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Xandros Desktop OS 3 Deluxe Edition Reviewed
JimLynch writes "The new Xandros is out and we've got a review up on ExtremeTech. With the exception of some burps with our wireless card, we had a great time with this distro. Highly recommended if you're in the market for a replacement for Windows."
I do not support pay distros. Fedora is free, why not Xandros? Did they work harder to create Xandros or did they just hop on top of Debian and go from there? Screw them, Gentoo is free, Fedora is free, and oh hell yes Debian is free. Xandros can suck it.
I might be wrong, but I think that OS is not run by fonts. "Linux fonts are ugly, so I can't use it", yes well... You would like to have OS's that have a lot of eyecandy and pretty fonts, even if they don't work and still you would use one. I don't think that people use windows because of the pretty fonts and nice little icons it contains. I my self prefer, simple and readable fonts that I have found on my linux desktop. First when I read your comment, I thought that you are on guy from my work. Because he says that "linux has ugly fonts, it's shitty OS." But then on the other hand, he can't speak/write english very well. I hope that there are not too many of your kind :)
The original release of Xandros was Corel Linux. They spruced up a Debian-based distro with a custom configuration of KDE with a few extra utilitites and a nice set of custom icons. They even ported a few of the Windows apps. Corel Draw suite and Corel Word Perfect were both available for Corel Linux. WP was a native port, while Draw used WINE libraries, but was still an impressive piece of work.
Though it was unrelated, anyone remember the Corel Netwider?
Which would be a better starting point for newbies? Mandrake 10.1 or Xandros OS 3 ???
Xandros without a doubt. This distro "just works" and doesn't have the issues that Mandrake has.
For one, take the floppy drive. Mandrake for one reason or another checks the floppy drive every thirty seconds if you have a floppy in it. This is very annoying. Suse won't even let you use the floppy without giving you a "protocol error." With Xandros the floppy "just works."
Also, Xandros can automount a pendrive, so you don't have to worry about damaging the pen drive by removing it while it is mounted (according to the pen-drives instruction manual anyway)
I am a noob to linux, as this post may show, but I am not a dummy. I consider myself technically literate. If I have problems, I know for sure my mother will.
The fact that Xandros "just works" in many areas and that there is a market for their product really does show that there is much work to be done.
Coders need to stop working on the MP3 player and start addressing usability up front and center.
But this has been said a thousand times, and the only one who is listening is Xandros.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
so, if you want both linux and windows, your only real option is to dual boot. simple solution, espically if you have two hard drives, and you can just use windows when you need it, and use linux whenever else you want.
So, this version contains VPN support. PPTP? IPSEC? Cisco VPN concentrator? Can anyone give me any more details?
Is the VPN client open source?
...application (un)installation is almost idiot-proof (you can't tell me that Windows is anywhere close to that level).
As a Windows software developer, I can vouch for this. Installing software on my Linux (and my BSD) box is so simple in the vast majority of cases (I do tend to prefer the FreeBSD "ports" collection personally).
On my Windows XP box (where I develop Windows software), I've run into situations where one of my own programs, upon launch, triggers the "Windows Installer". My software doesn't use Windows Installer (I prefer InnoSetup), yet launching my own app will sometimes cause Windows to ask for the CD of some other (unrelated) program, like Nero 6. Windows Installer (IMHO) needs some serious work, and has caused many headaches for users of my own software (note that I've managed to hack around these issues, until the next Windows version).
On my Linux boxes (including the servers that host my Windows software), I have no problems even remotely similar. Granted, there's the occasional dependancy issue on my RedHat box, but the system actually tells me what file(s) are having issues and why (version too low, etc). For every hour I spend mucking with the server or my personal *nix machines, there are probably about 8 hours spent figuring out/hacking around a Windows issue... though as a Windows developer I'm probably a bit biased (and, I admit, I only develop Windows softare because there's much more market/money in it)...
My family desktop machines happily run hacked versions of win2k sp4, with removed IE, litestep as the shell of choice, firefox/thunderbird and open office. I also have one slackware box working as 24h/7 router/proxy server/edonkey client.
We don't have any other uses for linux/unix machines - I run graphic/multimedia workshop, and need industry-strength applications like Photoshop/Illustrator/Premiere combo, my father is engineer and uses quite extensively AutoCAD, and my sister need just office suite/games/movies platform. Is linux ready for this? Don't think so.
Where the heck is the free Xandros Open Circulation 3 download? The downloads page only lists version 2 which is really out dated. http://www.xandros.com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk _oc_download.html
If you're an uber geek Xandros isn't for you.
I'm an uber geek and I take offense at that!
Ok, well, maybe I'm not uber in terms of the crowd around here, but I do write open source software for a living, made a linux digital picture frame, design my own parabolic WiFi dishes and manage 4 Linux servers (2 Debian, 1 Red Hat, 1 Suse) and a FreeBSD server. I'm not coding graphics applications in assembly just for the fun of it, but none-the less, I could run any distro I wanted without hitch.
Still, I run Xandros on my desktops. Why? Because it "just works". Its not quite OS X in that department, but its the closest thing I've seen on x86 (Maybe Win2k or WinXP is good in this respect, but I haven't tried either as I got out around the time of WinME). As much as I love computers and writing software and such, I despise spending 20 hours trying to get a piece of hardware working or configured. I do it, but I'm not a happy camper. I'm not saying that Xandros is perfect by any means, but like Knoppix most everything is working when you first boot it up.
The 100s of hours saved configuring hardware over the past year or so are definately worth $100. Its really just Debian with some nice add-ons. I've yet to find anything that I can do with Debian that I can't do with Xandros. Plus, I get the benefit of running Photoshop while waiting for the GIMP to become useful for MY needs.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers