Fantastic would be one way to describe the new Xandros Desktop Deluxe O/S that was released Dec 18. Amazing would be another good word.

I installed it on a Sony R505 laptop and it even recognizes without adding any drivers two wireless PC Cards I have: Linksys WPC11 ver 3 and an SMC2632.

Apart from that I haven't had much time to check out the Codeweavers Cross Over Office thingy, but I am mightily impressed with the ease of installation of version 2.0

A couple of questions, can you install it along with XP and duel boot with out problems?
Would you be better off to use Virtual PC and if so how do you set it up?

Thanks
Dudelive

@dudelive

this Linux OS is excellent ...

I have been running it since v1.

Yes, you can install it alongside XP, no problems

Yes, it is far, far, better than using it with virtual PC, which slows things
down, you can't really appreciate it as an OS unless you install it properly.

With the New Version 2, just out, it is only 4 clicks and the installation goes straight ahead.... what an install, one of the best if not the best...
The Xandros setup creates a partition automatically and installs it as a duel boot along side good old XP.


I have a 2 year old IBM Thinkpad laptop, I have tried installing all the major Linux Operating systems on it....
ALL of them would not install properly or caused problems :(

But when I installed Xandros v2, it was a faultless and very fast install, no problems at all...
I am now running my Thinkpad as a duel boot system.
In fact I like this new Xandros so much that I may even make it my main OS on my laptop.

Basically m8, laptops are very fussy things.
If you can get a linux that installs to them without any problems then indeed it
is a mighty beast B)

Well done Xandros!!

Give it a go m8.

Same here. All other Linux systems including version 1 of Xandros didn't install properly on my Toshiba 5100 or more importantly my Sony PGC R505. Version 2.0 is a dream come true. My laptop works on the LAN either with the internal Ethernet connector or the wireless adaptor made by LinkSys and SMC. The WPC 54g does not work, however. Question of drivers, I think.

When you install Xandros on a system opersating Windows XP or other, it installs with an automatic dual boot menu. Once installed the Xandros o/s is default, but you can change that in the Xandros Control menu, making Windows primary. Very simple and straight forward. The thing I loke most about Xandros is that it mounts all your drives and the Winidows LAN automatically. Also it very easily configures a printer that might be on the LAN. USB plug and play works flawlessly.

The Deluxe edition comes with an interface that allows you to install Office and Adobe Photoshop, and a few other programs written for Windows. I haven't tested this side out yet, but obviously for a lotta guys not being able to run certain windows programs is a negative.

Xandros is, in short, something to make Billy Boy shake in his shoes. They just don't have the marketing muscle yet. Good stuff.

Well I tried it and screwed-up, I was just out of bed EARLY this morning and did the install on a spare computer that has a bad motherboard or processor which runs windows 2000 great except NO videos at all will play on 2000. So I figured what can I loose, I istalled it fine and FORGOT what password I gave the admin....( I know, STUPID me)...so I am attempting to reinstall it.

The first time was a breeze to install and as said everything was set up correctly to start with. I am not sure about the lan access because I need admin rights to access....(I am awake now, so will write down the pass)

I also get this error on bootup "kcminit error signal 11 has been generated "sigsegv" "

Keep us informed of your progress m8

Ok...well as I write this I am on Xandros now, the reinstall went better than the first install did....meaning ...no errors at all. It must have been too early this morning for it or me.

Now I have got to know, how do I change to password for the Administrator. Somehow it will remember that during a reinstall although it warns of loosing information if you continue. Trouble is this morning before daylight and before enough coffee I did the first install and it would not let me continue until I had gave an Admin password....... No I did not write it down.

Thanks
Dudelive

Log in as the root, fire up a terminal, then type in passwd. It will then prompt you to change your password.

I am not able to login as root because dummy me forgot the password at 5:00 am this morning on install. I was going to leave it blank and set one when I got it working but couldn't proceede untill sleepy eyed me set one and forgot it.

I've installed IE6 and OfficeXP in Xandros 2.0 to test CrossOver. Looks ok so far, tho for reasons I haven't figured out Outlook has a configuration or registry problem. The other OfficeXP modules work fine.

You're fucked. Reinstall. This time don't forget to format the partition(s).

Thanks craftyc

It often happens I'm fucked. :)

I'm installing on onformatted free space, letting Xandros format automatically.

I read onhttp://www.frankscorner.org/ that CrossOver supports Outlook 97 and 2000. I tried installing Outlook from Office XP on my laptop and on the desktop. In both cases, it installed but screwed up. On the laptop Outlook runs, receives mail, but won't send it over the smtp server. On the desktop it won't start. I deleted the Linux partitions on the desktop and started over. Same result. Until CrossOver supports Outlook 2003, it isn't that important. I've imported all my addresses to Mozilla and it looks like it's included spam filter actually works pretty good. That's my main interest since I'm getting 100+ spams a day right now. My ISP has no filtering capability whatsoever.

If you want an Outlook clone for Linux, try kolab from www.kroupware.org. If you don't like that then try Evolution www.ximian.com, although it's not based on qt like kolab. Stick either of the two with SpamAssassin and you're set; decent mail client/calendar program with decent spam filters.

I think out of the two Evolution is the better, but then I'm not such a huge fan of kde.

Ok.....I'm back up on Xrandos, you do NOT have to format completely although it may have saved me sometime. "PCTech" came by (thank God for a son that could fix this) and we both tried every help we could find and we did NOT find a way to change a LOST password. So he did a reinstall and let Xrandos take over the whole partition, it was under custom install I think. Anyway everything is good to go now again and I did not loose anything on Windows 2000 as I am duel booting with Xrandos and Win200.

Thanks for the help...but do NOT forget the Admin password or you will be better off to reinstall completely. There may be a way to reset it but we could not do it.

Thanks
Dudelive

Writing this using Mozilla in Xandros v2.

This far:
I made backups of two important partitions,
choosed Custom Install
wrote down my usernames and passwords
and had a working system up and running after exactly 30 minutes

First bsod (it hung, everything except of the mousepointer) after 32 minutes while playing around in the "First time running wizard" (or something like that).

So far so good, it's great to have a Linux based desktop again, the last years I have been using XP only and, well, it's good to be back. Allthough I would have liked a choice of using Gnome, it partitioned the systemdrive into ReiserFS (good), I wasn't able to choose where to put the swap-file (I had a partition at another drive free for that purpose). Well, that will be fixed. No problems with the hardware, it helps to have Nvidia graphix and a postscript writer of course.

Now I have to go find a decent firewall for this. Suggestions?

The most powerful way to do this is to create your own iptables script. That way you have the most functionality and flexibility. You get to create all the rules and know exactly what can come in and out of your machine. But it's hard. I've tried it and it went all wrong. In the end I just installed shorewall (www.shorewall.net). Does everything I need it to. Although it doesn't have a pretty graphical user interface.

If you want a GUI then go for firestarter. Easy to configure and easy to use. However it uses gtk toolkit, so won't fit very well into kde.

I'd suggest going for shorewall.

Thanks craftyc. Last I run Linux there wasn't that urgent demand for firewalls. I'll start with firestarter (which is extremely easy to get installed since it it available at Xandros Network) and then I'll have a look into shorewall.
After that I'll make a backup and then I'm very interested in Scribus! There has happened things with Linux and Desktop Publishing, finally!

Is Xandros 2.0 Free for download ? I hav big Interest.

No. Although, in a short while Xandros will put a trial version on their servers for download. It will be the standard version of Xandros, so no crossover or NTFS resizing, but all other features will be available. It will last for 30 days only.

Thak you craftyc for anwer on my question. I will look on the next days.