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."

Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[CreamOfWheat]

The fact that the distros are competing among themselves as much as with Windows is disturbing; the linux market will only grow significantly if a large number of windows users get interested in Linux. If won't make much difference to Xandros that all Lindows users defect to them but it will be some effort. But any small number of Windows users adopting Linux will make a BIG difference. Granted distros still compete against each other to get the biggest slice of these new customers. But normally, industry lobbies (ever heard about the Agro business ?) fight united to make their common market bigger and make internal competition less cutthroat. Linux companies (and the author) don't seem to get it.

Re:Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[Sarojin]

but, this competition isn't particularily harmful - many publish their tools under the GPL to give back to the community, just as they all will use pretty much the same software underneath the packaging.

to make a long story short

[jest3r]

This review is needlessly long .. when its all said and done Xandros 2.0 didn't make the cut.

Final Decision:

Primary system - Libranet
Secondary system - Lindows

Re:Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this theory is that Linux is still not quite where it needs to be to be accessible to Joe Six-Pack. This competition is beneficial in that regard as it encourages Linux to evolve more quickly.

Conformality

[vpscolo]

As nice as it is to have choice one things Windows brings it is a constant. Things normally work on most PC's. With each distro of Linux things aren't the same from one point to another which can be seen as a strength, however if things aren't careful it could come as a bad thing if infighting gets worse. Of course KDE and Gnome do help but in this case standard should be a good thing Rus

Linux Distro Reviews ...

[SuperDuG]

It drives me nuts to think that someone who uses a distro for a little while after an install actually thinks they have the ability to review said distro.

Let me further clarify, all linux distros have a user base (size varies), and in that user base there are many things that bring a distro to its full potential. There are distro specific forums and IRC channels as well as distro specific webpages and 3rd party packaged binaries for specific distros.

You can't possibly learn about a distro completely until you've also had a chance to explore its community surrounding it. Such as debian, redhat, and mandrake I know have special file and community repositories for such things as music ripping and DVD playback. While not included in the distro did you know that with a broadband connection and in one command you can turn your brand new installation into a fully functioning multimedia system?

Then theres the all important part of linux, the security aspect, while some installers download updates in the install perhaps a review of the distributions updater and the time for the updates for security notices to hit the repositories would be nice to have.

I stopped reading OS news because it wasn't anything about actually using operating systems it was just a club of people who wanted to say that they installed every operating system they could get their hands on and they watched it boot.

In closing the last part of this entire article that urked me was that the reviewer didn't even bother to take a look at Knoppix (maybe they did, but it wasn't in the wrapup summary and I'm not searching osnews to find out). If they only want to use an OS for the time it takes to grab a screenshot and find out that something doesn't work just like redhat then possibly knoppix would fit their operating system attention span. At least with knoppix their poor overly formatted harddrive would get a break.

"Community" Doesn't Matter To Consumers

[reallocate]

>> You can't possibly learn about a distro completely until you've also had a chance to explore its community surrounding it.

The market these consumer distributions are targetting -- home and corporate desktop users -- have little reason to be aware of any pseudo-community surrounding a distribution. If a distribution requires people to go online and start asking questions before it works, it is a failed distribution.

Linux enthusiasts and hobbyists comprise these so-called communities. These are people who are interested in Linux for its own sake, not as a means to an end. These are the people who will install a new OS just to play with it. On the other hand, pretty much everyone else could care less. For the people these distributions are targetting, Linux is about as interesting as their refrigerator. They don't want to depend on a refrigerator community, either.

Who really is using this?

[Ars-Fartsica]

What is the market for the Lindows/Xandors distros? I mean, I know what they describe as their audience, but I don't see much market presence. People who tend to not want to worry about the details of their software ("it just works") seem to be using the Windows that came preinstalled on their systems. The techie crowd seems to have zero interest in these types of distros also. I would be surprised if Lindows and Xandros are still around in two years. It seems the Sun/Novell (Suse) approach of focusing on business desktops has more momentum.

Re:Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[kj0rn]

but, this competition isn't particularily harmful

i disagree.

I disagree with you sir ;-)

Competition is always a good thing, even with in the Linux world, it means each distro is getting better and better.

john.e.boy

Probably The End of Xandros

[occamboy]

Nobody (except perhaps Ellison and McNealy) wants to see a desktop distro, other than Windows, that is usable by non-misterwizard types.

I've been keeping my eye on Xandros for some time, as I thought that they were the most likely candidate to build a non-sucking desktop distro. Roots are with Corel, a technically superb company that couldn't market. Xandros's focus was on an easy-to-use GUI desktop from the beginning; all of the other distros that I know of either started with a view towards misterwizards or a hatred of Microsoft - not a recipe for success.

The problem is that Xandros needs to capture the hearts of nerds before it can be successful at spreading out to the masses - this has been true of all micro-based hardware and software, and even how Micrsoft became what it is. In the case of Xandros, the average nerd must have it in his head that "Oh, grandpa wants a cheap computer, I'll use Xandros". However, if the average nerd never uses Xandros, Xandros won't gain mindshare. And if one has to shell out cash just to try it, very few nerds will try.

For example, I'd be interested in checking out Xandros to see if it would make a good OS for my non-tech-savvy friends and relatives. It might even be good for my personal use, if it has fonts-that-don't-suck, i.e., fonts that are as good as those that Windows had eight years ago. But am I going to shell out $89, along with my time to test it out?

No.

The only glimmer of hope here is that the Xandros main download page states "Xandros Desktop OS is not currently available as a free download". I suspect that "currently" means that free is Plan B. Since momentum is such a precious thing and so easy to lose, I hope that Plan B takes effect in the very-very-near future, or I fear that Xandros is history.

A shame, and a big blow to Linux on the desktop.

Re:Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[mrscott]

I understand what you're saying, but consider this: there are dozens of distros out there that are claiming to be the nest best Linux desktop. Sure, there are only a half a dozen true contenders for mind share. However, to someone who doesn't understand the Linux market, Lindows, Xandros, Red Hat, etc, etc, etc all look like companies offering different products. Yeah, they're different but built for the same purpose.

Consider also the development efforts going on. Each distro is customized to a certain extent meaning that there is a lot of duplicate effort going on.

I'm not saying this is necessarily BAD, but what I WOULD like to see are some commonalities at some point. OpenOffice is a good start - now, ditch KOffice and apply those resources to making OO even better. That kind of thing.

Desktop choice is getting better, but a typical user doesn't care about KDE vs. Gnome - they just want their computer to work so they can do their jobs. Take the best of both KDE and Gnome and create a great desktop environment (a la Red Hat to a certain extent).

There is such a thing as too much choice - I think that is part of what has the potential to hinder Linux uptake.

Re:"Community" Doesn't Matter To Consumers

[reallocate]

Having access to knowledgable people online is as valuable a resource as having access to the same people offline. But, to follow your argument, receiving the benefits of that online community requires a working OS and apps. As I said, if you need to go online for help before you can get a distribution to work, it is a failed distribution.

Participation in a support community should be an option, not somethig that is required to use a tool effectively.

Re:Probably The End of Xandros

[Lord Kholdan]

Nobody (except perhaps Ellison and McNealy) wants to see a desktop distro, other than Windows, that is usable by non-misterwizard types.

Amen to that!

The greatest problem with Linux adoption is that developers want windows users to learn *nix and the windows users would rather just use it without having to actually learn anything about it. And when you take away everything from linux that is easy to use and accessible for the average windows user what have do you have? Just a bad copy of windows. This is especially paralyzing to the semi competent windows users: "I can get a free FTP and WWW server and firewall software with the OS? Great! Count me in! Oh I'd need to learn the way of the unix, commandline and bash. Count me out."

Really the greatest problem with Linux adoption seems to be that the programmers and community in general dont want to give the users what the users want (power and new features) without paying a price they had to pay (RTFM, learn the *nix way.)

Re:Xandros 2.0 Deluxe Review

[Ed Avis]

WTF? You're saying it is a bad thing for them to try to make better distributions? That Xandros should deliberately make their Linux version worse to avoid taking sales from Red Hat?