Submitted by In what seems like a battle of ants in a case full of lions, Practical Technology has learned that Xandros has bought Linspire. “In an announcement that was sent out today, June 30, to Linspire stockholders, CEO Larry Kettler wrote that the stockholders had decided to sell all of Linspire’s assets. This deal specifically includes Linspire, Freespire, and the company’s distribution agnostic CNR (Click ‘N Run) desktop installation platform.” Not everyone is very happy with this one, though.
Kevin Carmony, the former CEO of Linspire, is quite direct about the news on his blog.
In classic Michael Robertson [Linspire’s founder and chief owner] form, he has once again completely disregarded the 100 some-odd shareholders of Linspire by pulling off this deal without a shareholder meeting. Most states require shareholder approval of any merger or reorganization of a corporation, or the sale or transfer of all or substantially all of the corporation’s assets. Even if a company only has 1 minority shareholder, there should be a shareholder meeting and the acquisition explained to all shareholders. What do Linspire shareholders get in place of a shareholder meeting? This completely worthless notice in the mail.This will end up being a completely insignificant event for Linspire shareholders, and the end for Linspire customers. I predict this was done to: 1) help Robertson drain the company of its cash and resources. When I left Linspire, we had a very profitable year and the company had millions in the bank. I predict Robertson has moved this money to himself, family, and his other companies, leaving Linspire’s minority shareholders with nothing. 2) help Robertson save face by issuing a “Linspire Acquired by Xandros!†press release, instead of living with the public humiliation that Linspire failed under his leadership. Such a press release will of course be meaningless, unless the acquisition was substantial. As a shareholder, I will eventually find out. 3) Give Xandros (also seemingly on life support) a press release, and perhaps some way for them to spin this to investors to raise money.
To me, I’m not really sure if I really even care – in fact, I’d be surprised to see many of you care at all. Xandros and Linspire seem to have added little to the Linux desktop world in the end, and while both of them had a few strong points, they were in the end eclipsed by Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. While Xandros may have made some good press by coming pre-installed on Asus’ EeePC, it didn’t give them a truly massive boost in revenue stream. “The company is not making money hand over fist it has been realizing “a very nice revenue stream from its Asus systems”.”
All I have to say: feel free to wow me.
Meh. There are plenty of better distros to choose from. Mabe this acquisition makes Xandros not to suck so much, specially the eeePC version, but I certainly doubt so.
One Microsoft-lackie purchases another Microsoft-lackie. However can I contain my enthusiasm?
I remember Xandros used to be looked upon fondly around here, but I guess Ubuntu has been kicking its ass. How the mighty have fallen
Xandros and Linspire need cultish appeal more than technical features to gain traction.To me thats how they suck.
I really liked the 4.x “Lindows” version of Linspire. But once they made the switch to the Linspire name it really seemed to be less unique from other distributions save for the CNR. I really give them credit for one thing they do right and that is the Linspire releases have all been easy on the eyes.
CNR does offer some real commercial potential for the mini-notebook market, specifically products like Asus has been releasing. The vast majority of customers will be unwittingly supporting the open source movement via their purchases from the CNR portfolio. This may or may not be a good thing for the general populace. But it certainly should benefit open source.
To be perfectly honest, both distributions did good things regarding ease of use and user friendliness in the past. At the time, they were the first to aim at Windows converts, they wanted their distros to be so easy that even granny shouldn’t have problems. Even if I never used their distros for longer than a couple of hours, I liked the idea, I have always been in favour of “Linux for the masses”
Also, their releases were very stable, even if already out of date from day one.
The latest official Xandros release is based on Debian Sarge! (But there is a “developer” one based on Etch, rather easy to find).
As to Linspire, I helped them with their Microsoft litigation by becoming a lifetime member ($100).
Nobody has been more ignored than us lifetime members.
Did they ask us if we agreed when the signed an agreement with Microsoft? Did they ask when they moved to Ubuntu (instead of Debian)?
IMO, the latter was their undoing. Who needed yet another Ubuntu derivative? And what had been a rock-solid distribution suddenly became a problematic one.
When I complained in their forums about the total lack of respect for us lifetime members, my post was promptly deleted.
What now? If they can give some real contribution to the Linux community they’ll get my support. Otherwise, good luck to them.
You are right. What was so stupid is they based Linspire on the cutting edge Ubuntu and not LTS. Soon as Ubuntu came out with a new version 6 months later, Linspire was now behind and is still behind.
STUPID.
Also to be honest almost all distros based on KDE are stuck. KDE 4 is still not ready for prime time. so that adds to troubles for distros.
Linspire and Xandros are in limbo ether way!
Good bye Linspire! Good bye!
“Also to be honest almost all distros based on KDE are stuck. KDE 4 is still not ready for prime time. so that adds to troubles for distros.”
IMO, distributions aiming “at granny” should simply stay with KDE3.5 for quite a while, or at least until KDE4 becomes rock-solid and feature complete.
Heck, I am not “a granny”, but I am choosing to stay with KDE3.5 for quite a while.
Same here. LOL!
That’s the typical business approach I’m afraid – the only one that matters is the share holders. Customers are NOT important. That’s why you were not asked [about the move from Debian sources to Ubuntu, or the sale of the Lindows name for that matter]. That’s why your post on the forums was promptly deleted. They simply don’t care.
That should have been warning enough to get rid of them.
I personally have always wondered why Xandros and Linspire were so popular – they attempted to lock you into their private repositories, an act which is decidedly anti open source. There were compatibility issues between Xandros and Debian sources for a long time as well, at least if my memory serves me correct.
Good riddance to one of them, hopefully both of them soon. Open source has no need of Microsoft lackies.
Dave
According to Kevin Carmony, former President and CEO of Linspire, they disregarded the shareholders as well:
http://kevincarmony.blogspot.com/2008/06/xandros-acquires-linspire-…
Yeah well…that’s big business for you, isn’t it. Time for shareholders to start suing the company methinks…
Dave
What a waste of money. I used to love Xandros. I was a big fan of Corel linux, the file manager in Corel which is in Xandros was great.
They always had the best Samba support, one of the first versions of Linux that could easily go into an AD domain with point and click.
But when is the last time Xandros updated their OS line? Been like 2 years with almost no updates or changes.
They have been focused on bridgeworks. Its a cool product but over priced. So is their server. If they halved the price of the server and had a regular release cycle for server and desktop they would be doing something.
That is why companies like Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu etc are more popular. If you want to sell linux then you need to have a good, solid product and a good release cycle. Knowing the release and support cycles of Ubuntu LTS makes me comfortable in using it for business.
I know that I will only be stuck with issues for a set period of months if that. With Xandros I have no clue when they will fix anything. If it’s broke it’s broke. Blah.
Anyway, back to the point. Buying Linspire will not fix any of that! Just spent money and one less wack Linux company.
Too bad Corel gave up on Linux, they might have been open to porting some of their software such as Paintshop Pro …
It was not Corel’s choice. As I remember it MS bought a bunch of Corels non voting stock to help them from going bankrupt (And keeping up the appearance that MS had comp in the Office suite sector) and in the deal Corel had to give up its Linux program.
It is possible that the deal required that. However, all that exists now, and existed then, was a bunch of speculation of the “conspiracy theory” variety, which should not be presented as fact today. Back in 2000, I personally do not think that MS cared all that much about Linux, despite the fact that some thought they were terrified of it. Much as some people do today. Except that there may be a somewhat more solid foundation for that belief today.
I might go with that but for the fact that Microsoft wrote the first of the “Halloween” documents in 1998
From Wikipedia:
“The first Halloween document, requested by senior vice-president James Allchin for the attention of senior vice-president Paul Maritz and written by Microsoft program manager Vinod Valloppillil, was leaked to Eric Raymond in October 1998, who immediately published an annotated version on his web site. The document contained references to a second memorandum specifically dealing with Linux, and that document, authored by Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen at Microsoft, was also obtained, annotated and published by Raymond. Microsoft has since admitted the documents’ authenticity.
Marked “Microsoft confidential”, they identify open-source software, and in particular the Linux operating system, as a major threat to Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry, and suggest ways in which Microsoft could disrupt the progress of open source software.
These documents acknowledged that free software products such as Linux were technologically competitive with some of Microsoft’s products, and set out a strategy to combat them. The documents were embarrassing largely because they contradicted Microsoft’s public pronouncements on the subject.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents
It’s a well known fact that before 2000 MS was seriously worried about Linux.
Yes. Good point about the first (and best) Halloween document. Having been a Unix advocate for a little over 20 years, sometimes it all kind of blurs together and it is hard to remember exactly what the atmosphere was in 1991, or 1996, or 2000. I stand corrected. 🙂
Edited 2008-07-02 15:27 UTC
No problem. Thank you.
I just remember the Corel situation because I was a big Corel supporter. At that time I was hoping that Word Perfect would be the big office suite on Linux before Open office.
How wrong I was. LOL!
Oh well Linux is everywhere now. MS can’t get rid of it. There will always be some use for the Linux Kernel.
Cool, Linspire has the best Installer I’ve ever used, they just “get it”. LPhoto and LSongs would be much appreciated on the eee. The “Music Manager” on the eee (Amarok?) is painful to use, worse than SonicStage.
I guess it depends on how you view the installer. My personal favourite was the now defunct Libranet 3 installer. The one thing that complicates Linux is the fact that you usually are trying to work with a Windows partition (dual booting) for most newbies. If you remove that, and have the customer install it onto a sole hard drive, with Windows no where to be seen, Linux installs because exceedingly easy. Windows is a huge failure here, since it does NOT handle dual booting of anything other than Microsoft operating systems and if it comes to manual partitioning, it’s the same as with Linux. The problem here is that Windows comes pre-installed on so many computers that customers do NOT need to do an actual Windows installation per se, just install the image.
Dave
The author says:
“To me, I’m not really sure if I really even care – in fact, I’d be surprised to see many of you care at all. Xandros and Linspire seem to have added little to the Linux desktop world in the end, and while both of them had a few strong points, they were in the end eclipsed by Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE.”
Were Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSUSE chosen for the highly popular ASUS Eee PC? Umm, no. Xandros has become, by way of the Eee PC, the most sold, and therefore the most popular Linux distribution. Numbers seem to indicate that Asus shipped nearly 1.5 million Xandros Linux equipped PCs. By comparison, Dell seems to have sold only about 125,000 Ubuntu Linux-powered desktops and laptops. Furthermore, Xandros was one of the first Linux distributions to support simple, native logins to Windows active directory. It’s custom KDE file manager with built-in support for CD/DVD burning and network browsing made the transition for Windows users easy. It would hardly be fair to say Xandros has added little to the world of Linux!
As for Linspire, back in the days when it was known as Lindows, it was one of the first Linux distributions to blatantly challenge Microsoft and do so publicly and vocally. In addition, Michael Robertson’s grandstanding and uncanny ability to focus the limelight on Linspire/Lindows and therefore Linux brought Linux repeatedly into the forefront as a serious challenger to Windows on the desktop. Linspire’s CNR package manager was revolutionary in allowing Linux users to easily install new packages without being an expert. Even Ubuntu added support for CNR in later versions. Linspire’s place in Linux history is cemented and it should get some respect for its contributions.
Edited 2008-07-01 09:41 UTC
There’s recently been some discussion between ASUS and Debian about working more closely together. I’ve no idea, though, if this means that ASUS might actually consider dropping Xandros in favour of Debian on their Eee PC. Still, I wouldn’t mind at all if they did. 😉
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-eeepc-devel/2008-Ju…
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-eeepc-devel/2008-Ju…
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC
This is good.
Ubuntu MID might also be another option.
Finally, Mandriva Spring 2008.1 also works perfectly on an EEE PC.
All of these are IMO far better options than Xandros.
Indeed, it seems likely that the next generation of OS for the Eee PC is not likely to be Xandros-based. Going with a commercial player might have made sense, at first, for a company which had not done a Linux-based UMPC device before. But at this time, Xandros is dead weight in a market which calls for a lean and mean profile.
I strongly expect the next generation image will be based upon Debian or Ubuntu.
I have an Eee PC myself. And I have run Ubuntu, Fedora, and Xubuntu on it. I finally did come back to the customized Xandros image. Not because the Xandros was particularly good, but because of Asus’ customizations. For example, no other distro boots the device in 23 seconds or has an interface that feels as natural for the form factor as does Asus’ default interface. Nothing about the customizations is Xandros specific.
With respect to the original topic, it is difficult to express the profound level of indifference which I feel towards the news of these two utterly insignificant distros merging… and towards the petty infighting which appears likely to break out between Carmony and Robertson. However, I suppose that it might yield some entertainment value as it plays out.
Edited 2008-07-01 15:38 UTC
Actually Ubuntu didn’t add support, they allowed CNR into their repository in exchange when Linspire came to them about using Ubuntu as their base. It was an exchange.
Xandros is on the Eee but they have not supported the Eee well and it looks like Asus may being going to Debian and for going Xandros in the future.
And Xandros did have some cool features, a lot of those were already there when it was Corel linux.
Bridge works is the only cool thing to come out of Xandros and they slacking on that. if Xandros and Linspire vanished tomorrow no one would miss them!
(Well maybe Microsoft. LOL)
Well said
Lindows’ worst crime was not capitalising on the limelight it got
Xandros’ was always being a kde version behind the pack
So this is what Xandros decided to do with all that money Asus gave them? I can think of a few dozen better ways to spend the infusion of cash. First on the list is hire more programmers so their OS can be brought up to date. I guess swallowing another small fish seemed like a better idea to them.
Actually it’s a smart move. ASUS wants to expand its popular Eee brand, which, despite recent “better with MS Windows” blurbs, is essentially a GNU/Linux plattform. Xandros already has a good foothold in this area but ASUS’s competitors are moving to Linpus and Xandros needs a value-add to its offering. CNR just looks like a good ticket for that.
Add on top that Linspire has apparently a about 100-150% larger customer base than Xandros in the normal, i. e. desktop centric, business space it all becomes very smart. Let’s hope it works out, they already ruined the excellent Corel Linux (which was based on Debian, too).
I’m confused about Xandros. It came on my eeepc but I strongly disliked it. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 over Xandros and my eeepc became even faster. The only issue I have run into installing Ubuntu on the eee was having to rebuild the madwifi drivers with each kernel update. It is a relatively small problem. Xandros didn’t have any other advantage in ease of use. In fact it was more difficult to use if you are used to a desktop version of Linux.
Same here, just I did install eee Ubuntu, it removes any kernel update, so I skip them and do not have to update the driver. Let’s hope Ubuntu just starts shipping the kernel officialy and this problem will be gone.
Also, in 10 minutes I had 4 crashes in Xandros programs, most when trying to browse the windows network, when running in Ubuntu, it works fine.
They decided to base their distribution on Ubuntu.
I never was able to get the smooth operation and the same great programs to work as well after that as before.
Also, when they stopped communicating with the end users and stopped releasing new versions on a regular basis.
Linspire betrayed all of us who worked hard using the product, evangelizing it, and promoting it.
They did so from the beginning when they failed to keep their promise with Lindows to make a Linux that ran Windows software.
People just don’t understand the value of “word” today.
And don’t understand the value of keeping promises.
We didn’t need another Linux distro. We need a replacement for Windows so we can get off it.
Linspire was headed there until 6.0.
Let’s look at this positively for one minute, though that seems to be extremely unpopular around here as of late.
This kind of make sense. Now the normal non-techie folks will have a fully functional platform. These users will no longer have to jump through hoops to get software for the native installed OS.
I was looking, for example, to put OpenSuse on a new eeePC this August because several apps I wanted to use are difficult to get installed on the Xandros based software; in addition to the hoops required in getting OpenSuse running ( though there is plenty of web documentation) there were hoops to jump through to get the apps I wanted running as well. And I actually know how to compile and mess around with config files.
Now think about a linux (or non linux)newbie excited by this new gadget. 300 bones gets her/him a rock stable instant-on Internet Tablet with all the software with minimal fuss and muss. It is a smart marketing move and really allows Xandros to hit a unique market niche.
Personally, I dont prefer Xandros or Linspire as they feel kinda like corn syrup to me when I want soemthing a bit more natural; I still like my OpenSuse and to try different distros. But this is a godd thing and anyone who is a GNU/Linux aficionado shouls look upon this as a good thing for GNU/Linux in general…
As Linspire and Xandros have been the only distros specifically focussed on the OEM market, I think it’s great that the two are merging, and bringing their respective customers and OEM contracts, and featrues (Xandros great interop with Windows networks and software and Active Directory, Linspire the CNR) all under one umbrella.
People here say “noboby uses Linspire/Xandros”. Thats true of the geek, freeloading, pure OSS crowd who follow distrowatch and always have to have the latest goodies.
But that segment of the Linux desktop market is virtually worthless from a business perspective (particularly for OEMs and ISVs).
For one, there is too much framgmentation, so supporting those users/distros is too much work. Two, that market notoriously does not pay for software or support.
