Xandros announced the version 3 release of the Open Circulation Edition of its Linux desktop operating system (OS). The new release provides a new Internet experience with Firefox web browsing, Skype Internet calling, and Thunderbird e-mailing. The Xandros Open Circulation Edition is available for download at no charge. Update: A review.
New Open Circulation Edition of Xandros
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Eugenia Loli
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2.0 as far as I could find.
The press release just hit the wires. The new version will be available tomorrow.
taking the “mere agregation” clause of the GPL to the limit since 1999. They don’t even send their bug fixes upstream to the project maintainers.
Really? Got proof of that? I’m not doubting you. Just not heard that before and given the amount of arsing about Lindows/Linspire gets from the moaning FOSS minnies about them not contributing and the free ride Xandros gets from same thats quite a laugh.
You’ll find the source code to the GPL apps in Xandros on their web site because they’re required to do it, that’s all. There’s no attempt by this company to actually participate in the community, they’re just parasites. That’s why Ubuntu is so revolutionary. Rather than hire people to make proprietary or non-community extensions to open source apps they actually hire the people who are working on the community projects and make sure their work gets integrated with the official releases when appropriate. That fact that Ubuntu is not a for-pay distribution is just icing on the cake. They think there’s more than enough money in support services to pay the developers.
…but the distro is awesome! If there’s any oter distro that automatically sets up a mixed Linux-Windows network (printer, internet and folder sharing), let me know.
No it isn’t, it’s a well know falsehood.
Please show me where they “make proprietary or non-community extensions to open source apps.” And pleae none of this, “everyone says” or “everyone knows” BS.
Xandros is an excellent distro, easily the best and most useable of all the many that I’ve tired. And yes I tried Ubuntu and was seriously dissapointed given all the hype it’s gotten.
I have never been able to install Ubuntu on any system, so what good is it to me. Xandros however installs without a hitch, is a fine distribution and has an excellent forum community. So rail as you mat, it is Xandros for me all the way.
http://www.xandros.com/support/source_code.html
the source code of the oss bits, this is what they are required to make available
I cannot name offhand what else they have contributed but just because they dont jump up and down when they do so doesnt mean they dont…
I do remember reading an article where Xandros said that they made modifications to KDE to allow it to integrate with a Windows domain better. I don’t know what KDE’s license is, but I don’t think that code has made it back. But I think some other code changes have.
I agree on about half of that. Unlike drfelip, I personally don’t care all that much about Xandros’ policies; I’m interested in the right tool for the job. That’s where Xandros shines.
I work in an overwhelmingly Windows dominated environment. However, I work mostly with our Solaris servers. Linux, obviously, is a much better desktop environment to work with Solaris than Windows, so I convinced my boss to let me turn my pc into a “Linux Workstation”. I had previously tried out a few different distributions of Linux (Red Hat, Mandrake, Ark Linux, and Gentoo) but I read an article on Xandros and decided to give it a try. I found that Xandros was easily the best fit in my work environment. I also tried Ubuntu and it came in a close second (it has, IMHO, a better interface but doesn’t integrate with Windows as well).
So now I have Xandros on my desktop. It gives me the connectivity I need with our Solaris servers as well as the integration with the Windows network. It’s extremely stable and “just works”. I would recommend it to anybody stuck in a Windows environment or just wants a nice, easy-to-use linux distribution.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=137&slide=3
3.0 Coming Soon
Ubuntu is run by a Philanthropic Millionaire so that puts in another perspective don’t you think?
http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=12676
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion. The GPL requires that they make the source code available when requested.
You have no proof that they did not contribute. Furthermore, just because they send –I think they do– their patches/fixes/whatever upstream to the maintainers, it doesn’t mean patches/fixes/whatever got accepted.
Thanks.
I purchased a copy of Xandros 2.0 last year and ran with it as my main desktop for several months. Here’s the 10 second review:
~ Peace of cake to install
~ Great easy to use desktop that integrates well with windows networks.
~ Ugly. (They really need to hire a graphics artist)
~ I could never get the correct kernel header files that matched the binaries, so I was unable to compile a number of applications on it.
~ Upgrading throught the Xandros network eventually hosed the system. Apprarently they aren’t too careful about the patches and updates that they release.
~ The crossover stuff was nice but Windows applications crash very frequently.
>Ubuntu is run by a Philanthropic Millionaire
And if you have folowed the news the last years you can saw Microsoft is run by a Philanthropic Billionaire. Your point are?
Whether or not Bill Gates is really generous or not depends on how you chose to interpret his actions, personally I believe his large donations to charities were PR stunts just as much as they were thoughtful contributions.
After this stunt however: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/26/beware_ms_bearing_gifts_dod…
I can’t help but wonder why Microsoft charges us $100 for the student and teacher edition (even higher price in Canada) when they were giving away free copies of the professional edition to employees at the US Department of Defence who could most certainly afford their own copies of MS Office if they wanted to. If Microsoft wants to be charitable how about making the student edition more affordable everywhere (I live in Canada, a price change thats exclusive to the US would mean nothing to me).
Xandros on my emachine i bought 2 months ago doesn’t boot consistently. The boot screen would show and then i would choose xandros over xp and then the screen would just stay dark. I used version 2. Some others were having this problem too according to their website forums.
I hope they fixed it. Maybe i will try it out again.
