forums.xandros.com

[ninjablogger]

[blayne]

You know what they say. Good things come to those who wait.

When I heard about the DCCA and guessing about the sorts of major technical changes and tedious industry coordination and negotiation that would require, I wasn't too surprised that this release is dragging on.

Hopefully, Xandros is selling enough Xandros 3.0 and their other products to keep the cash flowing as the X4 development grinds away. Too often, announcing The Next Big Thing (TM) causes new customers to wait for Xandros 4.0 rather than installing X3, only to have to repeat the process next month. So advance notice creates buzz that can generate demand and boost future sales, but it can also undermine current revenue.

[wasonce]

Yeah, but we've been waiting for a long time now... 18 months since X3 launched!

A lot of other distros (SUSE, for one) have figured out that the way to keep people interested is have lots of frequent releases: 1 or 2 alpha's followed by up to 6 beta's, then a Release Candidate or two, all before the final gets released. Mepis is another that has started to follow this route recently. Any word from Xandros? Nothing. The silence is deafening. And disappointing. And frustrating. Does a week ever go by that SUSE doesn't appear on distrowatch.com for having another release?

[blayne]

Personally, I don't want the distro release of the week. I want stability and a common code base that will encourage developers to support Linux. How do you develop for an OS that changes every week?

In a perfect world, Linux would need no major upgrades. When new hardware is available, we'd download a module or two and install them to support the hardware. When new versions of applications become available, we could install them but the OS remains the same. In the real world, major changes probably need to be made every year or two, and I don't mind using that as an excuse to send some money to Xandros to financially support their ongoing efforts that make my life so much easier.

It has been 18 months, and we're due for an upgrade, but it'll be here soon. I'd rather they tested it and got it right to the extent possible. Too many distros rely on the burn and crash method. Burn a new version, rush it to the users and when it crashes, get the feedback to fix it. Having thousands of alpha testers may be the fastest way to debug code and improve an OS, but it's not very easy on the end users. That rapid development has been one of the reasons that Linux has grown and become so powerful in so little time with relatively few users compared to Windows, but it's also kept Linux from being widely adopted by people who simply want to use their computer.

Letting the users do most of the testing is OK if your users are computer hobbyists. It's not OK if your customers are the more typical computer users wanting a simple and secure PC, or business users who need stability and reliability.

I think Xandros is doing a good job of helping Linux to move into the mainstream. We still need hobbyists to help with the rapid improvements and refinements, but it's time for serious desktop Linux, and that requires stability, not weekly code releases.

From what I've read of where Xandros is going in 4.0, I think they're going in exactly the right direction. Please don't interpret my anxious anticipation as any sort of negative attitudes about infrequent releases. I'm very optimistic about the possibilities for X4. I have a few pet features I'm hoping to see in the new version, and I'd bet other Xandros 3 users have their own lists. I hope we get most of what we're wishing for, and I hope we get it sooner rather than later. But it needs to be right before it can be delivered, and I'll wait until 2008 if that's what's needed. For all my wish list, I'm doing OK right now. Every day I'm not running Windows is like a little slice of heaven.

[jimallyn]

[mike80808]

[brucedunn]

In a few months, the Xandros 4.0 will not be competing with Windows XP, but with Windows Vista. Xandros may then have a strong selling point for use on laptops - the ability to boot and run off a relatively modest flash drive instead of a hard drive.

I expect that a full installation of Xandros 4 with basic applications and a GB or so of user files would fit on a 4 GB flash drive (Xandros 3.0 runs quite nicely off a 4 GB hard drive). Business users then would have a machine resistant to viruses, immune to data loss through hard drive failure, fast booting, and with extended battery life due to the elimination of a mechanical drive. This would be desirable for road warriers who need office suite functions, E-mail and Internet, but who don't need the feature bloat of Vista.

Microsoft lists the minimum hard drive size for Vista as being 20 GB. Any pure flash drive for use with Vista then is going to be several times the cost of a drive for Xandros. I have also seen opinions that Windows absolutely requires the use of a swap file, while Linux does not. Swap files are relatively incompatible with flash drives, as flash has a limited number of read/write cycles, and can be damaged by the repeated re-writing that is involved in the use of swap files. Vista seems to be counting on the use of hybrid drives to speed up booting, which may end up combining the expense of flash, and the unreliability of spinning disks.

Comments?

Bruce Dunn
www.dunnspace.com

[blayne]

I keep expecting Moore's Law, as it applies to nonvolatile solid state memory, to catch up with our PC storage needs anf allow us to have fast and reliable PCs that can be more portable because we no longer need to haul around mechanical spinning media, or the batteries to power them. But it seems like in some perverse manner, Moore's Law applies to users as well as their computing devices. The more processor speed or memory people can afford, the more they "need". The more hardware that is available for developers, the more they'll use for their applications.

Yesterday, someone emailed me a one page DOC file with six little pictures. It was a one page flier. 16 MB! I pulled it into Open Office, saved it as a 122 KB PDF and emailed it back to them. I explained the value of a PDF working on all PCs, not just those with Windows and Word, and pointed out the attached PDF file was less than 1% the size of the original DOC file, with no difference in quality.