But Xandros and Linspire take the tack of focusing on the OEM, and “Aunt Tilly”, “Joe SixPack”, and hardcore business user market. This market demands that everything works out of the box with zero fuss – no downloading proprietary drivers or codecs, video, including proper screen resolution and 3d acceleration working, wireless working with nothing to configure, and no command line or config file vodoo.
But the two were essentially competing with each other.
The two joined together will make a more formidable competitor, and will offer more “value add” to OEMs and “regular users”.
Just think, combining Xandros’ AD and Windows network integration with Linspire’s CNR, and combining each’s OEM contracts, all under one umbrella, will make a bigger force for OEMs (and ISVs).
My only concern is that the combined distro should go Debian stable (with backports) based, not Ubuntu based.
I’ve liked Ubuntu in the past, but it has gotten way too buggy for my tastes, and bugs persist through releases, never getting fixed, and new ones added.
For Desktop Linux to truely make major progess, the OEM route is the most direct route. Face it, only geeks download and install an OS. Everyone else just runs whatever OS is installed on the machine they bought.
A combined Xandros and Linspire has the best chance of making major inroads in the OEM market. Both separately already have made some progress. But combined they’ll make even more.
Blah, I have bought Lindows / Linspire and Xandros back to the Corel days. Still have a Corel blow up penguin from the box on my desk.
If you are a real supporter of Xandros then you would know that they don’t update their offerings very often. As a matter of fact it’s almost as if they have dropped their desktop versions (As far as updates and changes go) to work on bridgeworks and Scalix.
And the last time I looked Ubuntu selling through Dell and Novell selling through HP were the true OEM sellers at this time.
On top of that, who is going to use CNR now? It only works on Linspire, Freespire and Ubuntu as it is. It was much better when it was a part of Linspire before they opened it up and changed it. Now it’s just a some times working version of Synaptec. Besides the fact that they pad the database of apps with WAY out dated and insecure versions of apps like old ass versions of Open Office etc. Just there to make it look like they have lots of apps in CNR.
I used to be a major supporter of Linspire back in the days, you can look here to see my posts or on the Linspire forms. But they blew their market with 3 changes they made.
1. They changed from Debian to Ubuntu but not Ubuntu LTS. Now Linspire is going to always be behind as it is now. Still on 7.04 as the base. At least with LTS they would have Ubuntu long term support and updates and could of rolled with that till the next LTS.
2. Making Freespire. Making a free version of something people were paying for??? Now who is gonna pay for it. And being the Freespire is almost as stable, you offer paid support for it and it’s more up to date?? That was the end of buying Linspire for me.
3. Opening CNR. CNR was the only thing of value Linspire had that made it unique. Once they opened it there is no reason to buy Linspire. And they put it on Freespire for free. Double reason not to buy Linspire.
With Xandros there are reasons Xandros is failing also.
1. Server is over priced for what it is.
2. They don’t update their OS on a regular basis. Think it’s been at least 2 years since they last updated their desktop OS’s and there are a lot of problems they need to fix like Active Directory support etc.
Only way things will be good for Xandros is if they have the Linspire developers work on updating Xandros and getting on a regular release cycle etc. Making Xandros boot faster and a little more stable. Plus add bigger OEMS. Eee PC is prob gone for them.
And then the current Xandros people make bridgeworks better and add features to Scalix cause Zimbra is kicking Scalix’s booty!
All good points, but let me address some of them.
“If you are a real supporter of Xandros then you would know that they don’t update their offerings very often.”
I’m not a “supporter” of Xandros. In fact, I’ve never used it. I have read some good reveiws of it, and have read that their Windows networking and Active Directory support are excellent.
As for updating offerings, I think that you are probably in the Ubuntu/Fedora mindset, where latest and greatest goodies are features in lue of stability.
That’s great for the Linux enthusiast crowd (me included), but is sucks for businesses, regular users, and OEMs. For them, stability is paramount.
That’s one of the reasons for Red Hat’s huge success. They update every 1-1/2 to 2 years (RHEL), and thus feature “older” versions of stuff. But OEMs, ISVs, and enterprises can count on it. These people avoid Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, etc, like the plague.
“1. They changed from Debian to Ubuntu but not Ubuntu LTS. Now Linspire is going to always be behind as it is now. Still on 7.04 as the base. At least with LTS they would have Ubuntu long term support and updates and could of rolled with that till the next LTS.”
