New reviews of Xandros Desktop 3 have been published by Linux Weekly News and LinuxPlanet.
Two New Reviews of Xandros Desktop 3
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I tried installing X3 and have been continually rebuffed. It won’t BLOODY INSTALL!
What I wanna know – do they give out review & test machines to the blokes who write these veneer reviews?? How can I get a machine that X3 will work on? Is there such a thing outside the fantasy world of these reviewers?
OTOH X2.5 Business edition works great… why they would break a good product is beyond me.
The community insisted that they move to the 2.6 kernel, the 3.0 build had an abnormaly short beta test coupled with a complete kernel move is most of the issue.
they didn’t break it, those users begging for the new kernel are at least partly to blame
One more time slackware does it right – stick with stock 2.4 as it is proven stable, but allow users to use an experimental 2.6 / compile one theirselfs easily 🙂
There’s always going to be a few machines here or there that don’t seem to like an OS/Kernel… I’ve seen machines that b0rked on the 2.4 kernel, but worked wonders with 2.6… go figure.
Even MS WindowsXP will give headaches on certain machines.
Generally, Xandros has done a superb job… Just because it won’t install on your machine doesn’t mean it won’t work perfectly on someone elses.
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The community insisted that they move to the 2.6 kernel, the 3.0 build had an abnormaly short beta test coupled with a complete kernel move is most of the issue.
they didn’t break it, those users begging for the new kernel are at least partly to blame
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And if a handful of users asked the Xandros team to put malware into their product and they did it, would the Xandros team be to blame or the users? I’d have to say the Xandros team. (I know that was a bad example, but I’m tired so I don’t care).
I also have had plenty of computers that work perfectly with 2.6 but have components that don’t work with 2.4.
Xandros proved to be a good distribution for Windows users that don’t want to know what happens under the hood. I installed the free version on the PC of my neighbours. They like it a lot, they don’t have problems anymore with spam, spyware and viruses (I had to fix their Windows machine approximately 2 times a week). Unfortunately there is no localisation for dutch, so the children cannot use it as effectively as they could if it was in their native language.
Even MS WindowsXP will give headaches on certain machines.
What does WinXP have to do with X3? This is a X3 review thread, and WinXP comes preinstalled on 99% of computers which are candidates for X3 so your WinXP fud doesn’t make sense. Don’t bother with excuses for Xandros’ broken installer either, because there’s no excuse that works. Broken crap is broken crap. Check their forums, all kinds of problems with installing on laptops etc. and these were reported in beta testing.
FYI: it’s probably the kernel that’s b0rking my install. However Ubuntu works perfectly, everything’s fine (except for multimedia playback, as usual).
but not any more. I have 3 computers at my home, X3 works in one but have problem on the other 2.
>>>”Even MS WindowsXP will give headaches on certain machines.”
What does WinXP have to do with X3? This is a X3 review thread, and WinXP comes preinstalled on 99% of computers which are candidates for X3 so your WinXP fud doesn’t make sense.<<<
It was nothing more than a factual statement; all OS’s have problems on certain machines… No single OS is flawless. This is not an assault on XP, nor is it FUD. Few would argue this.
>>>Don’t bother with excuses for Xandros’ broken installer either, because there’s no excuse that works. Broken crap is broken crap. Check their forums, all kinds of problems with installing on laptops etc. and these were reported in beta testing.<<<
I’m not making excuses, but it worked fine on my Laptop. And although user forums may provide useful information, they’re certainly not a benchmark to evaluate the quality of an OS. You can’t make generalizations about an OS based on your single experience on one laptop and some forum postings, just as I can’t say Xandros is perfect because of my soul experience and a few positive reviews.
Gentoo, Lindows, Redhat, WinXP, BeOS, FreeBSD, etc. have all been released with major bugs on certain hardware configurations. They also have forums all over the ‘net that one could just as easily say validates similar accusations you hold against the dev. team for Xandros’ latest release. Point is: chill out, bugs get ironed-out over time. If it were a show-stopper release, they’d be dealing with the darwin-style market effects.