As far as desktop distros go Ubuntu is the best. Xandros is cute but its like trading a bad habit for a lesser one.
If people really want to benefit from open source they need to support and use open source tools. Take half of the mopney you sepnd on Suse or Xandros and donate it to a Project that you belive will push the open source community forward.
-Nx
So this isn’t a comment on the 3.0 edition, and I got the full paid edition not the free one.
I got very sick of it in the end, but not through its’ own faults, more mine. I wanted an easy-to-use distro so I could get things done, but then found myself wanting to tinker around and change this and that of the OS, but it was all rather messy and difficult in Xandros; if you mess around, you WILL break it.
But it was my fault for going for an OS that isn’t meant to be upgraded every 2 weeks, isn’t meant to have all the latest & greatest software available and is simply meant to work – “like windows”.
So if you want a linux distribution (that you don’t mind paying a bit for) which you don’t plan on upgrading frequently, and are happy with their defaults (modified KDE desktop, for example) then this is perfect for you. A good parents’ distro.
If you want an easy to use distro that you want more control over, to update and change things frequently, then it has to be Ubuntu.
Oh, and Xandros certainly is great when it comes to networking, the samba setup is the best I’ve ever seen by default.
Why would someone thinking of Xandros get Ubuntu? It has no Xandros File Manager with its easy to use integrated CD and DVD burning and samba sharing, no ability to log into Active Directory domains, no integrated CrossOver office, no integrated Skype, etc. The typical Xandros user doesn’t want to go to the command line to install software and play with tar.gz downloads and file permissions so adding in pack. Now the open circulation edition doesn’t have many of these things but it still keeps people from needing to go to the command line for many things that other distros will.
If someone is going to go to Ubuntu, then why not just use Debian? If you want to talk about “the community” then it seems to me going with a distro based on Debian doesn’t cut it… you need to go with Debian period.
Ok, I’ve noticed that some of you guys were asking about these “modifications” to KDE that Xandros team did and we cannot find them in the official releases of KDE. To be honestly, I’ve never used Xandros, but from what I heard of, Xandros team have developmed their own file manager for KDE (XFM I think), that was based on project started by Corel for their Linux distro. And I heard that this file manager is one of the best parts of whole distro, but it’s closed-source app.
no, it has GNOME, which does CD / DVD burning, SAMBA sharing and (I think?) active directory stuff too (though I don’t use it in an AD environment so I can’t confirm that bit). Crossover Office, well, yay, if you need it. Waste of space if you don’t. Integrated skype? How integrated can it get? Go to the webpage, install the simple package that’s right there, and run it. I dunno what it could integrate into, but whatever it is, I’m not missing it (I run it on MDK, but I expect it’s just the same on Ubuntu).
it doesn’t work as well..
Well, I agree with you on everything except for the Skype part. It’s fugly on GTK. To make it look decent, you have to install some KDE libraries (which is what I did).
Then, to get sound working, you have to kill esd first. You are supposed to be able to start it with esddsp. But, I haven’t been able to find it.
I’ve had tons of issues like that with Ubuntu. But, overall, I still like it. And, I consider myself a KDE person.
~ Peace of cake to install
~ Great easy to use desktop that integrates well with windows networks.
Agree with the top two.
~ Ugly. (They really need to hire a graphics artist)
Disagree completely, I think it’s a very polished desktop.
~ I could never get the correct kernel header files that matched the binaries, so I was unable to compile a number of applications on it.
Has to be user error. The kernel sources are there on XN and there’s no problem intalling them. And as of v2 there were only 2 kernel choices so how you could have problems getting the right one I’m not sure.
~ Upgrading throught the Xandros network eventually hosed the system. Apprarently they aren’t too careful about the patches and updates that they release.
Disagree. If you’re installing from the Xandros repository things are pretty carefully checked and solid. The *only* time I’ve ever had any problems is going way outside the official repository.
~ The crossover stuff was nice but Windows applications crash very frequently.
The MSOffice apps can be crash prone at times, even on Windows. I mainly use it for a couple of browser plugins and have found them to be very stable.
~ I could never get the correct kernel header files that matched the binaries, so I was unable to compile a number of applications on it.
Has to be user error. The kernel sources are there on XN and there’s no problem intalling them. And as of v2 there were only 2 kernel choices so how you could have problems getting the right one I’m not sure.
Oh yeah…your momma! 😉 Just kidding. It could be user error. Considering that I admin a bunch of other linux boxes of various distros and never had trouble getting matching kernel headers before it sure does make me want to point the finger at Xandros though. Now understand, I was able to get xandros kernel headers, just not the ones that actually matched the binaries I was running. (and no, I wasn’t mixing debian repositories with Xandros ones)
Disagree. If you’re installing from the Xandros repository things are pretty carefully checked and solid. The *only* time I’ve ever had any problems is going way outside the official repository.
Ummm…nope. I certainly wouldn’t have called it solid. Maturing would be the word I would choose.
~ The crossover stuff was nice but Windows applications crash very frequently.
The MSOffice apps can be crash prone at times, even on Windows. I mainly use it for a couple of browser plugins and have found them to be very stable.
Yes, and I mainly used it for running word and outlook and the stability was notably bad. Still it’s something to be able to run them at all but I was hoping that I would be getting a more mature product for my money.