I agree with you here. I think it’s better to be based on Debian Stable, with backports. Ubuntu is proving too buggy, even with the LTS release.
“2. Making Freespire. Making a free version of something people were paying for??? Now who is gonna pay for it. And being the Freespire is almost as stable, you offer paid support for it and it’s more up to date?? That was the end of buying Linspire for me.”
Agreed that this killed off people buying the boxed version of Linspire. But that was only a tiny piece of Linspire’s revenue. Most of their revenue came from OEM contracts and CNR. Releasing Freespire was probably an attempt to get more community enthusiasm, and mindshare. And selling boxed versions of Linspire to Linux enthusiasts like you and me was never a good business strategy. We get our Linux for free, and don’t really need the extra’s that come with a boxed set. From a business perspective, emphasizing on OEM contracts and CNR revenue made sense.
“3. Opening CNR. CNR was the only thing of value Linspire had that made it unique. Once they opened it there is no reason to buy Linspire. And they put it on Freespire for free. Double reason not to buy Linspire.”
I kinda agree here, but it still remains to be seen. Opening up CNR was Carmony’s baby, and I think he was merely trying to expand the market for CNR. But then Carmony left, and the new management don’t seem to be fully following through on the strategy. So it remains to be seen whether that was a good or bad move.
I am actually more of an Apple guy then a Linux guy. But when I update I mean service packs etc. As Ubuntu is now doing with LTS, Apple just did this week and Red Hat did a couple of months ago.
And yes there are bugs in LTS but they are putting out a point release just like Apple and Red hat did to address some of those bugs.
There are tons of bugs in Xandros business edition but they have not addressed them at all. Read through their fourms and people fuss all the time about this.
And when was the last time Linspire updated anything. When 6.0 came out? Xandros last put out an OS update of ANY sort in 2006.
Stability is what I want. Stability does not only mean you don’t update or change, but it also means you fix problems.
For instance Red Hat RHEL 5.0 came out March 14 7007, 5.1 came out November 7 2007. 8 months. 5.2 came out May 21 2008, a little more then 6 months after 5.1. This is what I mean by updates. Regular maintainance releases to fix problems and sometimes add features.
Not major releases but updates.
Makes sense.
And I hope you’re right about Ubuntu putting out an LTS point release.
I am 100% sure about that. Unlike Xandros and Linspire, Ubuntu keeps a detailed release schedule. It may slip some (All OS companies from MS down do) but you can track it almost to the day.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseSchedule
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+milestone/ubuntu-8.04.1
It’s definitely a back room sell off. The wording of the notices states that they are selling off all the assets and changing the name of the existing Linspire Inc to Digital Cornerstone INC. I agree with what you said in your blog. Robertson has done an End run around the stock holders by keeping the shell of the company intact and selling off the assets. Not illegal, but shifty and immoral.
Oh, and Kevin. I wanted to say that under your tenure, Linspire WAS on the right track.. from Open Sourcing CnR to launching Freespire you did a good job. Shame about how it all turned out.
Cheers
I’m really getting sick of all the negative whining by all of you Linux geeks that can’t see the forest for the trees. Stop cannibalizing yourself!
Even worse is the amount of mis-information spread by these ‘rumour-mongers’. Stuff like ‘could it be Asus might drop Xandros for Debian? or fill in the blank.. with whatever your favorite distro is..
Most of these comments are similar to a National Enquirer type of slander… ‘a close friend or buddy told me yadayadayada..’
Here’s a telling point;
“I have an Eee PC myself. And I have run Ubuntu, Fedora, and Xubuntu on it. I finally did come back to the customized Xandros image. Not because the Xandros was particularly good, but because of Asus’ customizations. For example, no other distro boots the device in 23 seconds or has an interface that feels as natural for the form factor as does Asus’ default interface. Nothing about the customizations is Xandros specific.”
Oh big bad Xandros… look – who do you think built and designed the software that is running on “1.5 million” EeePC’s?? uh – that would be XANDROS! How about giving credit where credit is due and quit all the bull c***!
I use the default OS Linux build on the EeePC and it works extremely well for my needs. I too love the form factor – a full blown computer in a device that almost fits in my pocket (well overalls maybe!)
I expect great things coming down the pike in the near future regarding a revamped Xandros desktop – with CNR and media capabilities.
Thankfully I see many positive and astute observations on this thread, which put a more ‘real’ perspective on this.