>>>FYI: it’s probably the kernel that’s b0rking my install. However Ubuntu works perfectly, everything’s fine (except for multimedia playback, as usual).<<<
If Ubuntu works better for you on your laptop, that’s great!
I had trouble installing Xandros and it turned out it was my SATA drives. Xandros apparently considers this exotic hardware. Having two SATA drives (not RAID, just two drives) connected stopped the installer right near the beginning.
On the advice of someone on these forums, I disconnected one of the drives and the installer proceeded, more or less. I then reconnected the other drive and it was recognized.
Once I had installed Xandros, though, I wished I hadn’t. I found it to be full of niggling little problems that shouldn’t be present in a distro that costs as much as Xandros.
My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to steer clear of Xandros. There are plenty of other distros that are more polished and don’t cost anything.
Installed fine on my notebook and desktop. Very smooth and slick. Even auto-configured the ATI drivers for x.org!
I had a problem with an enternal hard drive enclosure. The support was excellent and the problem with the kernel (2.6.8) as dealt with professionally and efficiently.
Both reviews stated that Xandros was aimed at Linux newbies and people migrating from Windows (I think the LWN article mentions this about every other paragraph). This is only half true. While Xandros is excellent for those who are moving from the Windows world, it is also excellent for those of us who are forced to exist in a Windows world. Their connectivity to active directory networks is easy to set up and works like a charm. I was even able to install a network printer without issues. It’s not perfect and definately not for those who like to constantly tweak their systems but for those of who are just trying to get our jobs done, Xandros is, by far, the best I’ve found (and I’m only using version 2.01).
As a 2.0 betatester I know that Xandros is capable of producing a good OS, however the 3.0 release seemed to be out a bit early, without an appropriate beta-testing period. Linspire seems more determined to iron out the bugs for their next release, as it’s been in beta for more than 6 months (I assume, I’m not an insider, but we’re waiting it for a while now).
What I don’t like about Xandros 3 is that they don’t include good wireless support like WPA encryption, considering they’re targeting business users. Most of them have laptops, and WPA is the only reliable protection on today’s wireless networks.
Hopefully Linspire will have that included in version 5.0.
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My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to steer clear of Xandros. There are plenty of other distros that are more polished and don’t cost anything.
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no there isn’t ANY distro more polished. xandros is #1, it’s even better than winxp. their filemanager is the best out there bar none, for example. mandrake, redhat, suse all look lame by comparison.
I have to say Xandros does everything nice. Debian based kinda like Mephis cleaned up without the clutter. And designed to make windows users @ home. It also runs more quicker than SuSE. Runs Maya 6 out of the box without any lib patching.
I had a “time” getting this installed but I finally did.
Anyone know how to get a Linksys USB Wireless G Adapter working with X3? I want to ditch Windows altogether (cept’ for games) but I am unable to get over this one hump. If I could get my internet rolling, I’d using this in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, my PC is too far to directly hook to my router. Otherwise I think it’s very nice, one of the best distros I’ve personally tried. I really like Crossover Office too.
Easiest solution for linux with wireless is to just use a wireless-ethernet bridge. That way, no drivers are necessary.
Could you point me to an article on how to set this up?
I’ve been over a bunch of forums and couldn’t really decipher a lot of the info I read. Another solution I heard of is to use a “NDIS wrapper” or something to that effect.
-Further suggestions would be most appreciated.
I’ve installed it on several different systems and not had any major problems with it.
I borrowed a friends copy to try and I liked it so much I bought it. I am running it on my workstation at work and I’m very productive with it.
To those who are complaining about the installer, have you tried pressing shift and selecting any of the other install modes to see if it is a problem that can be worked around?
I had minor problems with the install on my workstation at work, but it was easily worked around by selecting the vesa install mode. (FIC Crusader Micro-ATX system with integrated Intel 845 Video)
Try http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/04/pohletz_ndiswrapper.html – it was written for SUSE Linux but is really fine for other distros.
For Xandros, for example, once you have enabled the third-party Debian repository in XN, it’s just a matter of apt-get install ndiswrapper and you’re away.