http://www.osnews.com/story/5910/Review_Xandros_Deluxe_2_0 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:16:04 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree, Xandros is a wonderful distribution, and I intend this in no way to detract from that fact, but have you tried MEPIS yet? Amazing! Experience for yourself why it just jumped to number 10 on your own site.

Thank you for your good work.

William Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm also interested in the fact that it has nvidia hardware drivers installed by default, now that is cool, if only more distros did the same

how about java ? mp3 ? did you have to load any plugins to get those to work ?

i'd like to see more screenshots too, is xandros only kde based or does it do gnome as well ?

cheers and thanks for the review

anyweb
linux-noob.com Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Goodness I hate to put someones work down but this has to be the 15th review on OSnews since Xandros 2 came out. What more can you say about it. Geeeee! Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why so much about Xandros? Everyone know that they suck. If you really want to pay for an OS get QNX. Now, lets see some more write ups about gentoo. Or dont they give you kick backs like Xandros? Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Because this is what readers submit for publication. If you want a review about QNX or Gentoo, write one and we will publish it.

End of story. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? IIRC there are some tools for ripping mp3's from CD, and XMMS plus other apps to play them.

Gnome isn't in there which sucks a bit because I much prefer it to KDE but they did make KDE more bearable than I usually find it.

Java was installed for runtime but not the JDK which I downloaded from sun in the usual manner (Java is very easy to set up on any Linux distro). Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_01-b06

encoding:mp3 playing via eg. xmms, notaun and so on...
decdoing: CD directy to waw or OGG inside of XFM (drag and drop :-)

mozilla-plugins: flash, java, helper app acrobat, helper app real one, in deluxe all crossover plugins like shockwave, media player 6.4, vrml, quicktime, and so on... Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I love Xandros! I used to fight with my Linux all the time but since I got Xandros everything is soo EASY! It totaly rox! I have already paid well over $1000 bucks to run there software but it soo worth the money! All the free distros seems to be so bad (esp. Debian wich is aweful). But then again, "its worth what you paid for it!" ;-)
I wish all the free software klutzes would just quit and leave it to the real pros like Xandros! Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? in the recent versions of gnome there's a nifty program called gnome-font-properties. in redhat it's available from preferences->font. it has a setting on its details dialog which allows you to change the dpi it uses to render fonts. this might solve the problem of large or unreadably small fonts on extreme screen resolutions.
you can also change the setting programmatically using gconf. the key to change is /desktop/gnome/font_rendering/dpi Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Because this is what readers submit for publication. If you want a review about QNX or Gentoo, write one and we will publish it.

You don't feel a dozen reviews of the same thing are really attracting new readers, do you?

Shouldn't you target your coverage towards information your readers are interested in instead of just printing whatever you're sent?

Perhaps if you posted some of the subjects you're seeking articles on you migh-

Aw, screw it. I've tried to give you guys friendly advice in the past and I always get the "I'm Greek you're beneath me" type of replys.

Just mod this down like everything else that doesn't gush praise and scratch a few more readers off your daily tally. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why all the complaints about Xandros? It great that there is finnaly a usable version of Linux out there. My company used to donate money to all kinds of projects. Keeping track of this is a PAIN! Its better to pay for a good distro and have the money distributed by them. We have enought work, doing out work and dont have the time to try to figure out where to send out bucks. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dude. I like Xandros - I was just mentioning some of it's faults. The way the fonts were configured on my system was not what you would expect from something so well polished otherwise.

And MS Word crashing - that's a bit ropey since it's one of the major selling points don't you think? Like I said though - for me it's not an issue since I like to use OOo anyway.

As for the usaable comment, I would suggest that all Linux distros are usable (some more than others) this is just the first which should be usable by someone who has never seen a computer Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? although it's not the place of complaint I did install this distro to my friend's comp, but i couldn't in mine. Maybe it couldn't configure out my Philips 109b4 19' with lightframe. This means that I don't use it. If anyone could help me changing the config file manually I would be happy to try another time. My e.mail olti@ecluboz.com. Just who wants to help... Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Unless somehow the DPI setting is screwy, selecting a 12point font should make it look the exact same size regardless of your monitor or resolution: 12 points.