Few people care much about file sizes. Most people just buy what they're told. But for the few who do care, being able to boot off a flash drive will be cool and useful.

I see product announcements for mini notebooks with solid state memory and instant on capability. They look neat. I expect them to reach the mainstream. Look what a fashion statement a small cell phone has become. But the solid state notebook or tablet PC is just not catching on for some reason. Maybe it's the aging demographic. My current notebook is all I use, and it has a 15.4" screen. In another two years or less, I'll be getting a 17" notebook. My 45 year old eyes don't want to look at the tiny screen for eight hours a day.

And speaking of PDF and Open Office, I use that feature a lot to email invoices and quotes, to create instruction sheets, and to make fliers for various events. I read where Word was finally getting PDF writing capabilities in Vista. Currently, its a third party add-on. But a couple of weeks ago I read there were some Microsoft anti-trust issues, or a legal disagreement between Microsoft and Adobe. The upshot? Word still won't be able to export a PDF without glomming on some third party module. Bwa ha ha. All this talk about Windows ease of use and "a proprietary evil standard is better than no standard". I'm just not seeing it.

It's like my friend, whose high tech business uses a lot of WinCrapware. Because Windows is so unsecure, he can no longer click a DOC attachment in his Outlook email to open it. Now he has to save it, fire up Word, and open the file. Meanwhile, I double click the loathsome DOC attachments in Mozilla and it fires up Open Office and displays them. My how the times have changed!

So, tell me again, why are people sticking with Windows? It must be something about "the evil you know" being preferable to the scary unknown.

As a Linux advocate, I'm trying to make Linux a lot less scary as I help a few friends and family to make the switch. Here's my desktop OS criteria. Which would be easier for my mom use, Xandros or Windows? Hands down, I think she'd have an easier time with Xandros. Part of that may be my personal preference shining through, but freedom from antivirus, viruses, anti-spyware, spyware, registry rot and lengthy end user licensing agreements goes a long way toward making a PC easier and more enjoyable to use.

Plus... penguins are cool.

[wasonce]

[david wrigley]

The version 4 release can't be far away. Version 3 is not only being discounted by 30% on the official website but also if you look at the june edition of tuxmagazine.com, anyone buying version 3 from 15th June to sometime in August will get a free upgrade to 4, by using the tuxmag coupon code. Furthermore I would think that xandros would want to get ahead of Linspire who according to distrowatch will be releasing their next version in the 4th Quarter. My bet is a late September version 4.

[Ed Richards]

http://www.xandros.com/ads/preorder_desktop.html?utm_source=xandroshomepage&utm_medium=rotatingbanner&utm_term=&utm_content=preorder&utm_campaign=desktoppremium

Looks like June 21 is THE DAY
_________________
Ed Richards
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Registered Linux User #300032

[ninjablogger]

This is want intriges me:

NTFS
Now you can read and write to a Windows NTFS partition.

I've seen this before, but always with hazard warnings. Has Xandors gotten it right?!?
_________________
Debian & openSUSE

[blayne]

Wow! June 21st is sooner than I was expecting (after being later than I was expecting).

Some of those new features look nice.

Wireless profiles - I wondered why it didn't work that way, and now it does! I hope there's better support for all those Broadcom 802.11g chipsets that HP and others have been putting in their notebooks.

iPod compatible - Does that mean it's compatible with the iPod hardware without all the Apple FairPlay DRM? Or does it just allow Linux access to the iTunes online music store, with all the digital RESTRICTIONS management? I'm not into pirating (Arrrg!) but I don't think that music I create should be grabbed by my computer and locked up so I'm not able to use it.

Photo management - Give me a stable version of Xandros File Manager and I can drag and drop my pictures where I want them, and GIMP (or Irfanview running under CrossOver) lets me resize them, etc. Galleries are for chumps.

Write to NTFS partitions - No thanks. I deleted the NTFS partition that came on my PC years ago.

Security suite - I'm running Linux. WHAT viruses?!?

30 Free SkypeOut minutes - No thanks. I'm using GizmoProject.

Receive $5 off a Xandros T-shirt or hat! - To quote Eric Cartman, "We should offer a free hat or something." Free Hat! Free Hat! Free Hat!

It probably sounds like I'm not enthused about Xandros 4.0, but that's not at all true. My hope is for the stuff that's less likely to be promoted as eye-candy features. Better wireless support, more stable XFM, better scanner software, better drag-and-drop DVD burning hardware support, etc. New versions of the regualr applications will be good, too. I haven't been pushing the upgrades lately, waiting to get them in X4.

Mostly, I've been waiting for X4 before pushing hard for it to be adopted on a few Windows PCs I support, such as my sister's small business. I can't keep Windows running reliably from 90 miles away. With X4, I expect it to be stable, and I may even do remote desktop stuff to remotely administer their PCs.

And when did HP start selling Xandros?

http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2738451

The last time I looked, every page of their website said they recommend Windows XP (to get their OEM discount), and they actually told me that I'd void my hardware warranty if I uninstalled the copy of Windows they forced me to buy.

[woodsmoke]

I've pre ordered mine!
ain't xandros great!
woodsmoke
_________________
If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.(J Clarkson)

[dglock]