“Joe Barr tests the installation process for the sample version of Xandros 1.0. Our hero finds that the Distribution Formerly Known As Corel Linux isn’t just pretty… it’s pretty darn easy to install, too.” Read the article at LinuxWorld. We wish the article was more than a review of the installation process though.
Xandros 1.0: Easy on the Eyes, Easy to Install
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
These reviews that only cover installation have become almost humorous. It is true that the Xandros installation is as smooth as you can get – it the same with Lindows, which of course is based on Xandros. The hardware detection is amazing.
But, this review really takes the cake because the Codeweavers functionality with Windows is only mentioned at the end – and almost in passing. This is the thing that sets Xandros apart from the rest. The reviewer didn’t even install it along side Windows, he had it take over his whole drive. To just install it by itself, considering the special features of Xandros, does not even give a good installation report.
It is ironic because Xandros based Lindows, for good or ill, is on the verge of being the Joe User distro that may be the one to break away from the pack.
but the articles author is a childish ass and has a tendancy to not do his homework and not fully convey all the aspects of the articles he write and will not admit when he’s made a mistake or misrepresented someone or a group of people with his poorly covered articles. Feel lucky that he hasn’t or hasn’t yet done Xandros or Linux in general any PR damage.
Last year I tried to install RedHat 7.2.
Well, I succeeded in installing it, but with several problems.
First, it refused to boot from the hard drive. Every time I had to start it, I got to get the floppy and stick it in. That alone was a killer flaw.
Secondly, hardware detection was bad. I never got the sound card working. It didn’t recognize it whatever I did.
Last nail was failure to detect the Internet connection. Either it had problems with the ethernet card or it just couldn’t get the DHCP working. At this point, I really couldn’t care less anymore. 🙁
To sum it up: installation was a major pain yet 2001.
So, this time around, with RedHat 8.0, my jaw dropped when I put the CD in and click click installed it without any kind of problems. Everything was detected, configured and put in a proper place without me having to interfere in it. Briefly afterwards, I installed Win XP to a fresh PC of a friend of mine, and it had amazingly lot of problems to cope with the sound card and Internet connection. I felt odd.
Progress in the Linux installation process has truly been wonderful. Linux needs a lot of positive articles about these improvements to get rid of the previous bad blood and convince people that times have changed. Marketing is repetition and Linux needs marketing more than anything else.
Is that during the install there are nice graphical
infomercials as Joe calls them that plainly acknowledge
that Xandros is built on top of KDE and Debian.
ThatI can respect.
KDE needs to start getting into the hardware configuration/detection and application management (packages) area.
*gasp*
Like windows.
Then I see no reason for it to not dominate the world
Lindows is not “based” on Xandros, they are both based on Debian.
No you are wrong. Xandros licenced their technology to Lindows.
While Xandros is based on Debian, they have added significant enhancements for the desktop user. Lindows have built their distro on Xandros, which in turn is built on Debian.
It’s one thing to have a desktop GUI with galores of customability options. But as long as I need to go to the command line and edit text files just to set my IP address or install and configure a driver, I’ll stick to Windows. When KDE/Gnome let you detect, install and configure all the hardware of the system (without having to call a Linux expert to do it for you) then it will really be a contender on the desktop.
Well,
1) 8.0 was RH first real serious try on the desktop. So in general, I don’t think the review should only consist on the installation. It should be the usage. If I get a distribution which is dead easy to install, detects all of my exotic hardware, yet after installation, the product is so crappish it would make Mandrake’s quality shine. So would it deserve a good review or a bad on?
2) Windows XP isn’t all that good in hardware detection for the installation. I know :-). However, after installation, following the wizards through is easy enough… right?
—-
On the article itself, I doubt it was Microsoft that forced Corel to dump Linux. Linux never made money for Corel. In fact, it was the last blow that ended Corel in such a financial ruin. So I would think it is coincidence.
