http://www.osnews.com/story/9177/Xandros_Desktop_OS_Version_3_0_-_Deluxe_Edition_Review Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:02:31 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I did an internal review at work of this product and found it pretty good, except for some stability problems with XFM. I love their default software selection.

But one of the "funniest" thing I found is that MS Word from Office97 took 3 seconds at first start to come up versus 13 seconds for OpenOffice Writer! At a second start, they take about the same time (maybe 1 or 2 seconds longer for Writer), but still... It doesn't make sense!

Wine is really cool now and the Codeweavers integration in Xandros is excellent even if it is not too hard to find aspects of Windows applications that don't work. If you want to see wheter your Windows applications are useable download the demo from Codeweavers first to try it. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, we already have one of these. Its called windows XP. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? i hope for you that was sarcasm Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? While Xandros is good distribution, you can't be a better Windows than Windows. I think they should de-emphasize the running of windows programs in favor of their own native solutions.

I for one would welcome a more extensive online software repository run by Xandros. People who claim that you can easily install debs from testing or unstable don't realize that the minute you begin doing so, you end up in a mess very quickly with Xandros. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When did this site become "Xandros Reviews", almost as worse as Libranet reviews... speaking of libranet... it was good until Ubuntu Linux came around

No more purchasing Libranet! saving me a few dollars a year. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Xandros 3 is a new release, highly anticipated, might I add, and is sought after.

I'm happy to have bought it. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Enough with the Xandros reviews. Wasn't there some deal between OSNews and Xandros? Thu, 16 Dec 2004 17:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree and an indication this site is poorly maintained. After all there's this article posted on Dec 16, then one was posted on Dec 10 and another one was posted on Dec 8. One of the jobs of a news site Editor is to review articles prior to posting. That way ensuring legitimate news worthy content and not a duplication or plagiarized article is submitted by another writer. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hehe, it could be a lot worse. Over at SlashDweeb, there's dupe posts on an almost daily basis. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This site is about Operating Systems. When a new one is released, there are often several reviews that we post. We do the same with Fedora, Mandrake, Xandros, Lindows/Linspire, SUSE, and many others. All the Xandros articles are unique, there have been NO dupes.

If you feel that the site is Xandros-biased, or anything else biased for that matter, you obviously are new here. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Xandros is a good distro, but if you want 3D stear clear of it. It suffers from the kernel 2.6.9 "stutter" bug. Suse already applied the existing kernel patch, but Xandros is holding off as it appears to be too compex a job for them to integrate....so, no Doom 3 or UT2004 for Xandros fans. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Funny you mentioned that, b/c I've the same experience. I really like OpenOffice, but seeing the Ms word interface (through wine) faster on my monitor then OpenOffice Writer is just plain ridiculous.

I really hope that we'll see some nice performance improvements with OpenOffice 2.0 (although the beta I've tried was still slow, possible due to debugging code...) Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The difference for OpeOffice starting up slower is the fact that it is an "integrated" package therfore loadung all instead of just the "writer" or "Word"

Hope that clears things up Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am running Xandros 3 now. I like it, it is worth the upgrade to go to Kernel 2.6 over the bit old 2.4 that is in Xandros 2.5. The laptop support is much better, inculding suport for my Cisco Aironet 350 card.

Xandros runs enough Windows apps, and plays well enough in the Windows network that I can run linux to let me do my job better, and sitll interact with the Windows folks. Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? xover works worse for me than it did in 2.5 (I get no sound in Media Player or Quicktime) configuring wireless cards with ndiswrapper or driverloader is problematic (although I've submitted a report about it and they are working with me on this issue), usb external storage devices are spotty, some people's works others don't; this they are assisting with as well though.

SMP support is DISABLED - this is unforgiveable IMO especially since they didn't reveal that upfront, I now have to downgrade one of my dual proc folding@home machines. I'm gonna say screw it with that rig though and just install DSLinux on it instead. One can recompile the kernel to enable smp though but for the amount of time that will take on the old smp rig of mine its faster and easier to just run DSL instead with it.

