http://www.osnews.com/story/15490/Xandros_Home_Edition_Premium_Review_Interview_with_Engineers Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:14:26 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?152374 http://osnews.com/thread?152374 I enjoyed the interviews. It's nice to get a perspective from the folks actually making things work.

I also enjoyed the review for the most part. I thought it interesting that he couldn't pop his email onto Xandros but whatever. I did think his conclusion was a little odd. It's a rock solid, easy to use distribution with a great gui, but he can't recommend it to new users. Umm, I'm not following. Is it because the software he likes isn't in the Xandros repositories? Depending on what a new user wants, that may not be an issue. It looks to me like an excellent start distribution. Perhaps the more "power user" types would eventually move to something else but an OS that's easy to use and easy to set up seems perfect for newbies. Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kiz01) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152403 http://osnews.com/thread?152403 Quicken, TurboTax etc - an new user might ask Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (devtty) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152411 http://osnews.com/thread?152411 Is the reviewer installing on a 486? Why is he using a Dynamic Disk Overlay? Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evdjj3j) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152420 http://osnews.com/thread?152420 Interesting - I was mulling over their career page. I think working with Linux would be interesting. It was no surprise that the people mentioned used to work for Corel. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stodge) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152430 http://osnews.com/thread?152430 A good review, pretty much sums up my own experiences.

Unlike the reviewer, I found support for playing multimedia files from within Firefox pretty poor with the default Xandros install, a few file types are just not supported out of the box (e.g. Quicktime 7 trailers for Apple.com or Windows Media files on some sites, etc.) There are hacks and workarounds available to add this functionality, but non-technical Windows refugees may not know how to find such hacks and apply them comfortably.

Many other Linux distributions play embedded media fine now (e.g. Linspire, Freespire, PCLinuxOS) and have much richer software repositories available for adding any extra functionality you need. As the reviewer pointed out, Xandros Networks offers only a very limited selection of software and mostly in older, out-of-date versions. Again, you can hack around yourself to get what you need, but many won't feel comfortable doing this, and you could also end up affecting / breaking the Xandros-specific customizations by doing so.

"They fall flat on their face with their lazy approach to software availability and by making the registration process totally annoying...For home users (especially beginners), you are better off with Ubuntu or Linspire."

Yup, I would agree with these conclusions. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 01:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pollycat) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152432 http://osnews.com/thread?152432 There's a tutorial here:

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/42/1/

Now there's no excuse for not knowing where to go, or how to apply the hacks. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 01:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Valour) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152471 http://osnews.com/thread?152471 There's a tutorial here:

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/42/1/

Yeah, that's real intuitive. Especially the part about getting DVD to work. 'Be warned that installing this software library may be against the law in your country. If so, follow this procedure at your own risk:' Great, so I just paid $40 for the OS, and now I have to break the law to get DVD playback to work? Do they not have a commercial solution for this?

And as for adding Debian sources, a lot of my Windows-using friends would be asking if a 'Debian source' was connected to the flux capacator.

I think Linux has a way to go yet. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 04:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WorknMan) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152512 http://osnews.com/thread?152512 The thing I find interesting is how many people - Windows users and Linux users - who seem to forget that the default install of XP will not have many of the functions they expect out of the box from Linux Distros. I can understand how people could forget. Every time you buy a DVD-ROM or DVD-Writer - you get a copy of PowerDVD in it. It seems free, even though you just paid for it through the cost of the hardware.

When you buy a Dell - they have loaded it up with tons of software. You end up paying for that software one way or another.

Paid for Linux distros could add the cost of the DVD codec license into price of their OS. That would be nice, otherwise if they don't charge for their OS they cannot really provide DVD playback.

At least with Linspire and Freespire you have a way to purchase it legally. Tue, 15 Aug 2006 07:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (seakryan) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?152540 http://osnews.com/thread?152540 The reviewer kept saying RPM all the time... for a Debian-based distro! :-) Tue, 15 Aug 2006 11:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DeadFishMan) Comments