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Linux Business

The Upcoming Corel-Based Distro From Xandros 99

Posted by timothy from the inherited-marketing-muscle dept.
mutantcamel writes: "Michael A. Bego, the CEO of Xandros Corporation has given an interview with Consulting Times. Xandros recently signed a license agreement with Corel that gave them access to Corel Linux." Bego holds off on a lot of specifics here, but says that what Xandros inherits from Corel includes a lot of improvements that never made it to Corel's since-abandoned boxed desktop distributions, and since it's Debian-based, will "automatically" run on several platforms.
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The Upcoming Corel-Based Distro From Xandros More

The Upcoming Corel-Based Distro From Xandros

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  • Why do they need a license agreement, again? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm pretty sure Corel released all of the software that they wrote under the GPL. What is there to license?
    • No, Corel didn't release everything under the GPL. However, everything that Corel created as proprietary software that I can remember has been duplicated elsewhere -- I don't see any advantage in another company trying to pick up where Corel left off. Maybe they'll make a go of it, but I *really* doubt it.
  • Like Windows 98 Automatically Installs perfectly.

    Sounds a bit optomistic... Corel's box went down and now we'll just wrap it up with a Debian distrib and make it all work.

    Oh, and, btw.... it's only $19.99 .... (j/k)
  • When I ran Corel Linux.... it wasn't necessarily a bad distro. Sure It has some security problems right off the bat from its original release... but what I liked most was that if you did actually pay for it.. and payed $80 you got a nice piece of swag in the form of a penguin that said corel on it. It was about 3" tall and made out of that stuff you squeez when you are stressed. Hope this new distro will do something similar ;)
    • I installed it once. It didn't like my ATI All-In-Wonder (original) at all. By the time it finished booting, the screen was black.
      I'd never had any prob with any other distro with that card, so needless to say, I wasn't impressed.
  • The installation and text-based maintanance of Debian has always kept some of my friends away from it. Progeny and other companies seem to be stepping up to the plate to make Debian a more user-friendly distro and I hope this one continues what Corel started.
    • The installation and text-based maintanance of Debian has always kept some of my friends away from it.

      That's putting it nicely. I've been doing *NIX admin for 12 years. I started out in the Linux world with Slackware (back when it was about 9 or so floppies for a core system). Since then I've become a Red Hat user.

      A while back, I tried to install Debian's "stable" release. It told me that I could create a boot-floppy (actually 2), then put all of the rest of the core system on a system that I'd access over NFS. Sounded cool. I got everything onto my server. Checked the export permissions, rebooted by desktop with the floppy in it and... spent the next 3 hours trying to understand why it wouldn't even ask me how it should be talking to the network.

      I combed HOWTOs and READMEs for hours, but to no avail. Eventually, I just re-installed Red Hat and went on with life. Too bad, Debian sounded cool. Someday, I'll go back with an actuall CD and try agian, but the fact that an advertised feature in the install had obviously not been tested was a little scary.
      • Just FYI, if it's not asking you about the network, then there's no module loaded for your NIC. You have to have the module .so on another disk, then during the install you tell the installer to load the module.

        I've had to do this a few times, I think with the eepro module. You're right in that the installer should explicitly ask you if you want to install a NIC driver, though.
    • Believe it or not I actually switched to debian because of the text based maintenance. Go figure.
  • I'm really looking forward to this. Way back when, we evaluated various linux distros as desktop replacements for our sales staff. Corel Linux was way ahead of the curve (about 18 months ago) in terms of out of the box usability for the usual office drone. I had high hopes for version 2, but ...

  • appealing to windows users (Score:3, Insightful)

    by perdida ( 251676 ) <thethreatprojectNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:33PM (#2303270) Homepage Journal
    windows users don't think about their operating system.

    linux users do.

    most linux users have a windows box or access to one when they want to do something with the great mass of consumers which use the internet, like playing video games, watching movies or multimedia, etc.

    linux users use the linux box for many of the un-sexy things like operating a database or serving web pages, something which your average windows user, who is looking for Minesweeper or a DVD player, would consider "nothing to do."

    It will be interesting to see a linux system meant to appeal to the Windows user. Perhaps it will be a bargain basement version of what Windows already provides, without the powerful, world-changing tools that make Linux already useful in its own niche.

    I remember all the knockoff Gameboys that come out of import shops and Dollar stores after they failed in the mainstream consumer market, and I hope these will serve as a word of warning to Xandros.