My primary purpose for it is on my laptop though for using Gramps geneology program. Linspire was extremely problematic on my Dell so I had been waiting for Xan 3 and hoping it would be everything I wanted. So far though it works worse than 2.5 did at least until I get these wireless problems straightend out with Xan support.

In short: save your money and just roll a Slackware 10 or pure Debian distro. This is the last commercial distro I ever buy I'm sick of throwing money away, sadly so far M$'s estimates that TCO of Linux is far greater than M$ products is proving true. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >>While Xandros is good distribution, you can't be a better Windows than Windows. I think they should de-emphasize the running of windows programs in favor of their own native solutions.

They would do that only if they ever licenced wma and quicktime formats like Linspire did for streaming media, something that they have said they will not do at this point. My uses for xover was the plugins for media player, quicktime and an easy to use wine to use dbpoweramp because I've yet to find a Linux program thats even 1/4 as good as dbpoweramp is at converting formats much less as easy to use. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ---
The difference for OpeOffice starting up slower is the fact that it is an "integrated" package therfore loadung all instead of just the "writer" or "Word"
---

Does that make it better luther? Sounds like a big excuse for a plain bad design when 99% of the time users launch their spreadsheet/word processing application to see a single document or do a quick calc/quick letter...

They need to get to a point where they DON'T actually need a splash screen and a progress bar... Fri, 17 Dec 2004 01:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Xandros is a good distro, but if you want 3D stear clear of it. It suffers from the kernel 2.6.9 "stutter" bug. Suse already applied the existing kernel patch, but Xandros is holding off as it appears to be too compex a job for them to integrate....so, no Doom 3 or UT2004 for Xandros fans."

FUD, I'm playing UT on X3 with no problems. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 01:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No FUD. While this bug does not affect every single machine it affects the majority. See the Xandros forums for info. A bug report has been filed and the developers acknowledged the bug and said they were working on it. I switched back to Suse 9.1 until the issue is resolved. This is not FUD, but fact. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 13:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Does that make it better luther? Sounds like a big excuse for a plain bad design when 99% of the time users launch their spreadsheet/word processing application to see a single document or do a quick calc/quick letter...


There is AbiWord for tthose 99%. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The reason for them being integrated is that when open you can do multiple tasks quicky with common interfaces.

I agree that most times users only want to open a word processing document. Although i find with it being integrated when i am working on several WP, SS, DB, and others formats. Openoffice to be faster due to the interface and the integration of the package.

I believe that it should be possible to select at, installation wether it should be integrated or singular packages. This should be possible due to Openoffices istallation manner.

Having said all this I am likely to stop using Openoffice as Sun appears to have gone over to the dark side of software (Microsoft).

M$ Word is flawed in that it fails to do as its supposed to and IS "a plain bad design", So dont knock Suns Openooffice.

I'll try Abiword. So any other suggestions to what I can use instead?

P.S. Sorry for the spelling but am a Scot so I therefore disrespect the english language as much as possible. (sorry English out their). Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Aha. I'm working here at a company which uses XP Pro as their primary Desktop OS.

Let me see ... I just asked the 2 guys in my office and the five guys in the other office how they find the stability of XP.

In 2 1/2 years exactly *one* guy had a bluescreen - because of a faulty AGP driver.

And most people are putting their systems in Standby when they go home after work - most systems run many weeks without a reboot - for example my system is now up for 53 days ...



Please, please tell me : What's UNSTABLE about this operating system ? Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >And most people are putting their systems in Standby when they go home after work - most systems run many weeks without a reboot - for example my system is now up for 53 days ..


You're obviously incompetant, you haven't applied the latest XP patches.
you might not be aware probably your system is already compromised?

hmm Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >You're obviously incompetant

That was a good one ... Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Please, please tell me : What's UNSTABLE about this operating system ?

Yeah, when you run Xandros you miss out on all the cool spyware and trojans. Of course, some morons think that Windows XP with SP2 is immune to that stuff. Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments