sounded great [LWN.net]

sounded great

Posted Jul 31, 2003 3:05 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227)
Parent article: Xandros Desktop

When Xandros was first announced, it sounded like the end of all our troubles. Super easy to use desktop, make for home or business, and a commitment to both KDE _and_ GNOME. (I personally think KDE is a big sick joke on the UNIX community, but that's another topic entirely.)

Now, tho, I don't really see any purpose or point behind Xandros. They don't seem to offer anything that Lindows/Lycoris can't for the desktop, nothing RedHat/SuSE can't for the enterprise, and there isn't much need for an "in-between" distro.

So really - what is the point of even looking at Xandros? Why bother with a less proven distro when others do everything it does, and then more, at a cheaper price, and have been around longer to prove themselves?

No, seriously - does anyone have an answer for that?

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sounded great

Posted Aug 3, 2003 17:19 UTC (Sun) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

>So really - what is the point of even looking at Xandros? Why bother with
>a less proven distro when others do everything it does, and then more, at
>a cheaper price, and have been around longer to prove themselves?

IIRC, Xandros is based on Debian, which is quite proven. Being based on
Debian gives many advantages, including easy upgrades. And Xandros's
special sauce on top of Debian is being easier to use.

>They don't seem to offer anything that Lindows/Lycoris can't for the
>desktop, nothing RedHat/SuSE can't for the enterprise, and there isn't
>much need for an "in-between" distro.

They offer better stability, upgradability, and future-proofing than
Lycoris, and more honesty and trustworthiness than Lindows (who needs to
pay $99/year for access to third-party free software?). All those things
are important for all levels from home user to enterprise, though Red Hat
and SuSE score decently on them.