    • True, but not...

      Linux is entirely capable of doing absolutely everything the average consumer would want to do. The internet is pretty much 99% of that of course, DVD players, StarOffice, mp3 players are there, it's been a long time since i've seen a movie format I couldn't play, and to the average consumer who's perfectly happy with the 4-5 games any ms os comes with, i'm sure the 50+ with any linux distro would be fine. Many people would give up the ability to buy any game on the shelf (which they'll likely never do anyways) for 100% stability - and if this is laid out to them by a store employee where they're buying a computer, they won't think twice.
    • Windows is a vast desert of "nothing to do" when you start off, compared to Debian's teeming, insane hive of fiddlygadgets.

      Your concept that "windows users do not think about the OS" is correct- but this is true not because Windows offers so much more to do (it offers less than any Linux I know) but simply because it's the default.

      That's all.
    • linux users use the linux box for many of the un-sexy things like operating a database or serving web pages, something which your average windows user, who is looking for Minesweeper or a DVD player, would consider "nothing to do."

      Maybe those Windows users would be interested to know that dvi's now play more smoothly and look better on Linux than on Windows? Heh, I was surprised too. My friend who set it up did admittedly put a lot of hours into getting everything assembled and working. No, he didn't have to write code, just sort out a lot of compile and config details. But you know - today's hack is tomorrow's apt-get.

      Along the same lines, it's said Unreal plays more smoothly on Linux than Windows. So I guess we're talking language that even nongeeks can appreciate.

  • Corel Linux when it first came out was great in that it straight off worked with windows networking, was easy to use for someone who's never touched linux, and the install went smoothly and perfectly. Also, i've just recently switched to debian, from slack, and apt-get is just amazing. My mom last week told me she wanted to install linux, and wanted to know the easiest way. I was forced to reccommend Mandrake, but I didn't feel good about it. Right now, there is no good, consumer-oriented linux distro, and this could be what we need. Of course, someone huge (hp/compaq anyone?) putting a lot of money into getting linux systems on the shelf in every Best Buy, and commercials in prime-time TV, would be a great thing too. And more consultants talking *small* businesses into using linux for their networks. I have a lot more ideas floating through my head, but since none of it's going to happen, i'll quit ranting now...

  • Watch out for these folks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:43PM (#2303301) Homepage Journal
    Xandros bandied my name around as their "consultant" while setting up this deal. Please be advised, I have nothing to do with them. Although I verbaly agreed to advise them more than a year ago, nothing exists on paper and their behavior since then does not merit my continued involvement. Linux Global Partners, their parent, reneged on signed term sheets with a number of Linux companies in March. Just before announcing the Xandros deal, LGP was in talks with Progeny, got a very good look at Progeny's business plan, and then said "no thanks". In retrospect, it's clear that they simply wanted a look at the business plan.

    I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

    Bruce

    • If that's a low ID number now, I feel extra-special..

    • I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.


      Well with your bad knee Bruce, you shouldn't throw anybody.

    • well, with your bad back bruce you shouldn't be throwing anybody...
    • IMHO (based on news, webclippings, etc), Xandros and Progeny have nothing in common.

      Xandros is a desktop focused Linux distribution.

      Progeny is network solution focused Linux company.

      Xandros's customers are end users.

      Progeny's customers are back offices and IT departments.

      It seems like Xandros and Progeny make better partners than competitors and it seems clear that neither one's business plan would offer strategic advantages to the other. IMHO.

  • My first reaction is, "why would anybody care?" There are a lot of Linx distributions out there, so we're hardly hurting for choice at the moment. Why would we need another one?

    But, reading the intereview, where they say they intend to contribute back to the community, I saw why I should care. Perhaps, just perhaps these folks will appeal to somebody that no current Linux distro does. If they succeed, and they're another company employing Linux hackers to hack Linux, then that's a good thing.

    And, unlike Red Hat, VA, and a number of others, since they're based in Canada their business won't be outlawed after the US Government finishes passing its defense-of-copyright laws.

    -Rob

    • Currently, there is no "Mandrake-like" Debian based Linux distro. Meaning a distro that has an automatic bootable CD based installation - an installation that only requires the user to put the CD in the CD drive and reboot and then the rest of the installation is automatic.

      Debian based meaning, well, its based on the only truely open and free Linux distro: Debian Linux.

      In addition, there is no Debian based distro that has KDE as the default, main window manager, with all Distro-centric tools interfaced through KDE applications.

