"... Want to unpack a zip file? Right click, choose "Unpack". and so on.
5. It is stable.
Overall Xandros gives you the feeling that you are driving a luxury car. Smooth, highly polished, and incredible attention to detail.
6. It is Debian: want to add something? Find the sources, unpack, build, install.
Now the poor points:
1. Slow release cycle, annoying if you're a thrill seeker. With one release a year, Xandros gives you reliability over performance and gadgets.
2. Not free. You can't just copy it and share it. I believe Xandros is preparing a free version.
3. The Windows support is flaky and not something you should bet on. It's better just to migrate to Linux/portable applications such as OOo over time (it took me about 6 months to migrate, switching one application at a time: office, media players, browsing, streaming, agendas, and finally email.)
I've tried many different distros, but I'm not willing to spend much time installing, or learning the details. It has to work quickly and smoothly. That's what Xandros does.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
And it's the first distro I've ever bought 'officially'.
I'm mixed about it. I wanted an easy desktop but I also want to be able to config "some stuff". Like, I wanted to be able to upgrade kernals, or upgrade to kde 3.2 etc, which I couldn't.
I suppose it wasn't really aimed at me, but for the average windows user it is fantastic. Amazing hardware support (minus USB) easy installation, looks great (you CAN have Gnome in it, it's a matter of "apt-get install gdm" and "apt-get install gnome-desktop") also the software is easy as pie. You have their GUI interface to apt-get, meaning you literally click and install or click and uninstall. This is also true of patches, select patches, then click the patches to install.
Setting it up with Samba was amazing, it detected it all by itself with my other Windows box, config'd great with my router and modem.
It's also not a bloated Redhat box, it runs fast, this was on an AMD XP3000+ 512ddr, 64mb gfx but there was no sluggish behaviour at all.
The worst thing was their own servers, though. Their own xandros-compiled database of applications was very limited, which meant I had to rely on Debian-based programs a lot of the time, or compile myself, but then I suppose I was going for slightly more obscure programs (though I don't consider amsn and gaim that obscure.
In all, if you want a Linux desktop that you're not going to want to touch much (just for office, web, email etc) then go with Xandros, if you're like me and want that little bit more power, like being able to choose to upgrade the kernal when you like and updated WM's then give it a miss.
Posted AC originally but I thought it needed better visibility...
The biggest reason for look-and-feel cloning is to make migration from Windows, with it's 98% control of the desktop market, to Linux as pain free as possible.
Besides, imagine trying to sell off the idea of Linux migration to a Fortune 500 company saying that "Oh, yeah, you'll have to retrain all of your staff who will be using the new Linux installation because we feel our WM and Desktop environment is cooler/slicker/13373r than that Windows crap." as opposed to "The computing environment will be familiar requiring minimal retraining and no loss of productivity."
Hi, my name's Brent, I'm a developer, and I'm migrating from Windows to Linux. ("Hi, Brent.") About a month and a half ago, I got fed up with the intricacies of Active Directory and Exchange 2003's wacko registry keys, and decided to ditch it all.
I'd tried Linux every year or so, but the installation process kept turning me away. I couldn't find a distro that worked out of the box with my IBM Thinkpad T21 (strange video card running 1400x1050, and integrated 3com Hurricane ethernet card that isn't supported anymore.) This time, I decided I was going to make the switch no matter what.
Over the course of two weekends, I tried every distro I could find and had nothing but problems. My video card setup was particularly problematic: I just wanted dual head video with one video card, two flat panels. Most distributions just stubbornly refused to work out of the box. I contacted a lot of Linux users in my area via IRC, and nobody had the time (even though I was offering great money) to come set it up for me.
Out of desperation, I shelled out $90 for the downloadable version of Xandros, figuring that since it came with Crossover Office, it'd probably be worth the money.
Wow. It was. Among other things, Xandros detected the ATI video card out of the box, eventually got dual head video working, and the user interface is pretty straightforward. It still couldn't handle the onboard Ethernet on the Thinkpad, but I've given up on that laptop by now.
Here's the punch line: users leaving Windows don't care about the window manager. They don't care whether it's Gnome or KDE. We want an easy transition, and we're willing to pay good money for it. We don't want a *BETTER* user interface - if we did, we'd buy Macs. We just want to do the same things we're doing more, but more reliably and more securely. People who argue about whether Xandros is copying Windows are missing the point. They got my $90. If I could do it all over again, the only thing I would have done is bought Xandros earlier in the process.
What's your damage, Heather?
Here's some more information for you to ignore:
When we started the Corel LINUX project back in March of 1999, GNOME/GTK was there so we actually reviewed both GNOME and KDE to make sure we used the right desktop environment to start. We had a very short and aggressive cycle and the simplicity of KDE/Qt won again. Looking back, we never regretted about not supporting GNOME at all. Most of us came from OS/2 PM or Windows GUI development or freshly from a new object oriented technology called Java back then. MFC was a big life saver when it came out in Windows in developing GUI apps. Java was even better where everything was simple and made perfect sense. There was no way any of us would like to go back in time and program in something (GNOME/GTK) that was even more awkward than programming in pre-MFC days where we had to deal with the Win32 C API only. KDE/Qt was just like Java where everything (well most of the time anyway) made sense.
We have also seen a lot of poor arguments made on Qt where it cost money if you want to develop a commercial closed source application. Usually people argued that the $500 per developer license fee was just as much as a developer's salary in some third world countries. That may be true but they don't really take into account the months of headaches and development time they will save by using Qt every year. That alone is probably worth the $500. KDE/Qt is simple and is designed for the desktop. We like it and we have no regrets in supporting KDE at all.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Apparently Lindows, now known as Linspire, shared code and lent Xandros money to develop their own Linux much like Lindows.
PC OnRamp AKA EPC sells Xandros for $40USD on an install CD.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
You would choose Win32 over MFC?? Gaaaah. MFC was not wonderful, but it greatly simplified app development on Windows. Apparently every application company out there felt the same way, because Win32 was swiftly abandoned (along with competing class libraries like OWL) once MFC and Visual C++ became usable (around VC++ 4.2, if I recall - sometime in 1996).
Personally, I'm busy learning PyQt and PyKDE for fun. This is the way to do app development - Python is a nice language with the ease and speed of development of VB but without its general horribleness. I think the combination of Python and Qt (and even better, the KDE libraries, if you are targeting KDE only) is fantastic.
The only people I can think of who still write GUI apps in C are the Gnome/GTK types with way too much time on their hands. In places I've worked in the past, I think you'd get canned for even suggesting it.
I'll admit to being guilty of confusing intuitive with familiar. But let's be honest here, no interfaces are created or used in isolation. They are always based on some previous knowledge, understanding or bias and exploit a framework of shared understanding between users. That "Network Neighborhood" icon is only intuitive if you know what a "Network Neighborhood" is and can guess that the little drawing is about.
I ran into this problem while designing a webmail interface. I had to battle the impluse to go with my personal preferences for a clean, unobtrusve interface with small icons and hovering tools tips. I found out that icons that made perfect sense to me were uselsess to my users. My preference for having additional information appear only when an item was focused on (ie. hovered over) instead of splattered all over the screen up front wasn't shared by my users. Moreover, I found, when I asked for feedback and input, that "experienced" users alway asked for things to be laid out like the software it was replacing (Eudora, Outlook, etc.) while the "new" users, once given a brief tour accepted the interface much more readily. I'm guilty of that myself. I use the Gimp whenever I can, but because I cut my teeth on Photoshop and have hundreds of hours experience with it, I find myself giving the Gimp negative reviews - mostly because it's unfamiliar (read counter-intuitive) to me.
So, after sitting for a while and trying to literally think out of the box and come up with a truly new interface for an OS, I realized that almost everything I imagined was impossible (or at least impractical) with current technology, or heavily biased toward familiar paradigms and conventions. When it came down to it, most of the thing's I'd change are little annoyances instead of overall design. I think if anything, incorporating some fuzzy logic into the interface so that it morphs to my usage patterns. I mean subtlely, I hate it when windows chops off a menu and removes objects I haven't used yet. It's a good idea, but how about leaving them where I was used to seeing them but making the most used items progressively darker, sharper, bigger, whatever. Don't remove them from sight or even rearange them.
For me personally I rely on relative location of objects rather than what they look like for immediate recognition. It drives my wife (and my boss) crazy, but what migh look like a complete mess in my office to others is "organized" to me. Whatever you do, don't move anything. When I'm reading a book, I can literally stop in the middle of the page and be able to pick the book back up months later and know exactly what word I left off on, because it hasn't moved. So for me, spacial orientation is critical. For my wife, it has to be labled and "organized" according to the Dewey-decimal system or she's lost (I don't know how we've made it for 18 years). So, I guess what I'm saying is that comming up with a revolutionarily intuitive user interface may be impossible. That leaves us with an evolutionarily familiar interface. I mean, my God, vi is NOT intuitive, by any streatch of the imagination. However, it IS powerfull and familiar to me, meaning that I'm more likely to turn to vi for many tasks and get things done more quickly, than I am to fire up a graphical editor. My mom on the other hand has no compatible frame of reference and would be totally lost in vi.
So, for those of you who ar
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution