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."

Flibble da ddooo No subject

[gantrep]

Screenshots here [xandros.net]

Re:I use Xandros 2.0

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Ummm, Libranet is made in Canada....

One thing he missed

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

He mentions towards the end how happy he is w/ Libranet since nothing in Libranet is proprietary code. As far as I know their (wonderful) XAdminMenu utility is NOT released under the GPL.

Re:to make a long story short

[damiam]

The "needlessly long" parts are intended to give a full impression of the distro. He makes it obvious that, while those distros fit his personal needs best, Xandros has strong points and would be the best choice for some users.

Re:One thing he missed

[damiam]

He never says anything of the sort. He even paraphrases the Libranet EULA as saying, "Hey, this stuff is GPL, except for what isn't. Look at the individual packages to find out which is which. Don't blame us if it blows up your system. Do whatever you want with this stuff, just don't get us in trouble over it." Oviously, he knows there's non-GPL stuff in there.

Re:Does anyone know...

[damiam]

You could have taken 5 seconds and looked it up yourself [codeweavers.com]. Yes, Crossover does support Access, although only Access 2000 and they say it's not 100% flawless (but then again, neither is Access on Windows).

Xandros 1

[jbyron]

is a decent distro - I switched from RH 7.x in an attempt to get my family to switch over (didn't quite work). Good: networking, Debian, stable, mostly intuitive. Bad: older version of KDE. Looking forward to finding a few Ben and getting the upgrade.

Re:Who really is using this?

[TwinkieStix]

I am that target audience.

I am a professional Java and web (javascript, xslt, CSS) programmer and full time student finishing my BS in Computer Science and a minor in math. I manage my parents Red Hat 7 server/router, and help our sometimes with my company's Red Hat and Debian Servers.

I love linux, but I'm not into spending time tweaking it. I don't play games, or have massive hardware needs. I simply need a stable system that can keep a lot of windows open, I can configure the way I like, and has a powerful shell that I can get around. I'll poke around configuration files to get my winmodem working, but then I'll go to kppp to set up the actual connection. But normally, I set something up that I want to work without having to read a 10 chapter "howto". I bought a used HP laserjet 6 printer so that I won't have to worry about drivers and print head alignment.

I don't like the Windows Registry but I can deal with it, but I much prefer the /etc folder. Webmin is my conrol panel. I don't like The way "Document's And Settings" is structured or the fact that it warns you a million times just because you want to look at a "protected" folder, and I DO like the way /home is structured. I like apple, but can't afford it so I have a PC with Mandrake.

I am the target audience.

Re:Who really is using this?

[daneturner]

what's the market? small schools with tiny tech budgets and enthusiastic, but new-to-linux, tech administrators (ahem, me). I am _the_ technology department at a private high school, enrollment=65. we chose linux based on 1) philosophy 2) price. we chose debian for performance. and then we chose libranet to make up for not having an experienced administrator. maybe one day we'll go pure debian, but until we have ability/comfort-zone, libranet provides the right mix of user-friendliness and sophistication.