      I have to say that I am very interested in the Xandros distro. Taking the best of Corel's installer, Debian's package management system and standards, and the wonderful user-interface known as KDE... it could be one killer distro.

  • The interesting thing is that their business model is practically identical to the standard distribution company (Mandrake, Red Hat especially before the acquisitions, maybe Ximian, probably SuSE): sell physical boxes, sell professional services, and sell access to an apt-get server (or whatever we want to call it).

    There is also the issue of the proprietary value-adds - I don't personally think this is bad, but it can be tricky to make sure that they actually end up being (and staying) better than the open source stuff (e.g. Metrolink vs. XFree86, Samba versus forgotton packages the names of which I don't even remember, &c).

    Professional services is the hardest for a distribution company - to a certain extent, doing it requires a whole different mindset. And there is also the question of identifying customers who find it worth the money - many companies who have done Linux have, or end up acquiring, in-house Linux expertise.

    Anyway, maybe with the shakeout of Caldera and Linuxcare and so on, there is some room for these guys. I certainly hope so - there are plenty of corporate markets which Linux companies haven't really made much progress in, so there is no shortage of things to accomplish.

    • sell physical boxes, sell professional services, and sell access to an apt-get server (or whatever we want to call it).


      AFAIK, only Red Hat is selling access to an update server, called the "Red Hat Network."

      What's more, they didn't release the source for that server.

      I know for a fact that Ximian, Mandrake and SuSE don't do anything like this.

  • Sorry Xanex, you're coming in with too little, too late. There are plenty of other easy to install, easy to use distros. Corel would have had something if they could have gotten their full suite of tools ported and stable and bundled the whole thing for under $100.



    Instead they gave us a half-baked distro and a half finished office suite. So long, Corel. Remember that Bill likes his shoes really shiny.

  • I can't believe it... not _yet another_ debian based distribution! Look around! The only debian based distribution that has even the faintest hope of turning a profit is Progeny. Even then, the only reason is the quality of developers involved. Others who have tried and failed should serve as enough of a warning to newcomers. The only reason I can possibly see for this company to undertake this endeavor is to try to squeeze money out of underinformed venture capitalists to pay their own 6 figure salaries.
    • Progeny makes money now. They had to get pretty lean to do it, but they do. They might be the only one.

      Bruce

    • I can't believe it... not _yet another_ debian based distribution! Look around! The only debian based distribution that has even the faintest hope of turning a profit is Progeny.

      With its heavy emphasis on KDE and Wine, I've always seen Corel's distribution as a migration path for Windows users more than anything else. As such Xandros and Progeny are not playing in the same space.

    • Err.. How many Debian based distros are there? Lets see..

      Librix(sp?) - they don't have a downloadable .iso, so I wouldn't really even call them a "distro"

      Corel->Xandros - A reasonable effort at Windows mimicry. Simple install, and reasonable networking defaults. Why someone would dump any money into owning it, I don't know.

      Stormix - RIP - Great install. Some nice graphical utilities. All released under the GPL. Thanks.

      Progeny - Even greater install. I just clicked the mouse a few times and it was done.

      So, to sum up.. aside from the vapor in the article, the distro that is already out of business, and the distro you can't download, Progeny is the only one left.

      You must be very astute in matters of business and money. I am amazed that you were able to pick Progeny as the one with the most market potential. What with *ALL* those other Debian based distros out there.

      Maybe you should, "Look Around!"

      Now, I just hope that *ALL* the distros play nice *cough*Xandros*cough* and we don't get things like "mandrake only" packages from third party vendors.
      • Libranet does have a downloadable .iso, it is just a version behind. Their newest version, which must be paid for, includes such cutting edge components (at the time of its release) as Linux Kernel 2.4, Xfree86 4, the newest KDE et al.

        In fact, when I was unable to find a Debian .iso, I was able to find Libranet's (I think) 1.8.2 .iso, and install Debian from that. There was a time when Debian .iso's were quite hard to come by, as I didn't have a Linux box handy to run their rsync/cd image creator script. Now, tahnksfully, Progeny seems to have all kinds of tasty Debian and other open source .iso's available for download. Progeny has prety much superceded Libranet in my estimation in most significant capacities.

        regardless, the downloadable Libranet .iso is still very useful if you don't mind X11 3.3 and kernel 2.2. Its default install includes every window manager I've ever used, all configured fairly intelligently. The install is basically a standard Debian install, with some of the defaults not as intelligent, and a few options a bit more useful. Not at all comparable to, e.g. the Progeny GUI installer, but it does include recompiling the kernel as part of its standard install, which I haven't seen in any of the Linux distros I've used.

