Desktop breakdown

Desktop breakdown

Posted Nov 30, 2003 16:28 UTC (Sun) by X-Nc (guest, #1661)
Parent article: Interview with Andreas Typaldos, Xandros CEO

While the interview was a little fluffy it should not take away from the Xandros distributions real good qualities. I've been playing with and using and testing Linux distros since before there were distros^* so I have a little experience with this. The issue of "what is a desktop" is a very valid point so I will break down the different definitions of desktop as I see them.

WinXX Replacement - Business
Right now, the best WinXX replacement desktop Linux options are Xandros followed closely by Lycoris and Lindows. Xandros gets the nod due to it's integration of the CrossOver products. None of the big name distros come close to these two at being WinXX replacements in this catagory.

WinXX Replacement - Home
Xandros, Lindows and Lycoris are leaders here as well but another options is OEone's HomeBase Linux. If you need a system to do web, email, calender, games & basic document editing/creation then HomeBase can't be beat. The big name distros fair better in this catagory in that any of them would be ok as long as there's a knowledgable Linux techie nearby.

Power User - Home & Business
Here is where things change. The WinXX replacements fall way down the ladder here with the big names coming up to the top. In the western hemisphere, Red Hat/Fedora, Novell/SUSE and Mandrake all come out equal for both home and business use.

Developer/Techie/SysAdmin
Here you'll find that the big names are joined by the likes of Debian, Gentoo, Lunar Linux, Slackware, Vector Linux... Basically, once you get to this level just about anything on the LWN Distro page will probably do. With this class of user you're likely to find as many people running different distros are there are different distros.

The bottom line is that there are different definitions of desktop and, with the available Linux options, there is a Linux solution fo all of them.

^*I have been using Linux since November 1991

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