How do you like Xandros?

[mike808@users.sourceforge.net]

Casey asked: How do you like Xandros?

I like it. The MS integration for a mixed home network, IMHO is pretty darned 
good. A lot of stuff works just fine out-of-the-box, like printing, NTFS/XP 
partition resizing during install, SAMBA/network neighborhood type stuff.

And the automounter works the way Windows does. Pop in the CD and click on 
stuff. The "Deluxe" version comes with Crossover Office, so the CD automounter 
recognizes Win CDs and fires up Crossover automatically to install the 
software. So, for a Windows refugee, (or in my case, recommending older 
parental relatives flee the virus-laden MSTD-infested world of Windows), it's a 
pretty easy transition. The "Switch User" feature is a nice touch too. It's 
designed to be a KDE/KMail/Mozilla/OpenOffice "Lite" productivity desktop, 
and I think they did a great job hitting their target.

Technically, it's based on Woody, and KDE 2.2.2. From a stability standpoint, 
it works great for Windows Replacement Therapy(tm) (WRT), no broken menus, 
everything "just works". And it's pretty fast, too. It's not the shiniest toy 
on the block nowadays, and it looks a bit drab compared to KDE3 and the new 
schemes. I don't miss KDE3's bloat, though. And the other distros now have XP 
resizing, SwitchUser, OpenOffice, and Crossover bundling deals too.

But, since Xandros and Crossover are funded by the same VC firm, I think 
there's a _possibility_ for a better integration than other distros.

The user forums are active, lots of people moving on up to new kernels, KDE3, 
switching to Sarge, and such, so finding help there has decent odds.

All in all, not bad. Showing a bit of age, but then again, it's only 9 months 
old. For background, it's a Canadian Debian-based distro, just as Lycoris is a 
South American Debian-based one, and probably their closest sibling distro-wise.

Mike808/

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