        The Progeny Debian Gui installer is great though, and definietly worthwhile even if you don't end up with as large an installed system as Libranet. I prefer to have a minimal system anyway, and only install components I plan to use.

        As refreshing as the Progeny install is, it isn't quite as robust as I might like. Most of the time it will complete without any problems, but for those few systems that do have problems, error messasges aren't displayed. It seems that the "Congratulations on you successful install" message is always displayed, regardless of whether you have earned it.

        As an example, try installing on a partition that doesn't have adequate space to complete the first stage install...

        While choosing Progeny as the most likely to succeed does come quite naturally from their visibility and history with Debian, there are other Debian based OSes. Two general distros in non-English languages, and a router specific version, at least. That doesn't change the validity of your statement however.

        As for proprietary packages, I can't image Xandros/corel doing such a thing, as that would likely cause conflicts with the standard Debian packages and dependancies. No other Debian-based distro has done that intentionally, and for very good reason. One of the benefits of using .dpkgs is using standard Debian mirrors, thus saving greatly on bandwidth.

        I do wish Xandros the best of luck on picking up where Corel left off - They will most certainly need it.
    • The Corel developers won 'Best New Software' in 2000 for their 2.0 release.

      The 1999 winner was Linux.

      The Corel developers are now at Xandros. Obviously a highly talented team.
  • I hope the do well with it... but I have the feeling they won't. Out of any linux distribution I've tried, the Corel distro was by FAR the easiest. I mean even Windows isn't this easy to install! I think the Linux distribution market (at this point) has reached saturation. I mean even SuSE had to be bailed out. I just can't see where this distro is going to find a place.
  • Here is some information that isn't quite clear from the article. Xandros is being funded by Linux Global Partners [linuxglobalpartners.com], who claim to be funding such high-profile companies/projects as Ximian [ximian.com], Codeweavers [codeweavers.com], Gnucash [gnucash.org], and Gobe [gobe.com]; as well as some more dubious projects like Linux Utilities [linuxutilities.org] (whose web site is atrocious and LGP doesn't even link to directly).

    I'm not sure what constitutes some of these relationships; I thought Gnucash had been cut loose, but maybe I'm wrong. Does anyone have information about these corporate sponsorships, or what Xandros's acquisition of Corel means for them?

    • Re:Information about Xandros's parent (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      About Gnucash and LGP: LGP signed a term sheet with Gnumatic [gnumatic.com] in early 2000 to commercialize Gnucash. Many of the core Gnucash developers were hired, including me (I actually never worked on Gnucash until I was hired by Gnumatic, but continue to do so now).

      LGP provided only a small fraction of the funds they promised and the term sheet was never turned into an investment agreement. Gnumatic's employees were all laid off or quit by May 2001. Gnumatic's founder, Linas Vepstas, continues to do business under that name in hopes of paying the large amount of back salary owed to former Gnumatic employees.

      I found outside funding and started Linux Developers Group [linuxdevel.com] to do custom software, consulting, and possibly release Gnucash commercially. I hired the Gnucash developers that worked for Gnumatic. We have started moving the Gnucash code base away from strictly personal finance and into vertical apps; we are starting a joint venture with a POS developer (Global Retail Technology [globalretailtech.com]), for example.

      Bill Gribble <grib@linuxdevel.com>
      Linux Developers Group

  • Every programmer who works for this company is one less programmer working for Mandrake.

    Community support given to this company is less support given to Mandrake and Redhat.

    WE HAVE the two main distros, we dont NEED more choices, we need to enhance what we already have

    spreading yourself thin and reinventing the wheel is why linux is behind windows.
    • Maybe you don't understand that many Linux users find Debian based distros to have a stronger foundation when compared to Redhat based distros.

  • A Linux company that apparently doesn't even run its own web site on Linux.

    http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.xand ros.net [netcraft.com]

  • Seems that their "Linux Global Partners Corporate Overview" [xandros.org] page shows Peter Norton as a VP of Technology. Is this the same Peter Norton from Norton Utility fame?

    The reason I find it possible is because the same page [xandros.org] shows a reference to Linux Utilities (an application similar to Norton Utilities) as being one of the technologies that Xandros claims it will integrate into their new Linux distribution.

    ~Quid Pro Quo~

  • test

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