Timothy R. Butler writes “The goal is tough, the reviewers tougher, and while the lineup of contenders are all worthy the award, only one will receive it. In this report, Open for Business’ Timothy R. Butler grills Xandros in the first of a multi-part series to find out which vendor has created the best GNU/Linux distribution in town. Read the full story at ofb.biz.“
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Adam Scheinberg
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If you’re going to compare distros, I think it would be wise to split them into two groups, and then pick the best one from each group.
In one group, you’d have Xandros, Mandrake, Redhat, Lindows, Lycoris, etc.
In the other group, you’d have Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, etc.
Since both groups are so different and are designed for different types of users and needs, I don’t think comparing them all against each other would be fair nor accurate.
This is one of the better reviews of Linux/Xandros I’ve seen come down the pipe lately.
Darius, that sounds like a good idea to me.
Finally, a thorough review from outside of OS News! I’ll be sure to catch their other ones!
Lindows, unlike Xandros, doesn’t have per-seat licensing for their distribution, contrary to the author. Per-seat is only for Click-n-Run.
Quite in depth. Escpecially the security of the web server as a package tool bit.
Actually, if you examine the EULA for Lindows, you’ll notice the Family License only applies for individuals and families. For businesses, it has a different set of terms as noted in the LindowsOS EULA section 1.1 subsection B.
I appreciate your kind comments towards the review… I certainly appreciate it!
Concerning the concept of having two groups of contestants – that’s a very good idea. For now, all of the reviewed distributions will be ones aimed at the business desktop (right now, the list is: Xandros, Mandrake, SuSE, LindowsOS, Lycoris, and Red Hat). If there is interest, however, we may persue a seperate “power users” evaluation of Debian, Gentoo, etc.
Great review of Xandros, Timothy.
May I ask why you decided to omit Libranet from the list of distros you plan to review (especially since you include other Debian-based distros like Xandros and LindowsOS)
Based on personal experience, Libranet is very user-friendly and easy to install / stable whereas I can’t even get Xandros or Lindows installed on my machine at all.
“Based on personal experience, Libranet is very user-friendly and easy to install”
Having tried Libranet myself, I’d have to say that it isn’t in the same category as Xandros, Lindows, or Lycoris. Xandros and company are integrated desktops that try to hide the “seams” between the kernel, the administrative tools, and the desktop environment.
Libranet does no such thing. All it does is provide a Debian variant with more up-to-date packages, an install routine that allows one to use autodetection if one wants, and GUIs to do various system administration tasks without resorting to config files. However, one still has to be a bit technically inclined in order to use Libranet. In short, it’s Debian with less manual labor, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but not what Xandros, Lindows, or Lycoris are offering.
Whatever.