Linked by Phil Hall on Thu 5th Dec 2002 00:35 UTC
I'm a long-time Windows user, but for years I've been searching for an intelligent alternative. Macs are actually a great choice, but have you priced them lately? I don't have two grand to spend for another system. I had been reading all the hoopla surrounding Xandros Desktop for a number of months and decided to take the plunge. I had been burned two times previously trying to install other Linux distributions. Their tech support was non-existent. I'm essentially working in a vacuum. When something has gone wrong in the past, I've found that I was on my own. 
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I'm a bit worried that because of the Lindows hype and the increasing inclusion of CrossOver with distributions, people will expect Windows stuff to work ("why doesn't the Google toolbar work?"). CrossOver is primarily intended to run Word, everything else hasn't really been thoroughly tested, and even Word has its problems. This is still an amazing feat -- running some Windows apps without the underlying OS. CodeWeavers is doing a good job, but I don't really consider CrossOver a long term solution. It's for those who want to delete Windows but still be able to run MS Office in case OpenOffice et al. can't handle a particular document.
In general, if you want to switch to Linux, you should be ready and willing to learn new habits -- new keyboard shortcuts, new applications, new features. Linux is not Windows, and a distribution should be rated based on how well it stands on its own, unless the distro-maker makes specific compatibility claims.
As for xcdroast, keep in mind that it's just a front-end to cdrecord, a command-line utility. There are several other such front-ends for GNOME and KDE, and some of them are or will be similar to common Windows burning utilities. xcdroast does the job once you're used to it (the task of file selection in particular is not as fast as it should be), and gives you access to pretty much every option you may want to set (which may be confusing to newbies).
One other aspect I dislike about Xandros is that since you are *required* to pay them 99 bucks, you may have certain expectations towards applications which are, individually, completely free of charge. I just hope people don't piss off open source developers with complaints and expectations of tech support.