Many people may disagree with me, but I firmly believe that until Linux can successfully mingle with Windows machines, on Windows terms, it will never succeed to the extent that it should. Sure, in a perfect world we wouldn't need to worry about such things, but let me assure you we live in a world that is far from ideal and Windows currently dominates it. What this means is we either have to play by their rules (to an extent) or maintain a relatively low share of the market. It's really that simple. How many distributions available today have the functionality it takes to be a part of a full-fledged Windows domain? The answer is simple: One.
Xandros understands this growing requirement and has been developing around it for quite some time now. As a matter of fact, Xandros stands as the only Linux distributor that seems to make it their primary goal. Others may claim that they are providing the ideal Windows-friendly distribution, but until they can show me a simple way to join a domain (Windows NT legacy and Active Directory), connect to network drives and have the choice to make them persistent over reboots, connect to shared printers, and manage users... I will never consider them ready. These are the basic foundation conditions that must be met in order to produce a Windows compatible Linux distribution and Xandros has the right idea.
Features
Linux kernel 2.6.11
GNU/Debian-based distribution
KDE 3.3.0 desktop Environment
Windows Active Directory domain ready
OpenOffice.org 1.1.2/Sun StarOffice 7
Codeweavers Crossover Office 4.2
Novell Evolution 2.0.4 with MS Exchange
Xandros Antivirus 1.34
Skype 1.0 free Internet telephony
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7
Citrix ICA Client 8.0
xt5250 IBM 5250 terminal emulator
SAP Java Client for Linux 6.3.0r2
Xandros Networks software management
Wireless 802.11g support, including Intel Centrino with WPA
Wizards for VPN, firewalls, printers, etc. etc.
Installation
Installing Xandros is a breeze. It really is. For those of you who have used Xandros in the past, the installer has not changed a bit. Matter of fact I don't think it's ever changed for as long as I can recall. This isn't necessarily bad, since the installer is pretty simple to use. Xandros and Linspire are neck and neck as far as simple installers are concerned. You basically have the choice of doing and express or advanced install. The express version asks minimal questions such as computer name and root password. The advanced install goes into package selection (the express just uses Xandros-chosen defaults), disk partitioning, and more detail about the system in general. For most, the express install is probably a good choice, especially in a corporate “cookie cutter” PC environment. Additional packages/configuration can easily be done at a later time either manually or via xDMS (Xandros Desktop Management Server), which allows administrators to centrally manage all of their connected Xandros computers. This includes software, update, and patch management.
The entire install took less than 15 minutes on an AMD Athlon 2400+ system with 1GB of DDR RAM. This was total time taken from initial power on/installation to the functioning desktop. Not too bad in my opinion. I've seen faster and I've seen slower installers, but this leans toward the faster side considering the amount of applications it's loading by default... and all without a glitch. I wish I could say the same for Windows XP. To count how many times the installer has blue screened on me would be a mighty task. In any event, the Xandros install is pretty impressive in my book.
L to R: Installing Xandros Linux; The default KDE desktop
On the desktop
One of the first things I noticed as the machine booted to the desktop for the first time was that the Nvidia splash screen, which let me know that it had loaded the commercial Nvidia drivers for me by default. Nice touch. It saves me from having to download and install the driver myself... which is not a huge task, but at least it's one less thing I have to worry about. That's always a good thing.
The default desktop is arranged well, with minimal icon clutter. Only the most essential applications are available at a glance without having to delve into the KDE panel menu. On that topic, their menu system is very well organized (See It In Action!). Everything is fairly easy to find for the most part, but when I added Citrix ICA Client, SAP Java Client, and the IBM 5250 emulator, it threw them in the System category, which I thought was an odd place to put them. If anything, they should at the very least go into Accessories. That's just my two cents of course. I'm just happy to have them there in the first place.
The Xandros taskbar (shown below) was interesting in the light that it didn't allow much room for a proper window list, even at a common 1024x768 screen resolution. At best you could expect three open Window buttons to be easily readable from the taskbar. Anything more and you're really pushing it. The reason for this is that the Xandros developers seem to be wanting to cram too much into this small space. On the default taskbar you've got: Mozilla Firefox, Novell Evolution, Xandros File Manager, Help browser, the “show desktop” applet, virtual desktops, “lock PC” and “shutdown PC” buttons, “switch user” button, Xandros Antivirus, sound mixer, Xandros Network updates, the system clock, and a panel hiding button... all of this plus the window list is way too much. I get the idea of it all, but the execution fails in my opinion.
Everything I tested ran well on the system with the exception of the default mail client, Novell Evolution. It seemed that it would often crash while loading remote folders via IMAPS. The only error given was The Application "evolution-2.0" has quit unexpectedly. This is disheartening since it's the email client that I presume most customers will be using due to the ability it has to connect to Microsoft Exchange email servers. Sadly, many companies still rely on this outdated and virus-prone transport to handle their corporate messaging tasks. My preferred mail application is Mozilla Thunderbird, but it doesn't connect to MS Exchange (with any hope it will in the future) so is not an appropriate client for this system. Due to the issues I was experiencing with Evolution during the review period I used it so I could at least get my mail. Needless to say, Thunderbird did not suffer from the same problem.
On the topic of Thunderbird, I'd like to point out that it is not part of the default install. You can get it from Xandros Networks, the Xandros apt software repository which is very similar to Linspire's Click and Run warehouse in functionality. Since Xandros is a Debian-based distribution, you can add additional software repositories to get even more variety. In the Xandros Networks application source settings dialog, you have the choice to not only use the distribution CDs as your software source, but also the Xandros online and Debian unsupported repositories. Using Debian unsupported is an at your own risk situation, though, so be careful what you used from here. I used it for Gaim also, for instance. Kopete is the default IM client with Xandros, but I prefer Gaim. It wasn't available using the Xandros repos, but was in the Debian site. It installs and runs fine.
It is important to note for those of you not familiar with Xandros that using your own repositories is very very risky business. Xandros Linux has proprietary code exclusive to this distro so using unsupported repositories not available as an option from Xandros can leave your machine(s) in a completely unusable state. There's nothing quite like turning a working computer into a paper weight simply because you want X or Y application from Jim Bob's personal Debian repository. It's not worth the risk. If you have to, install from source if at all possible in the case it's not available from Xandros-supported repos.
Running Windows programs
Codeweavers Crossover Office 4.2 is included with this release of Xandros Linux, and I feel it is appropriate considering their intended audience. Many businesses are so far entrenched into their applications such as Microsoft Office, that moving to desktop Linux would be suicide. Xandros understands this of course, and in keeping with the true theme and purpose of this release they've included it... and let me tell you it runs better than any other install of Crossover I've ever seen. This actually hasn't changed for the most part, as Xandros has always seemed to run Crossover very well. For instance, Internet Explorer is flaky at best on many of the installs I've done. Sure, I know, it's flaky in its native environment, but it's damn near unusable in my opinion on Linux. I don't use it anyway, but the target audience of this distro will expect it I'm sure, and it's good to see that it will live up to most of their expectations. I won't use the word “all” here because I just don't trust Internet Explorer enough to throw all my confidence at it. That's usually reserved for more stable applications such as, I don't know, Outlook Express maybe.
L to R: Installing Internet Explorer; Quicktime Plugin in Firefox
