Another Review of Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0

Steve Emms writes "We've published today a review of Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0 Deluxe which might interest your readers. Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0 is billed as 'an intuitive graphical environment that works right out of the box and offers unrivaled compatibility with Microsoft Windows'. So it's pretty clear what the market of the product is - all the millions of Windows users that are fed up with an unstable operating system, want something for email and web browsing, and be able to create, edit and send the boss their Word, Excel and Visio files."

Comments

I'd like to try it out.

[eigerface]

Frankly, I agree. I am far from what you would call a linux "Power User", and I would love to install my copy of Office 97 on my current desktop OS which is Slackware 9.1. However, I always run into problems when I try to install and use Wine, and I get "unique" error messages when trying to use a trial version of VMWare. I haven't tried Codeweavers Office yet.

That brings me to my point. I shy away from shrinkwrap software these days, because if the app doesn't work as intended, there is a long, hard road to travel to receive any financial compensation.

I fear the same would be true of Xandros, and the cost is low enough to give it a try.

Re:I'd like to try it out.

[MindStalker]

Ok, in the review the guy seriously complained that the installation didn't set his refresh rate automatically to a number higher than recommended by his monitor.

Check please!

Re:I'd like to try it out.

[MindStalker]

Note other comment was supposed to be parent comment, not attached to yours. Anyways wanted to comment on yours now.

From my experience with Xandros 2 pro Crossover just works, some applications don't work granted. But there really isn't any fussing with settings as its handles automatically. So you run the program, and it either works or it doesn't.

Xandros version 3

[Scott7477]

If I were a corporate purchaser, why would I pay now when I could wait a while and download it for free?

Re:Xandros version 3

[MindStalker]

Because the "free" download doesn't include crossover or auto updates.

Re:Xandros version 3

[brianlawson]

Or support.

Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[engywook]

A couple weeks ago, I (computer geek) helped a friend (Microsoft victim) install SuSE 9.1 onto an older PC that he wasn't doing anything with. I was amazed at the amount of stuff that had to be done, figured out, or explained that I will typically just do without thinking. Having my friend there trying to figure this stuff out really brought home the fact that that particular distro was not particularly "novice-friendly". One thing that particularly surprised me was the amount of trouble we had getting X up and running. The config that it came up with on its own didn't work. No matter what we tried with the config file didn't work. We eventually deleted the Modeline entries and let the defaults be used, and that worked just fine.

Now, I'm not saying that everything we did was hard or time consuming, but we did stay up until 4am getting things up to basic functioning.

I'll be installing SuSE 9.2 on a home machine or two over the next couple of weeks. I'll try to make note of everything that needs to be done that does not seem "novice-friendly".

It's good to hear about a distro that can be recommended to Linux neophytes.

Re:Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[Bilzmoude]

Interesting... I found SuSE 9.1 to be the easiest install for Linux yet. I have installed many popular distros... including Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake and Debian. SuSE 9.1 was the most simple, straight-forward install with the least amount of tweaking. I am not saying you are wrong. One of the problems with Linux, unfortunately, is its inability to be dynamic on different hardware. Some distros work great on some boxes, others for others. I love Linux... I hope they can figure this part of it out. There are so many problems with making this task easy... including the lack of driver support by device manufacturers. There are others... I will try Xandros real soon... to see if it is any better. I hope so. Linux will take off if the install/configure problems can be streamlined.

Re:Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever tried out Linspire, formerly known as Linspire? Their live CD found my DHCP internet upon boot, really impressive haven't seen even WinXP do this. No questions asked either. Though still haven't tried installing "for real"..

Re:Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[paulatz]

I agree that SUSE is one of the easier distributions to install but i think the mandrake is a bit more novice-friendly while partitioning. If you partition the wrong way you can loose all you data so I would like to see some improvements in the SUSE installer.

Re:Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[engywook]

I think that you meant "formerly known as Lindows".

BTW, many of the "live CD" Linux distros will get their network configuration from a DHCP server. Try Knoppix (now in version 3.7) I fired it up on a system at work today, selecting the 2.6.9 kernel and it came up just fine. With previous releases of Knoppix, booting a 2.4.x kernel, I've also had no problems with the network.

Re:Has to be Easier than SuSE 9.1

[z-vet]

I can't say SuSE is novice-friendly... If you want really novice-friendly distro, why not choose Mandrake with it's M$-like installation interface? Or there is Yoper that didn't asks you nothing but a partitioning question and you get a working OS in minutes...

I still fail to see...

[Phleg]

Why desktop operating systems intending to migrate folks from Windows use KDE as the default desktop environment. I'm not trying to troll here, but KDE seems to be of the mentality for providing a configuration option for everything, and have tons and tons of menu options.

For the average user, this just isn't a very good idea. Having some experience with converting Windows users to desktop Linux, myself, I've found that the vast majority prefer the simple and clean feel to the GNOME interface. They try hard to use reasonable defaults and provide an option for the most important changes. Also, they try wherever possible to eliminate configuration options that require the user to type something (meaning the user has know about what to type in).

Yeah, it's not as customizable as KDE, but that's not what's important to Joe Average. Joe Average wants to turn on his computer, change the theme and fonts, then start actually doing stuff, not spend time fiddling with hundreds of options to get it "perfect". It's an appliance rather than living space.

Re:I still fail to see...

[antizeus]

I don't maintain a Linux distribution, but apparently creating GNOME packages is a huge pain in the ass, and that KDE is much easier. Here's what Pat Volkerding of Slackware had to say about it:

Anyway, suffice to say the jury is still out. Since GNOME 1.4 I've felt
that GNOME is going in a direction that doesn't fit well with Slackware's
goals, and for at least as long I've considered removing it completely and
taking whatever flames I get for that decision. Right now, I think
removing it would be the best thing for Slackware as it's become a
maintainance nightmare (unlike nearly every other ./configure'ed source,
GNOME doesn't build into packages easily with DESTDIR).

Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure, but I do believe it would be best
to let Dropline produce Slackware's GNOME and quit wasting my own time
with it. Probably 1/3 of developement time here is used maintaining
GNOME, and *most* of the bug reports I get have something to do with GNOME
(and aren't bugs I caused, or can fix). KDE, on the other hand, tends to
build using the existing build scripts with no changes at all. I can
start the build and come back to finished packages in a few hours. A
GNOME update usually takes at least a week of manual labor, and another
week of cleaning up broken things. It's been a long time (like I said,
around GNOME 1.4), since I've felt the effort was worth the return.

Personally, I don't care. I use FVWM and can download and build it easily enough, even if it were not included in my distribution of choice.

Re:I still fail to see...

[z-vet]

Yep, that's true. Sad true, but it is. I know some folks having problem to find fonts configuration submenu in KDE's main menu interface...

Xandros file manger

[supersuckers]

I had installed Xandros on my little sister's celeron 300 and it actually ran along side windows 98 quite well. This was about 2 months ago. I had never used Xandros before but had read it was very newbie friendly. I must admit I took quite a liking to the file manager, that they call xfm (xandros file manager). Imagine my disappointment after doing an "emerge xfm" on my machine. I wish it were available for other distros.

Heck yeah.

[bach37]

And a candy-coated Fisher-Price looking desktop isn't exaclty very slick and professional looking either. I can't stand all the bouncing cursors and bloat that is on by default. Clean and simple- that's what most other non-tech savy computer users in the world.

I guess you mean Windows 9x

[ClosedSource]

"all the millions of Windows users that are fed up with an unstable operating system"

Windows NT/2000/XP are not unstable, so you must be referring to the long obsolete Windows 9x series.

Those that are still using Windows 9x today are either not particularly concerned about system stability or don't have a system capable of supporting contemporary versions of Windows or Linux.

Bet You're Not A Corporate Buyer

[reallocate]

If you were a corporate purchaser, you'd probably lose your job for not knowing the answer.

The cost of softare is a fraction of IT costs for any organization beyond a certain size. Maintenance, support and upgrades account for much larger costs. If an organization waits for the free Xandros CD, then it can't buy maintenance, support and upgrades from Xandros. That means it will need to staff to do that internally. In all likelihood, that's going to be more expensive.

Remember, most organziations think their IT infrastructure is a necessary evil, about as exciting as the plumbing. From their perspective, after it is installed, anything that needs to be done to keep it working is money that could be better spent elsewhere.