Software Report
October 6th, 2004
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Help with pesky software annoyances, tips on taming and improving
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October 6th, 2004
Free Agent: Two Linuxes for Newcomers
Editorial Applications Devel. Mgr. Matthew Newton
This month I turn my attention back to Linux for newbies. Xandros
Desktop and Lycoris Desktop/LX are two Linux distributions geared
toward folks who aren't gearheads. I've been watching them both since
their inception, and recently loaded up my test machine with the
latest revision of each to see where they stand.
Xandros Desktop: Rough Start
Xandros Desktop has been around longer, although not always by that
name. In an earlier life, Xandros was Corel Linux, and you can still
see shadows of that product. The once-revolutionary Corel File
Manager, for instance, lives on as the Xandros File Manager, and it
works magic. But more on that in a moment.
My first moments with Xandros Desktop Deluxe 2.5 were not without
frustration. I encountered this doozy of a dialog box during the
installation:
Xandros Installation Wizard has detected a Windows operating system
without enough free space to install Xandros. By continuing through
the Express Install, part of or the entire Windows operating system
will be overwritten and removed from the computer. Do you still wish
to continue through the Express Install?
What this message is really telling me: Xandros doesn't know how to
shrink a Windows NTFS partition to make room for itself on my hard
drive. There was over 100GB of unused space on the drive, but Xandros
(which requires 2GB, max) couldn't use any of it until I used a
partitioning tool to shrink the Windows partition.
This illustrates why I expand my NTFS partition to take up the whole
drive before I put a Linux distro through its paces: I want to know
how the installer will react. Once upon a time, when all Windows
installations existed on FAT32 partitions, pretty much every Linux
flavor on the planet (aside from Red Hat, oddly) could shrink Windows
partitions to make room. In the brave, no-longer-new world of Windows
XP, most folks are running Windows from an NTFS partition. To my
knowledge, only the Mandrake distribution claims to be able to safely
shrink such a beast--and in every test I've ever performed, it has
failed.
So it did not surprise me that Xandros hit a bump here. But I was
dismayed by the wording of the dialog box: "Part of or all" of Windows
will be destroyed? Wait a second, we're using a computer, right? It
has to know what it's about to do, right? Why is it playing this
guessing game with me? Why can't it tell me what's really about to
happen?
I am convinced that messages like this one are a primary reason why so
many people hate computers. I have grown used to such maddening dialog
boxes with Windows, and they no longer surprise me in that
environment. They are more scarce in most Linux distributions,
especially if you run the Gnome desktop. So when I come across one, it
sticks out like a sore thumb. To encounter one this screwy in the
installation of a Linux geared for non-geeks is a real bummer.
Your New Desktop: Just Like Your Old Desktop?
How's the Xandros system itself? Once installed, it's actually quite
good. A special wizard launches the first time you boot, to take care
of a few issues like setting up a printer and downloading all the
latest updates. The desktop itself looks familiar, with a
program-launching menu in the lower left, a taskbar and a system tray,
and desktop icons.
Xandros is built atop version 3.1.4 of the KDE desktop, but Konqueror,
the standard KDE file manager and Web browser, is replaced by the
aforementioned Xandros File Manager. This is without a doubt the most
robust Windows Explorer clone you'll find on any edition of Linux. It
can browse your local file system, of course--that's no big deal. But
it also traverses Windows networks with aplomb, and can burn CDs, too.
No, it's not my beloved Nautilus (the Gnome file manager), but it is a
beautifully designed tool that is one of Xandros's key plusses.
Xandros provides the Mozilla suite for Web and e-mail, OpenOffice.org
for office apps, Kopete for universal instant messaging, and a host of
lesser apps for working with digital cameras, taking screen shots,
listening to digital music files, and so forth.
Also included is Xandros Networks, a dedicated tool for downloading
system updates and additional applications. As I've pointed out
before, Xandros Networks has a built-in option that ropes in all the
online packages made available by the Debian project:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/241476/21421683/755700/0/
This puts an entire universe of Free Software at your fingertips. Just
point and click to install.
One additional nicety: If you really, really want to run Microsoft
Office under Xandros, you can, as Codeweavers' CrossOver Office comes
preinstalled.
For more information on Xandros Desktop, go to the company's Web site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/241476/21421683/755701/0/
Lycoris: Same Approach, Not as Far Along
If you compare a Xandros machine with one running Lycoris Desktop/LX
1.4, the only immediately noticeable difference is the wallpaper.