Because there isn’t any sane reason to suggest that it forced Corel to dump it. It didn’t had a huge market success. Sure, it was on the road to be the most used Linux distribution, but it wasn’t close to profitablity, plus Linux market share didn’t jump all too high. It is funny if Microsoft was worried about Linux on the desktop, especially then. If Microsoft did force them to kill it, I’m sure they wouldn’t really like the idea of allowing them to sell it to another company that licenses it to a very annoying company…
Besides, even if they forced them to drop it, I don’t think it is to kill Linux. If Corel continue to push Linux, it would drive itself to bankruptcy. Unlike Red Hat and Mandrake which pretty much got used to unprofitablity and learnt how to survive with it, Corel didn’t. Which means $150m goes to waste for Microsoft. Plus, it isn’t like Corel was bring Linux way closer to the desktop. Linux is so much closer to the desktop without Corel all this time…
Why am I ranting over this? I have no idea myself… my fingers can’t be controled….
[i]It’s one thing to have a desktop GUI with galores of customability options. But as long as I need to go to the command line and edit text files just to set my IP address or install and configure a driver[i]
Have you tried any new distro? Even with the old Redhat5.1 (1998), i could configure my network installation through control-panel without having to use any cli.
I am posting this from my newly installed Xandros (on a Fujitsu laptop) and it is sweet. It went on a lot easier than Redhat 8.0 did on my home computer and for basic desktop functionality, is about on par with it. I find that I don’t even mind KDE which I came to dislike after trying it on earlier versions of Mandrake and Lycoris. Everything pretty well works right out of the box. No hunting for Flash or Java or Realplayer, minimal configuation.
Crossover Office (which I also have on my Redhat box) makes migrating to Linux realistic. Sure, Open Office has the functionality but it isn’t 100 per cent compatible and whether in an office environment or when trying to convince someone (my wife) who is leery of Linux, having real MS Word and Outlook to show them is great.
If that is all that it takes to impress reviewers, I’ll build the ultimate GNU/Linux distro…tons of eye candy, installation in less than ten minutes. No reviewer will ever notice that it’s just a mock-up without any functionality installed…
With the mainstream market, you have to get there step by step. Raise an issue at a time.
Before, installation was an abomination, now convince that it is not anymore. Talk about this for a year, at least.
Next year it’s time to talk about functionality when everyone has understood that they can pick any major distro without installation issues.
However, it’s likely that installation issues will start fading out anyway, since pre-installed Linux desktops are getting available here and there. After all, mainstream is not interested in messing around with installation, however easy it might be.
..my real litmus test is how well RPMs and Debian packages actually install. You can have a pretty interface and thousands of built in apps.. but, that doesn’t make a usable system.
I have to say that installation only reviews really aren’t that useful, however, as linux is still trying to enter the mainstream desktop market these reviews are important. How many people tried linux two or three years ago but wrote it off because they couln’t get it to install? These little reviews serve a purpose, and that purpose is to demonstrate that anybody can install linux nowadays……
Mind you, these reviews should also go on to basic usability out of the box. Just an introduction of the apps and what is possible…..most reviews do this at least a little bit, but a more balanced approach is needed.
Esae of installation still needs to be put in the spotlight for users that are a little less familiar with all things linux.
First up, as with most linux distros I had a couple of hardware issues. I had to edit PCMCIA config files to get my PCMCIA ethernet card working. My video device doesn’t like the Xfree86 4.2 server very much, and required tweaking. I have had these problems on other distros such as Mandrake 8.2, 9.0 and Red Hat 7.3. Most people don’t have hardware troubles however, and the Xandros folk at their support forum are very friendly, helpful and responsive.
Once those two hardware issues were solved, this distro is a piece of cake.
The disto is based on Debian so I have access to the 9000 software (or thereabouts) that is contained on the Debian mirrors. Just a simple apt-get install etc and your away. This is a MAJOR reason to consider using Xandros, Lindows or Libranet (or Debian if you can install it) over distros such as Redhat, Mandrake, Lycoris etc. I gave up on Mandrake 9.0 because there was software that I needed that worked on Mandrake 8.2 but would not work in 9.0 due to dependencies problems. I think those days are pretty much over now that I’m on a distribution that is based on Debian which doesn’t jump all over the place all the time. Remember, we use operating systems to get access to applications and the more applications the better. Operating systems aren’t an end in themselves.
Codeweavers is very impressive. Micosoft 2000 installed beautifully on my system, as did Internet Explorer 5.5. For the latter you simply fire up codeweavers setup and click on IE 5.5 to install it. It then runs off to the internet to download it for you and installs it. Same thing for microsoft fonts such as Time New Roman, Arial etc, as well as plugins such as Flash 6, shockwave, quick time. All nicely installed into Mozilla for you. Even the java in IE 5.5 works perfectly. That was something I really needed, as I had a java app which works much better in microsoft’s version of java than Sun’s. There are some annoyances with IE -e.g. favourites don’t save properly. However, I use Mozilla as my default browser and IE when I need it. Nice to have the choice though, which is what Linux is about right?
The Xandros File Manager replaces Konqueror in KDE and is also excellent. Here’s a neat trick: when you a put a music CD into the computer the songs the file manager opens up automatically with all the songs listed. Simply click on one and drag it on to your hard drive and it automatically compresses it into ogg format for you. Or, if you install LAME it will automatically MP3 it for you. That is very nice. There are lots of other nice features. Xandros staff claim that its better than Nautilus, Konqueror and Microsoft explorer and I have to agree with them.
All in all, Xandros is a very neat and tidy distro. Even though others are free for download that doesn’t mean that they are less expensive, when you take into account the time it takes to configure plugins etc. If I stuff up my installation at some point (I’m prone to doing that as I like to fiddle, but I’m not very good at fixing :>) I can just reinstall again very quickly and everything is back to normal. The ability to run micro office is also very important to me.
I have finally found that elusive distro that I’m happy with. Its so easy to use, that I forget what operating system I’m running some time. I don’t feel the need to run off and download that latest and greatest linux distro anymore. At least not for now
After a lot of years, Xandros finally knocked Red Hat off of my hard drive. It is the easiest Linux to install that I’ve seen and that does count for something. It’s much more than that though.
Pluses:
Cohesiveness – All of the control panels are integrated and make sense. Red Hat STILL has control functions in multiple places, even in version 8.0. The look is remarkably consistent across the GUI, even little things like icon and font sizes. Xandros also worked hard to pick one best of breed app to include for each category: i.e. OpenOffice but not AbiWord, Hancom, KOffice, etc. on top of that. This simplifies things for the newbie. The expert can install whatever they want.
Everything just works – video, sound, networking, foreign file system (NTFS) support, etc. I didn’t have to set up any hardware except for my TV card. That was easy enough with apt-get. The hardware detection is excellent.
Extras – The file manager is the best I’ve used on a Linux distro. The Xandros Update app works nicely as well.
Minuses: No option to select EXT3 rather than ReiserFS (to each his own), a little slow in spots but that may be particular to my hardware.
No doubt most of this goodness springs from the coders of Debian and KDE. Nonetheless, Xandros obviously spent a lot of time sweating the little details and it really shows. This is the first distro I could see my mom and dad using daily. In ways, it reminds me of BeOS – elegant, organized, and cohesive. Good job Xandros.
Xanadros is nice, but they really need to move the latest KDE. They have not fixed annoying bugs that are present in KDE 2.2.2
For instance drag a icon from the file manager to the desktop and the icon is not droped where you actually drop it. This was fixed in KDE 3.x
It also does not have the nice window decorations like Keramik.
The SMB support though is excellent 🙂
Thanks Ashley 🙂 And very nice extensive post about Xandros!
I do think it is still important to review installation for some of the reasons people have mentioned. However, to just stop there has become frustrating because you usually get no indication of the heart of the distro after it has been installed.
Soon after Corel Linux was introduced, it jumped up to 4th in the Linux Distro use list, only behind RedHat, Mandrake and SuSE. At the time it was the fastest growing Linux distribution, plus it had a fully compatible (The WINE was specific for this Suite) Office Suite in WordPerfect Office 2000 that included the Paradox Database. All for $169. (The WPO2000 Suite included the Linux CD also).
Profitability is anyone’s guess. For the short term, definitely not, but if they could have acheived a head of steam… who knows?
Here’s the rub. Of the one thing to keep Linux off the Desktop, the lack of an office suite was the clincher. Remember, in early 1999 there was no KOffice, or StarOffice 5.2 (came later that year, I believe) just Abiword and Gnumeric. And for Microsoft, the best way to kill a competitor is to kill it early, in its infancy. Saves on legal hassles later.
Personally I don’t believe Microsoft had Linux in mind when they funded Corel. I believe they wanted to keep a competitor “barely” alive to show they’re not a monopoly, because there’s always Corel.
But you X-Files people, the truth is still out there…..
http://www.xandros.net/images/WindowsNetworking.gif
It’s nice that it gives you the options, but seriously there shouldn’t need to be any more options than windows gives you on this screen – or hidden in an advanced tab or sommit.
It should be a selection between workgroup or domain, with machine name and (possibly, unless it can work that out via samba) wins server.
When you select domain it should prompt you telling you you need to create a computer account in the domain for the machine, then provide it with user+password of a domain administrator – so that it can complete the domain joining.
Xandros File Manager (XFM) which erases the boundaries between files from different sources.
One of the best statements I’ve seen to explain to new Linux users why there is no A:, C:, or D:. For anyone that has really been using Windows for at least a year (I mean, not hiding form the file system), this a big challenge. It took me a few months to realize that, yes, the Unix way of orgainzing a filesystem was more convienent.
The folks at Xandros seem to have the whole docmentation thing going for them. I’d like to try it, to see if its still Linux under all that fluff…
I hate to spend $50 on a distribution that might not work for me. It might detect my hardware nicely… and then again it might not.
If hardware recognition is your main concern Libranet
addresses this rather easily.
Go to their Pre-purchase page
http://www.libranet.com/pre_purchase.html
and check out the supported hardware list.
If you still have concerns, you can send them the
details of your system and they will tell you before
you purchase if it will work.
Finally, you can always try out the free ftp download
of their previous release 2.0 at
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/libranet/2.0/
Cheap Bytes also sells a cd of 2.0 for 5 or 6 bucks.
Actually, I hope Xandros eventually does something
a similar and releases their previous version for ftp.
While I applaud what Xandros is doing, there is no way
I will spend 100 bucks on a linux distro.
I would spend 10 – 25 .
Price is part of the appeal and it has to be low for
quite some time because of inertia and The Beast.
Distros should charge from 10 to 30 dollars.
In fact the inspiration for good Linux distro
pricing lies in the old free as in beer speech slogan.
perfect promotion is:
Linux free as in Speech.
Costs no more than a case of Beer.
Who won’t buy a Distro when they put it to you like
that?
If Rimmer goes to libranet.com and clicks on ‘PrePurchase’ he/she can send Libranet a detailed list of his/her hardware and get a message back within 24 hours detailing if it will or not. Or just check out the hardware list…
Quickie Unavoidable Rant…please, learn to s-p-e-l-l people! My thanks…
1. Xandros is built on/from Corel Linux and would have been released as Corel Linux 3 if Corel hadn’t stopped development.
2. Corel was Debian-based, as is Xandros and Lindows.
Lindows and Xandros cooperated on development for a while but Xandros never, never ,never licensed its code to Lindows. Ming Poon, the former Big Cheese at Corel is now a VP (and Smaller Cheese) at Xandros. How could he license his own code, is ask you?
3. No one ever seems to notice that the most successful distros are all based on Debian.
IMHO all distro reviews should be balanced between install and use. Don’t talk up the install as if it’s Christ come to redeem the world when it’s usefullness resembles the flight characteristics of a brick.
“In fact the inspiration for good Linux distro
pricing lies in the old free as in beer speech slogan.
perfect promotion is:
Linux free as in Speech.
Costs no more than a case of Beer.”
This attitude is part of what is keeping Linux from claiming the desktop for it’s own.
It is absolutely part of our duty as users to rein in obscene software prices (Microsoft) by refusing to purchase them. Conversely, it is also part of our duty to reward the insanely hard work that goes into writing, developing, distributing and supporting quality open source OS and apps.
The unwillingness to support quality, user friendly distros with our dollars unless they fall within a narrow range of self-defined acceptable pricing, i.e. beer, is shortsighted at best.
Paying $99 for Xandros or $129 for Lindows or $57 for Libranet is vastly better than spending $400 + on Windows and suffering their endless ‘upgrades’ for buggy, code-heavy software. Offering to pay ten or twenty five dollars for someone’s hard work is like being offered a Ferrari for $100 and saying ‘How ’bout ten bucks?”
While a similar statement “Linux needs marketing more than anything else _if it wants to succeed on the mainstream desktop_” is probably true, I can’t help but reflect on how ugly it sounds. Linux (or anything else for that matter) needs marketing like I need another hole in my head. Just watch TV commercials for 20 minutes and tell me you don’t want to run and hide!
First off beer promotion was a playful comment, but not too
playful.
the other thing is Beer is more expensive in Iglooland.
Xandros is based on Debian and KDE which are both volunteer
projects of Free Software. That’s free as in speech and free as in Beer. They can be had for free.This should be taken into account before somebody goes charging the individual user 100.00
Morover, the home user percieves Windows as free
because it comes with the Computer. So they don’t see it as
100 for newbieLinux distro vs 400 for XP.
100 dollars seems kind of pricey compared to free or
even Libranet’s 50.00
There is an incredible amount of inertia to be overcome
in addition to the incredible avarice, malice,( insert
your favourite MS perjorative) of The Beast that is Microsoft.
Nothing sells better than sex, …except free.
A low price is essential to wean/lure Windows
users to Linux.
Part of the appeal of Linux is all the great free software
you can get for nothing. People like that.
You want to value add, fine. It costs you to do this fine.
But that doesn’t change the fact that you need a low, low
price to compete against MS.
Franky, I don’t see 100 of value in Lindows click and run
compared to Libranet default install of apt with Synaptic.
The other thing is lo-pricing allows volume.
Thirty Dollars is a good price to pay for a Distro.
Also I gave a range of pricing, from six pack, to 12, to
24. and keg for Corps.
A keg costs about a 100 -125 dollars. that is plenty.
so imho cheaper pricing is not a case of geeks being used
to free software it is an essential requirement for the
spread of Linux.
Lindows and Xandros drop your prices a bit.
Nothing sells better than sex, …except free.
And nothing sells like free sex!!
hehe
:Corel was Debian-based, as is Xandros and Lindows.
Lindows and Xandros cooperated on development for a while but Xandros never, never ,never licensed its code to Lindows. Ming Poon, the former Big Cheese at Corel is now a VP (and Smaller Cheese) at Xandros. How could he license his own code, is ask you? ”
Well, I don’t know what the relationship was, but the splash screen of Lindows 1.0 said “based on Xandros”, even using the Xandros logo.
..my real litmus test is how well RPMs and Debian packages actually install. You can have a pretty interface and thousands of built in apps.. but, that doesn’t make a usable system.
I am typing this from a Xandros system and Debian packages install easily and flawlessly (at least all the ones I’ve installed have).
Xanadros is nice, but they really need to move the latest KDE. They have not fixed annoying bugs that are present in KDE 2.2.2
For instance drag a icon from the file manager to the desktop and the icon is not droped where you actually drop it. This was fixed in KDE 3.x
It also does not have the nice window decorations like Keramik.
The SMB support though is excellent 🙂
Xandros ships with two CDs. One is the 1.0 release that is supported, and the other CD has Xandros with KDE 3.0 instead. I haven’t tried it yet because I don’t have much time, but it is there if you would like to give it a spin.
“Xandros ships with two CDs. One is the 1.0 release that is supported, and the other CD has Xandros with KDE 3.0 instead.”
I heard that the other CD is really just debian with kde 3.0.x — in other words, it’s not Xandros per se since it doesn’t have the xandros file manager, or the crossover stuff, or all the plugins, flash, java etc. installed. That it was just a barebones debian with kde 3.0.x.
can anyone confirm?
While I applaud what Xandros is doing, there is no way
I will spend 100 bucks on a linux distro.
I would spend 10 – 25 .
Well, with Xandros you get Codeweaver’s Crossover Office, which is about $60.00 plus shipping for a CD if you buy it from Codeweavers. So you are only looking at about $30.00 or $40.00 dollars for the Xandros distribution itself.
If you don’t want to have Crossover Office, then perhaps Xandros is not a good choice for you.
I use plain vanilla Debian for my own machine and I don’t need Crossover office. However, I am evaluating Xandros for my Father’s company since they need to run a couple Windows programs. So far things look very very good.
I guess the cost is justifiable depending on what you are after.
I heard that the other CD is really just debian with kde 3.0.x — in other words, it’s not Xandros per se since it doesn’t have the xandros file manager, or the crossover stuff, or all the plugins, flash, java etc. installed. That it was just a barebones debian with kde 3.0.x.
can anyone confirm?
I don’t know, this may be the case. However, I think KDE 3’s file manager is outstanding, so I don’t know if I would miss Xandros’ File Manager much if I had KDE 3 installed (I use WindowMaker personally, so I’m just talking from an imaginary KDE user’s point of view).
You’re absolutely right: Xandros (and Libranet, Lycoris, and) Lindows are BASED on Debian. And that’s the key right there – BASED. While Debian is free/low-cost depending on the distro you like, Xandros et al still did tons of work to build their homes on those Debian foundations. They had to get Codeweaver’s Crossover Office to work with Xandros’s code yada yada yada.
I’m just for giving credit where credit (or cash) is due.
While I applaud what Xandros is doing, there is no way
I will spend 100 bucks on a linux distro.
I would spend 10 – 25 .
I was mistaken on the Crossover costs I mentioned above. You get both Crossover Office and the Crossover plugin with Xandros. These two items alone cost $79.95 + shipping, so the real cost of Xandros is around the $20.00 you were hoping for (of course you are forced to by the two Codeweaver products mentioned above).
” You get both Crossover Office and the Crossover plugin with Xandros. These two items alone cost $79.95 + shipping, so the real cost of Xandros is around the $20.00 you were hoping for (of course you are forced to by the two Codeweaver products mentioned above).”
Well, great then I wish they would put out a more affordable “sans Xover” version for those who don’t want to spend a Hundred Dollars to try Linux.
The Xover stuff could be available as an optional paid upgrade.
Please no one tell me that it is “integrated” into the entire
product. It would sound too familiar .
For me it doesn’t matter , I run Debian with icewm.
but to help spread Linux at this stage I don’t think we
have the Luxury of charging a Hun.
Also I am not against paying for software on the Linux
Platform as I payed for Opera.
When I am trying to convert freinds to Linux they are all
for no more licensing hassles,better security, etc. When I tell them it will cost a Hundred, they give me the Thanks, I’ll stick with Softy look.
I guess I’ll have to stick to Mandrake and Libranet as
my intro to Linux Distro.
I really should give Lycoris a whirl since they let you download for trial.
In the end, all the Distros will be very similar because
everything that rises must converge.
Still , all the best to Xandros. Better them than the hype
meisters at Lindows.