If you take a ruler and measure a 60pt font on slackware and in Xandros, you will know what distro is getting it right.

If it's Xandros, then you are doing it wrong, it's just that slackware is compensating your mistake with some other error ;-) Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My point is that I think it got the DPI screwy - a twelve pt font should not be over a centimeter high on a 1600x1200 display (in fact it was more like 1.5 cm) Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well I had a bit of a go at linux a few months ago and didn't get very far, but thanks to this review I think I'm gonna give it another go. Thanks! Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nice commentary on Xandros, especially the acknowledgement that the font issues are endemic to the way Linux (XFree86, really) is structured. (Although, as a Xandros user, I'd like to see the GTK font hassles officially addressed by the vendor.)

I'm guessing, though, that Matt does not really represent the market Xandros is going after. It would be good to hear from an office worker who had her Windows machine replaced with Xandros. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Call me screwy, but I have seen monitors appear to retain configuration (DPI?) information provided by one OS when switching to another OS. I've seen it when switching from one OS to another on a dual-boot machine, and I've seen it when installing a new OS on a working machine. Font display on the new OS definitely looked pretty bad.

The "effect" goes away the first time the video card is reinitialized.

Anyone else ever notice this? Or, am I just makin' it up? Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That can't happen :-)

In the end, the software has to draw on pixels.

It goes like this: using ddc, the X server obtains physical size of the screen, and from the video card it gets the resolution in pixels (like, 1024x768).

That, in turn, allows calculation of the physical size of a pixel.

Then freetype uses that information to know how large in px a certain pt size is.

The only way what you say could happen is by having the monitor be so confused it reported a wrong size. Since the size of the monitor is never supposed to change, how that could happen is pretty hard to imagine :-) Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? To know who has the data wrong, look at xdpyinfo's output.

For example, this is mine:

screen #0:
dimensions: 1024x768 pixels (347x260 millimeters)
resolution: 75x75 dots per inch


If your fonts are inordinately huge, then it must be getting the size in millimeters wrong. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I had this problem as well (with a Dell Inspiron 8200 1600x1200 Laptop).

I got around it by calculating what screen size (in mm) gave 96dpi with the 1600x1200 screen (i.e.ignore the real dimensions). I then added this to the Screen secion of XF86Setup (Displaysize xxx xxx) and the fonts were sorted :-)

All the best,
John Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wicked - i'll give that a try. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i cannot install xandros due to having an onboard graphics card plus an nvidia card.
Xandros sux like all linux distros. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The only problem I had with it was that whenver the filemanager was loaded, everything seemed to slow to a crawl and my mouse started skipping. Once i closed XFM everything sped back up. Other than that it's a cool linux distro Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have an onboard graphics card and an NVIDIA MX440 and have never had a problem installing Xandros. Also, the only reason why I purchased/use Xandros is because it was the only distro that displayed fonts correctly in OOo... Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Installation of Xandros 2.0 is so simple even a ten year old can do it.... and our daughter did.
Detected all of the hardware accurately, found our dhcp enabled Linksys, and preceeded to update itself via the web nearly immediately.
I was more or less shocked. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, Xandros is wonderful. It is the best distribution I have ever seen. I expect it will soon surpass Microsoft. The Linux world is so lucky. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I hear many reviews lately talking about how very few distros include the nVidia drivers, but never hear anyone complain when they don't include the official ATI drivers. Sure for everything less than (IIRC) an 8500, DRI will give you 3-D support, but not everyone has that low of video card. I for one have a 9600XT (slightly better than a FX 5700, plus HL2 for a similar price, it wins hands down) but it is terrible to get the official drivers working (I think its because the XT line isnt officially supported by the linux drivers as of yet). More distros need to include BOTH driver sets.

