A solid alternative for SMBs, the new Xandros Desktop OS Business Edition 2.5 works and feels like Windows, but it’s a lot more secure, says Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for eWEEK.
Xandros: A Linux Desktop for Die-Hard Windows Users
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Yes I disagree!
Novell linux 1 will kill it, and so will others why? since it`s a “beta” of a server os they will sell..
Lycoris Desktop/LX will be better as a desktop version, so is xandros
Novell 1 will be better as a administrator OS, sice you`ll get a bunch of tools from em, and a better gnome desktop, that fedora. And Yast.
Debian a better server OS, way better- talking still about Fedora, not Redhat AS
“You’ll have endlessly more trouble trying to get XP Home working with either PDC or AD-style networks.”
Of course you will, it’s NOT MEANT to!
What’s the use of comparing apples to oranges?
Well, Xandros includes a free trial version of Win4Lin 5.0
Have never heard of a trial version not being free… Nice it’s on the CD, but it’s possible for anyone to d/l the “free trial version” of Win4Lin.
But say you want more. Well, Xandros includes a free trial version of Win4Lin 5.0, NetTravere’s handy-dandy program that lets you run Windows 98SE or ME as a VM (virtual machine) in Linux. You’ll find that, together, Xandros and Win4Lin run almost all Windows applications.
Ummmm …. if I have to run Windows in order to maintain compatability with whatever I’m doing, doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpase?
“but it’s possible for anyone to d/l the “free trial version” of Win4Lin.” You can get a free trial from Win4lin but 1. It doesn’t work with all versions of Linux 2. The free trial is a lifetime trial meaning you can get a key every 30 days (Till they feel like cutting you off I guess) 3. You get about $20 off the Xandros version.
“”You’ll have endlessly more trouble trying to get XP Home working with either PDC or AD-style networks.”
Of course you will, it’s NOT MEANT to!
What’s the use of comparing apples to oranges?”
You are right about that, I don’t know what he is smoking. LOL! But everything else is pretty right on (Besides the fact of using the Google bar??? What’s up with that. Just use firefox, it has google built in)
Anyway, I use Xandros as my everyday OS in a Windows 2000, XP emviorment and I love it. The uptime can’t be touched (Have not rebooted in 120 + days and I have installed patches, applications etc.) I don’t have to worry about coming up on security scans, my machine is the ONLY machine that always passes even when I add applications and make changes. I was one of the only people that didn’t run scared from the Blaster worm.
I just love it. It is very usable and runs pretty fast. AD and NT support is GREAT. The built in CD Burner software is also sweet. I am using crossover office with Office XP and that works at about 95%. Does everything I need (I am not too fancy.) I do find that Office 2000 with the patches works the best with crossover though.
Anyway for an office desktop I find Xandros to be great.
“Ummmm …. if I have to run Windows in order to maintain compatability with whatever I’m doing, doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpase?”
Actually it’s sweet to run Win4lin because you can install most Windows applications in it and then not have to worry about Viruses and worms. They have even taken precautions to prevent most spyware from installing. For instance I use Win4lin to run a few Windows applications and the Windows versons of the IM clients (If I need some of the features that are not in the Linux versions yet.)
Also once you get your Windows setup laid out there are tools in Win4lin that allow you to make a compressed image of you Windows install. (Yes you can do that with Norton Ghost but the Win4lin tool gives you better compression) That way if you do get a worm or virus you can just delete the old windows install and in like a minute have a clean Windows install back up and running. Can’t do that with Windows intalled on your hard drive.
Even though it’s not the same as running Windows alone, you do get MUCH, MUCH more security and reliablity. Also much quicker boot times and to shut down you can just close the Win4lin application just like any other program and Windows will still boot fine the next time (No Check disk or scan disk.)
Since it’s based on old software, does this distro work well with bluetooth and wifi? How is multimedia support?
Those are the reason I went to another distro using the 2.6 kernel.
I have to agree, why would you ever bother to bring up XP Home when you are discussing an OS in a business enviroment?
I also have to disagree with the author on his assumtion that using Xandros in a small business should be fine even though other Linux distros provide better support. Considering man power and many small businesses not having an IT person on staff. You are better off going with any OS that provides good support instead of trying to mess around with an OS that has limited support.
“Of course, darn it, you can’t get Linux to run Windows games well, but you can’t have everything!”
Um, we are talking about a SMB here, what does game playing have to do with a business enviroment?
“I also have to disagree with the author on his assumtion that using Xandros in a small business should be fine even though other Linux distros provide better support. Considering man power and many small businesses not having an IT person on staff. You are better off going with any OS that provides good support instead of trying to mess around with an OS that has limited support.”
I don’t think most SME’s can afford the support that a company like Red Hat or Novell offers. (Besides phone support) Xandros offers good phone support for people who buy the business edition. Only problem I see is onsite install support. But that would be with any OS. The only upside I see that Windows has is being pre installed. But I think as Linux grows companies (Like my own http://www.teesco.com, linuxosuser.com) will offer low cost onsite support and also do reselling with support. What I do on the side for SME’s is provide install support onsite with low upfront costs but charge a monthly maintanence fee (Around $10 a month per computer) This works out well for me and them because I am on-call for them 24/7 and for me I am not there 9 to 5.
Bluetooth and Wifi support are both not good in Xandros. I think that is one of it’s biggest let downs.
Right now I don’t think that have put a lot of focus into Laptop support yet. They are looking at the Business desktop at this point.
I hope they add that support in the next full release.
It doesn’t matter a lot but actually the next debian release (codenamed Sarge) will be version 3.1 and *not* 4.0. At least, that’s what tty login prompts say …
It’s cool that he gave props to Linspire as his choice for home users.
That is cool. I tell people that all the time. That Xandros is more like NT. (Not quite like 2000 and a ways from XP) And Linspire is more like Windows 98.
>Ummmm …. if I have to run Windows in order to maintain compatability with whatever I’m doing, doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpase?
Well, it’s not like there’s one monolithic “purpose,” it obviously varies from person to person. For many people, me included, running a stable and easy-to-use Linux distro like Xandros, with some Windows compatability when needed, fits thier purposes exactly.
I tried out Xandros 2.5 (open community version), and it was nice and easy to set up EXCEPT that it wouldn’t recognize my serial-ATA drive at all. So it quickly came off my system and I’m back to Suse (dual-booting with WinXP). Anyone know a workaround for serial-ATA drive recognition? (FC2 doesn’t seem to recognize it either, though Suse 9.1 and Mandrake 10 both do).
Except for crashing every time I connect my USB hard drive (formated fat 32). Still overall a very well put together and easy to use distro.
Hummmmm, I would look into that. I use my USB/Firewire drive between my Xandros, Mac OSX and Windows machines and have no problem. I wonder if that machine had Windows on it and did you have any problems with Windows?
The drive an 80 GB maxtor previously was partitioned/formated with NTFS and used exclusively for windows XP. The partition was deleted and Xandros setup the disk itself. The USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures were made by different companies the drives are IBM travelstar 20gb. Under Windows and Mac OS I have not yet had a problem accessing these drives. None of the other OSes I’ve tried has worked, either through not supporting them (BeOS) or in Xandros case “the crashing, and the stop working and the Oy Flaven”.
I bring up XP Home because while you and I know it won’t work well with NT Domains and AD, a ton of other people out there don’t–I still getting people asking me why it’s ‘broken’ and Microsoft certainly makes no effort to inform tha XP Home is crippleware from a LAN standpoint.
There are, by the by, ways and means to get XP Home to access some domain/active directory resources, but the long and short of those means is they shatter network security along the way.
If you want to make a mess in your network, or you’re stuck with an XP Home system and You Must Get to a domain resource, the easiest way is described here:
http://vowe.net/archives/001639.html
Just don’t blame me if bad, bad things happen to your network if you use this for more than a bandage until you install Xandros or XP Pro!
Steven