I received Xandros Desktop on Wednesday, November 6th and immediately installed it on my laptop here at work (Compaq Presario 1825). The following is my overall impression of the distribution so far:
) The install is the easiest that I have experienced to date, MUCH easier than ANY Window$ install that I have ever done. I do like the option under expert install to pick and choose individual packages and the ability to resize your HD if Windows is installed. 2) Hardware detection was 100% on 2 different pc platforms and Nvidia was 3D enabled out of the box. Dual Video Card and Displays is also possible just like under Window$. 3) The Interface (KDE) is not as nice as Lycoris but much faster. Even with all the animation turned on it was faster than Lycoris. The amount of applications available out of the box are on par with Lycoris and also well laid out. Xandros Network is similar to Iris under Lycoris and works quite well. 4) Codeweavers Office and Plugin works EXTREMELY well! I installed IE 5.5, Office 97, and Quicken 2002 without any problems and no crashes. All plugins work. I have been able to do everything that I routinely do just as if I were in Window$. There are a few things that are kind of goofy, for lack of a better term, and I will elaborate if anyone is interested, but I have been able to work around them. 5) Networking just plain works! No fuss no muss, I managed to connect to our corporate network, mount shares, read and write to them, set up and print to network printers, etc. It is awesome! 6) The Xandros file manager is GREAT! Out the box, it found the entire corporate network and all the drives/partitions on my lapop. It looks so much like Window$ Explorer/Network Neighborhood that it is scary, but it works and works WELL! It is also very fast. 7) Xandros also features other little touches which are nice such as shutdown screens, switch user (works great), nice wallpaper and documentation. The price of $99.00 is fair considering what is included 8) I have not been able to get Mixmeister working under Crossover Office and have not been able to get a copy of Codeweavers Wine in a debian package to try it that way. I did download their RPM package and installed it under the Xandros Update tool but never did get Mixmeister to run. Incidently, the Update tool takes an RPM package and "converts" its to a DEB package. I do know what happens during the conversion, but I found it quite interesting. I am writing this e-mail with Outlook 2000 running on Xandros desktop. I have only had to boot into Window$ to do my time sheet or to run a propriatary program that allows me to access data on a clients networks. Other than those two things, I have been completely Window$ FREE! I'll have my laptop with me tonite if anyone wants to look around at Xandros. My overall impression is that, for the most part, I could sit almost anyone down in frot of this laptop and they would not know that they are not using Winblow$ except for the fact that it works quite smoothly and there are NO BSOD's!!! Ed Richards, PE Staff Electrical Engineer Ford, Bacon & Davis, LLC 12021 Lakeland Park Drive Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70809 Office - 225-297-3335 Fax - 225-756-3056 Cell - 225-964-2606 [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email, including any attached files, may contain confidential and privileged information. Any review, use, distribution or disclosure of included information by unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you are not a named recipient or authorized to receive and / or act on information sent to a named recipient, or have reason to believe you are not or should not be one of the named recipients, please notify sender accordingly by reply email and delete all copies of this message prior to forwarding, copying or otherwise reproducing this message or attachments thereto. For information regarding the export control status of items discussed in this document, please refer to the project control list. Thank you.