Xandros keeps it cool with a minimalist blue background, while
Lycoris, moving away from the Windows XP-like rolling hills of its
previous incarnation, presents you with a view of a tropical paradise.
But again, we've got a KDE desktop (version 3.2.3) that has familiar
elements in familiar places.
Installing Desktop/LX was quite different from installing Xandros
Desktop. In fact, Desktop/LX refused to install at all until I moved
my hard drive to a different IDE controller. Lycoris doesn't support
the Promise controller that was in my test machine. This is strange;
no other distribution has balked at it to this degree. The installer
itself looks dated--Linux fonts haven't looked that jaggy in a couple
of years--and it requires more than three times as many clicks as the
Xandros installer. There is no opportunity during the install to
download software updates, nor are you prompted to do so once the
install is complete. And at one point, when I told Desktop/LX that I
wanted to make a rescue floppy, it asked me to insert a disk in "drive
/dev/fd0H1440 (DOS A:)" which doesn't strike me as particularly
friendly. If Linux distributors are striving to be user-friendly, they
need to take a good hard look at all the scary messages their software
can produce, and do something about it.
Desktop/LX wants you to handle e-mail and Web browsing with the
Lycoris Web Suite--a relabeled copy of Mozilla 1.7. Kopete is on board
for instant messaging. Instead of OpenOffice.org, Desktop/LX provides
the KOffice suite, including KWord, KSpread, KPresenter, KChart, and
KOrganizer. If Microsoft Word is your word processor of choice, you'll
probably want to install an alternative to KWord. While powerful, that
program is very, very different from Word; it most closely resembles
Adobe FrameMaker, acting like a bit of a hybrid between a word
processor and a desktop publisher. In contrast, OpenOffice.org's
Writer is easy for most Word users to transition to since it closely
mimics the Word way of doing things in many respects.
An Update Wizard can be launched to check for updates to Desktop/LX. A
separate, Web-based interface dubbed the Iris Software Gallery offers
additional software for download, much of it Free. Iris reminds me of
Linspire's Click-N-Run Warehouse, but without the noxious yearly
membership charge.
There is a Network Browser icon on the Lycoris desktop. I was able to
use it to see other machines in my local domain, but I couldn't
connect to any of them. I tried to find another way to browse my
network but came up empty-handed. I yearned for the Xandros File
Manager at this point.
For more information on Lycoris Desktop/LX, go to the company's Web
site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/241476/21421683/755702/0/
Is KDE the Right Choice for Newbies?
Although Xandros Desktop and Lycoris Desktop/LX are very similar in
nature, it seems that Xandros has a lot more bugs worked out, and a
lot more of KDE's rough edges smoothed out. If you're going to connect
to a Windows network, Xandros is the only way to go.
I couldn't help wondering as I played with these distributions: Isn't
Gnome friendlier? KDE once definitely had the upper hand when it came
to ease of use, but I think Gnome's usability surpassed KDE's a while
back, not long after the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines were put
into practice.
Check out the KDE Control Center, for instance. Both Xandros and
Lycoris provide relabeled versions of it as a centralized means for
configuring the system. Xandros's version contains 67 different
applets, many of them with three or four tabs of options. We're
talking about an entire sea of check boxes, radio buttons, and text
entry fields here; and the vast majority of these options are never,
ever going to be touched. Desktop/LX's version has a Windows XP look
to it that may be familiar but only masks the same underlying
complexity.
For this reason, I prefer the Gnome approach: Preferences in the user
interface are restricted to the ones that a typical user might
actually want to change. Additional options of the sort that only
geeks play with are relegated to a different part of the system that
only geeks will discover. The Gnome interface seems far more geared
toward people who want to use their computers, rather than just tweak
them to the nth degree. I'd like to see a newbie-oriented Linux distro
based on Gnome.
For now, though, the closest thing to that dream is the latest edition
of Mandrake, which offers both the KDE and Gnome desktops. I see in my
inbox that version 10.1 was released as I wrote this column, so it's
time to start that frighteningly large download and see what the
Mandrake folks have cooked up. I am also eagerly awaiting the next
edition of SuSE Linux, which should sport a great Gnome
implementation, now that Novell owns both Ximian (the heart of the
Gnome team) and SuSE.
If you try out Xandros, Lycoris, or any other variety of Linux, please
let me know how well it fits your needs and how friendly you think it
is.
For more Linux news and reviews, go to PC World's Web site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/241476/21421683/755703/0/
Have a question or comment? Write to Matthew Newton:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read Matthew Newton's regularly published "Free Agent" columns:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/241476/21421683/239109/0/
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