The following is a short review of Xandros Desktop OS Open Circulation Edition 2.01 otherwise known as the OC release. This is the first time there has been a freely downloadable version of Xandros in the companies history and I believed it was worth writing a review on. The OC Edition is a limited version of Xandros Desktop that is freely distributable, so you can get it for free and give it out. Read the Review at DesktopOS.com. Also at DesktopOS, a Libranet 2.8.1 review.
Review: Xandros Desktop OS Open Circulation Edition 2.01
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It’s nice in many ways. Installation is easy, and interface is fast. But, like “Lindows” it’s not very standard. Once you go with this distro, you’re stuck with it.
Unlike Mandrake, slackware, or other distros, you can’t chose what *you* want to install. The installer will chose that for you. If you don’t want the Reiser file system, or the Opera browser, or KDE – tough luck. With Xandros, the installer choses – not you.
Also, when I edited the sources.list file to all debian repositories, and did an apt-get update, apt-get upgrade – it totally broke the system.
Still, it is debian, and very easy to install and use. I prefer stright-up debian, it’s standard, flexible, and free forever.
though I havent used the paid version of this product, I tried the OC version not long ago for about a week and it was quite good. I did have to compile quite a few apps from scratch. but once I compiled k3b, firefox, koffice and others, it was very usable.
The OC version falls in the same category as a lot of other distros out there, where you have to get your hands a little dirty to get it working the way you want it.
Xandros is 100% debian compatible. At least its not mutilated as Linspire/Lindows is. You can set non-xandros deb sources in Xandros Networks and get any debian application to run on it.
“Xandros is 100% debian compatible.”
Well Xandros ONE was compatible with Debian stable.
But Xandros TWO is somewhat based on a sarge-snapshot-fork form last summer and thus you aren’t really able to use sarge repositories. Of couse you may throw away the XFM-stuff an run real sarge -as I do now – but this is no “Xandros” anymore…
Xandros is never going to be very popular with the FOSS purists. It lacks the FREE as in beer element.
This doesn’t make it a bad OS, it simply places it into the same league as other proprietary systems by their way of thinking.
Personally I consider Xandros a wonderful system for anyone beginning a move towards Linux.
Xandros is never going to be very popular with the FOSS purists. It lacks the FREE as in beer element. This doesn’t make it a bad OS, it simply places it into the same league as other proprietary systems by their way of thinking. Personally I consider Xandros a wonderful system for anyone beginning a move towards Linux.
For those who would like to switch to some open source OS or another, Xandros is an excellant first step. While true it’ll never be a big hit with OSS purists, it also comes closer than any other distribution to being as easy to install and use as Windows (I’d personally say easier, but I’m being conservative).
I’m mostly a BSD guy, but when non-technical users have made up their mind to give and OSS OS a try, this is what I get them to try first, because more often than not, it just works, and most of the software is free and open source.
I’ll stop rambling now.
You forgot to mention the part about it running some of their current Windows applications. Switching operating systems is one thing, giving up MS Office and some of the other programs they use daily is another story and likely more than many are willing to accept all at once.