On a Xandros note, I installed it and didnt really like it, plus I accidently formatted my XP and backup partitions because it defaults to formatting when you set your mount points in the installer. I guess I'm just too used to SUSE just automatically recognizing and configuring my Windows partitions. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? BTW apparently this font size is due to the fact that KDE doens't interface properly with XF86 (I'm sure somebody will correct me if this is wrong).

I have never had this problem with Gnome, just many others :-)

John Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I use Xandros on five desktops in my house, including those of my three kids (all under 7). From kids to adults, Xandros and Debian give you the most useful, most thorough distro I have seen yet. I'm sticking with them! Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually, its the reverse. Its GNOME that uses its own gconf setting to manage the DPI. KDE just gets the DPI setting from the X server. GNOME apps appear to do this too, but only when they're not run from GNOME. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am at work, so I read kind of quick, but I did not see any thing about the Xandors Network Application, the one that lets you connect to Xandro's apt sources and debians.. It lets you install Win4Lin for free, and load great software. It also will convert .rpm files into .deb and install them for you. It is a great app. Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I stand corrected (that only took 20mins) :-)

John Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It should work as long as you disable your onboard graphics. I believe all motherboards with onboard graphics have this option, just check the manual to find out how. Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Get these modified, cute IconSet for XN/XFM (Xandros Networks,
Xandros File Manager) here, because the default are ugly.

http://www.desktop-linux.net/xandrostips.htm

also, do a search for "xandros" at kde-look.org, their are
some really nice new added Xandros Desktop Wallpapers, made
by Xandros Forum Users.

thomas Thu, 05 Feb 2004 13:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? isn't there a spellchecker in OOo? there were quite a few spelling errors... Thu, 05 Feb 2004 13:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There is a spell checker in OOo yeah - i was using kwrite at the time and was typing quite quickly (had to squeeze in the writing between work).

Should have run it through a checker though, I noticed loads of them when I read through it after it went live.

My excuse is that I spray painted by keyboard black so that it has no markings - of course that's totally unconnected but it sounds like a good excuse Thu, 05 Feb 2004 16:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ...is to let go of the forward arrow when you get all the blue maxed out.
The you get more speed just by sliding. Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Erm, could you very kindly explain what on earth your post is about?

No rudeness intended, it's just that, while I can read the words, I cannot figure out the meaning of your post:
--------------------
"...is to let go of the forward arrow when you get all the blue maxed out. The you get more speed just by sliding."
--------------------

Reads rather like "release the steering wheel when Thursday is square. Now thurbligs are more efficient." :-)

-Gnobuddy Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He talked about a level in Tuxracer, which he couldn't complete.
If it is the level I am thinking about, he need more speed.
By pressing continuosly forward, you hit a max speed. When you release at this speed, the pinguin is sliding and get more speed. Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nice distro, will be even better if the ACPI issues get worked out for laptops. Other than that I'll keep slackware on the laptop and Xandos on the Desktop. Thu, 05 Feb 2004 22:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Xandros is a very decent distro for converting from Windows, and given that this is their target market, this is a *good* thing

I installed it on my test-mule machine, and it installed in a very small amount of time, boots up faster than Windows 98 ever did (If I recall correctly; it has been since about 1999 since that machine has seen windows...) and detected every bit of hardware it had. Bear in mind, it's mostly standard equipment, such as 3c905 network card, and an ATI 9600SE video card. I beleive on a different install it *may* have even detected the SB Extigy on my roommate's computer, but don't hold me to that...

The codeweavers's office and Win4Lin ran most of the average programs I threw at it, finally choking on Adobe Premiere.

Networking; 100% easy. integrated right in with a mixed network of Linux, Solaris, Windows 2000, Windows 9x, Mac and one BeOS machine. Samba worked perfectly. Much easier than on other distros.

Anyway, a definite contender for the Windows->Linux conversion crowd! Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments