This is the third in a series of reviews of Debian-based distributions. The first review looked at LindowsOS 4.5. The second examined newcomer MEPIS Linux. This time it’s all about Xandros, one of the oldest of the commercial Debian-based distributions. Since its release last month, Xandros 2.0 has been garnering rave reviews. To learn why it didn’t earn another at NewsForge, keep reading.
Spawn of Debian faceoff: Xandros 2.0
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It may not be a “rave” review but its not too bad. Xandros scored well other than the printing bug he mentioned. I came across a similar bug and turned it into Xandros support. They are aware of it and the suggested workaround did correct the issue on my system. I would imagine they will release an official fix at some point.
All 3 distributions mentioned in his shootout are fine examples of where Linux is going, to the desktop.
They all seem to base themselves on testing or testing/unstable. I have yet to come across a desktop distro that’s based on debian stable. It wouldn’t be that hard to do would it?
debian is meant to be used in the stable tree. when using it with a mixed tree or even pure testing, you don’t get to appreciate the full goodness of apt.
i’d be interested to read a review on bonzai linux ( http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Bonzai_Linux ) which IS based on debian stable but has some backports like KDE.
is based on woody. with gnome backports
actually, Xandros 1.0 *was* based on Debian Stable. It must have been the constant moaning and complaining about this by users on the xandros discussion forum that made them move to testing for v2.0.
What is the difference between a distro that’s based on Woody but using newer packages and one that’s based on packages from testing, unstable, or both?
As for pure Woody with no updated packages, well … unless you’re running a server (which Xandros certainly is not), who wants to use a distro with software that pre-dates the stone-age?
I keep ready all these articles about how fantastic Xandros is .. but people forget to include the bad… ” What bad do you Say” well ..
Error 1: There is an error with their file manager, that after a period, it will stop allowing you access to your CD Rom, Something to do with /var/../.. where ever the CD is mounted.
Error 2: The Xandros Network, when you Click “Update all” it neglects to change the package list, and when you re query the packaages, that are updates, it will still list the patches that should have been in the Update all. So either the Update all is premature of the messed up.
Error 3: The loading up, and shutting down of the Xandros Desktop is Rather Slow, seeing I have a Athlon 1800+ with 256 of DDR Ram. It takes longer to boot up then a typical desktop.
Error 4: Easy installation? My butt.. After trying to install it about 6 times, I then went into the Custom Setup, and had to pick “ACPI 4” that is after tring, ACPI 1,2,3 and APM 1,2,3,4 …
I hope this is not to sound as a drag, but I think I will wait till they modify some more code, and get things more fine tuned. I guess if i was more Linux literate, I’d be able to tweak the errors, I’m having, but I’m a Windows guru, and well desided to try it, other then the more recent Knoppix (www.knoppix.net)
As for the debian base, I perfer debian vs. Redhat, SUSe, Slackware, etc.. I guess in peoples opinion, my opinion does not could..
Have a good one,
Canadian, IAM
I have to say I haven’t been hit by any of the four problems you mention. My CD-Rom continues to work fine, I had no problems with installation on any machine. Speed is pretty subjective but it seems fine to me and I’ll have to double-check on the Update All problem but I don’t remember seeing it when I did an update.
when running a mixed system, you soon run into dependency errors. i have a pure stable system with backports of certain things i want like KDE3.1.4, OpenOffice.org1.1, mplayer 9.0, Mozilla-Firebird0.7, java1.4.2 and kernel2.4.24 and my system is 100% compatible with woody so i never get any dependency problems. people that install these distros will soon run into very frustrating difficulties. unless a debian based distro is based on woody (with some backports), it doesn’t offer the user all the freedom and goodness that a woody user experiences.
on another note, i tried out xandros and found the boot time to be really long and also the general desktop experience to be quite slow. also it didn’t provide a java compiler or mplayer.
don’t get me wrong, xandros is great for newbies but i’m getting sick of reviews of debian based distros that don’t address their major flaws. i think reviews should spread out over a few months, it’d be nice if the same reviewer would write a followup “6 months down the line” ’cause even a fresh installation of windows98 is nice.
Am I crazy or did we review Xandros2 yesterday and again 3 days before that. This and those are just advertisements. I was interested in Xandros but if they feel the need to market their product this hard it scares me off. It reminds me of the GREAT MARKETER, MICROSOFT.
Not for me.
Tom Curtis
I am inclined to say i am now officially sick of the sight of Xandros reviews
What kind of “freedom and goodness” does Woody offer a desktop user?
I doubt Xandros would want to take on responsibility for nursemaiding a batch of backports, which they’d need to do if they brought them in to their distribution.
Xandros supplies a Java runtime; its target customers won’t be compiling any code. Lack of mplayer is a moot point, expecially in the Desktop edition, which comes with Crossover.
Boot time is fast enough for me. I never have reaosn to measure these things, but it gets KDE up and running at least as fast as Fedora and SUSE 9.0.
Are you sure you aren’t seeing “Xandros” from the perpective of a Linux enthusiast/developer, rather than a typical Xandros customer?
It’s probably me, but I think that most of the reviews are free publicity for the Xandros Desktop company. I mean there is two reviews that should be sought from.. A review from an experienced user, and onr review from a noobie linux user.
All this has been covered. Hopefully we don’t see any more reviews.
Love Replying though.
Canadian, IAM
the freedom and goodness i talk of is the freedom to install anything from debian’s repositories without the worry of breaking already installed software, or making upgrades impossible. the freedom to add third party repositories without the same worry of messing up the system. if xandros was 100% compatible with debian stable (with the obvious exceptions of KDE, file manager and lilo), the user would be able to install from the thousands of woody packages available.
are backports really THAT hard to maintain? who says that they’d have to backport anything anyway, there are already loads of binary backports out there, have a look at http://apt-get.org , usually backporting just means compiling the sources so the resulting binary depends on an older lib.
in all fairness, the vast majority of people even thinking about using linux on their desktops will have a certain amount of computer literacy because they work with computers or they are students. i only ever found out that linux even existed when i started college. i think, by not letting the installation (i’m not even talking about bundling here) of developer programs, xandros is cutting off the majority of its market.
you have to pay extra for crossover, ie the deluxe edition. there’s no reason for crossover anymore anyway, with openoffice.org, the amount of web browsers, mplayer and native flash. i think it’s a crappy selling point to say “hey, spend nearly $100 on this other OS so you can run your MS programs with less performance!”
that’s a fair point about the boot time, boot time doesn’t really matter that much to me.
you’ve got a point there too 8) if i can say i’ve got a working Desktop from woody then xandros abviously isn’t for me. let’s not get carried away here though. all xandros offers is an easy installation. in order to get something like nat, one has to go to the command line. xandros’ control centre doesn’t offer much when compared to mandrake (i can’t compare it to anything else ’cause i’ve only ever tried mandrake, debian, libranet, morphix and xandros).
in all fairness, the vast majority of people even thinking about using linux on their desktops will have a certain amount of computer literacy because they work with computers or they are students … i think, by not letting the installation (i’m not even talking about bundling here) of developer programs, xandros is cutting off the majority of its market.
I disagree. Most of us Windows users (even the more proficient amoung us) are not programmers and have no desire to be. We use our computers to run applications, not dick with developer tools .. that’s why most of us are running Windows to begin with
Of course, I personall *do* have an interest in programming, but trust me .. I am in the minority.
you have to pay extra for crossover, ie the deluxe edition. there’s no reason for crossover anymore anyway
Well, consider the following senario … user wants to switch over to Linux but the only thing holding them back is that their job requires them to open/save complex MS Office documents with macros. In this case, unless you know how to do this in OO.o or some other tool, that’s where Crossover comes in.
Dreamweaver is another good example – for everything it does, there’s nothing on Linux that can touch it.
For someone who really wants to switch to Linux, it kinda sucks whenever there’s one or two programs holding them back.
i’m not talking about all windows users, i’m talking about windows users who have heard about linux and/or want to switch. these people are way more likely to work with computers in some technical capacity.
then there’s a case for crossover, but not for media palyers and browser plugins. crossover is a temporary solution and should be avoided if at all possible.
i’m not talking about all windows users, i’m talking about windows users who have heard about linux and/or want to switch. these people are way more likely to work with computers in some technical capacity.
I would agree with the technical capacity comment, but I consider ‘technical’ as people maybe working with computers doing things like fixing the, building them, and/or perhaps doing technical support for an ISP or something. But I doubt many of these people would be interested much in programming, outside of a little bash scripting and maybe working their way up to perl.
then there’s a case for crossover, but not for media palyers and browser plugins.
I would agree with you, so long as Linux can handle video codecs manually (and I’m assuming it can.)
crossover is a temporary solution and should be avoided if at all possible.
Who knows how temporary. Unless somebody builds a native port of Dreamweaver (for example), the solution may become more than temporary
I would agree with you, so long as Linux can handle video codecs manually (and I’m assuming it can.)
I meant natively, not manually
yup, mplayer can play real, quicktime, wmv, divx and a host of other codecs and formats, it also plays dvds, natively 8)
Another woody distro is Libranet 2.7. It’s a free download, too.