Ubuntu Linux 6.06 was delayed for several weeks to ensure that it was as good as it could be, then finally released on June 1. This version of Ubuntu was supposed to be “enterprise-ready” as a server and as a desktop, but unless businesses like dealing with multiple hardware issues, a substandard Java environment, and a lack of proprietary Web browser plugins, I can’t see how Ubuntu Linux 6.06 is ready for anything except perhaps a patch release.
Ubuntu overview
This section is for people new to Ubuntu Linux. If you’re already familiar with the basic details of this operating system, you may want to skip down to the next section, which details the new features in this release.
Ubuntu Linux is a relatively new GNU/Linux distribution that was originally based on Debian. Since its first release in September 2004, Ubuntu has grown further and further away from Debian, though there is still a great deal of resemblance between the two. Ubuntu is on a six-month release cycle, so the goal is to create two production releases per year. Release numbers are a one-digit year followed by a two-digit month, so 6.06 represents a June 2006 release, and 5.10 indicates an October 2005 release.
Each version is supported with software updates for a term of 18 months, at which time you must upgrade to the latest release. Any Ubuntu release that has an LTS (Long Term Support) tacked onto its version number will be supported with security updates for five years on servers.
In general Ubuntu Linux is easy to install, use, and configure. It’s also highly focused, meaning you don’t have to wade through huge system menus full of multiple Web browsers and word processors to find what you need. Installing new software is easy through the Install and Remove Applications program, with the Synaptic package manager as a fallback for more advanced users who need to draw from a wider body of available software.
The default desktop environment is GNOME; other DEs and window managers are not officially supported, though you can just as easily download and use Kubuntu or Xubuntu if you prefer KDE or XFCE. The package managers are integrated with the desktop environment, so when you install a new program, it is immediately added to your Applications menu. Software updates are monitored through a notification applet which informs you of available patches.
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| Ubuntu Linux 6.06: lots of potential, lots of bugs |
What’s new in 6.06
At its core, each new Ubuntu Linux release includes a more recent Linux kernel and GNOME desktop environment. Version 6.06 ships with the 2.6.15 kernel and GNOME 2.14.2. The following enhancements and additions are also new to Ubuntu 6.06:
- UltraSPARC T1 processor support
- Long-term support for servers
- Commercial software packages are now able to be installed via the Install and Remove Applications tool
Overall there aren’t a lot of big changes in Ubuntu 6.06. Expanded hardware support and an updated software stack are the primary advantages that 6.06 has over 5.10.
Putting it to the test
Ubuntu 6.06 is packed with problems. Both the x86 and AMD64 versions of Ubuntu failed to boot on one test machine (Asus A8N-E, Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 1GB RAM, ATI Radeon X700, Atheros-based wireless PCI network card) no matter what boot option I chose. On the laptop test machine (Acer TravelMate 2300), I got Ubuntu to install, but the system occasionally ignored keyboard input for about half a second. So typing this very review, every two sentences or so I miss a word — a situation that is positively infuriating.
I use these two computers — both of them more than a year old — for the bulk of my operating system testing because poorly designed OSes tend to fail on them. CentOS 4.3 and Xandros 4.0, for instance, both recently installed and worked very well on these machines, so I know that they can handle hardware that is on the fringe of Linux compatibility. Ubuntu 6.06 failed miserably. The previous version of Ubuntu Linux was even worse on these systems — so much so that I couldn’t write a review because I couldn’t find a computer that Ubuntu would work on.
Firefox is the default Web browser in Ubuntu 6.06 (and the only one installed, which is good — no clutter), but it has no plugins installed. None at all — not even the SVG plugin. That means spending a half hour or so finding and downloading the Java, Flash, PDF, RealPlayer, and Windows Media plugins if you want to have a complete Web experience. The only good news is, this is a fairly simple process because of the Ubuntu Install and Remove Applications and Synaptic package managers.
I figured I’d do some Java programming exercises while I tested Ubuntu, but I couldn’t find a Java Development Kit in either of the package managers. There was a Java 5.0 Runtime Environment, but no JDK — or at least, searches for “jdk” and “java” didn’t turn up anything in Synaptic. To top it all off, Ubuntu 6.06 comes with a fake Java installed — GIJ. I want the real Java, or I want nothing so that I can install the real Java properly; I do not want a half-hearted, half-working Java facsimile that doesn’t even have a browser plugin.
I prefer to see NDISwrapper installed by default. That makes it easier to get a system online when its only available network connection is over an “unsupported” wireless card. Ubuntu does not have NDISwrapper installed by default.
There are some good points about Ubuntu 6.06, though: the integrated Intel graphics chip on the TravelMate was properly recognized and configured for direct rendering. I noticed that a general proprietary kernel module package had been installed when I was looking through Synaptic. This includes Nvidia, ATI, and Atheros drivers, so I would assume that my configuration time would have been low on the desktop test system, had Ubuntu actually been able to install on it.
Conclusions and developer recommendations
After spending three days with Ubuntu Linux 6.06, and recognizing that a large percentage of first-time GNU/Linux users are trying out Ubuntu before other distros, I understand why many people think that GNU/Linux can be difficult to install, configure, use, and in general be “not ready for the desktop.” Ubuntu Linux 6.06 is a step below Fedora Core in terms of usability, quality, and ease of use, but it’s far below any modern commercial desktop GNU/Linux distribution like Xandros Desktop 4.0, SUSE Linux 10.1, or even Mandriva 2006 PowerPack Edition.
What I can’t understand is why I seem to be alone in my assessment of Ubuntu 6.06. Everywhere I look, I see glowing reviews and “best of” awards and such. I wonder what computers those people used for testing? What other GNU/Linux distributions are they comparing Ubuntu to? Obviously they aren’t Java programmers. As far as I’m concerned, Ubuntu Linux 6.06 doesn’t live up to the hype. There’s a lot to like about Ubuntu in general — I mean, as far as distribution design is concerned — but this release was poorly tested.
Here’s what I’d like to see in the next release:
- Java: do it right or don’t do it at all. I appreciate the fact that many people are working hard to create free-as-in-rights replacements for the Sun JRE and JDK (despite the fact that Sun Microsystems is working to free them). Having said that, I don’t want to use these replacements. I want the standard, documented, platform-tested Sun JDK so that I don’t pull my hair out trying to decide if the problems I’m having with my programs are due to my code, or the non-standard compiler and virtual machine that I’m using.
- Better release testing. I suspect the reason why Ubuntu failed to install on my Athlon 64 X2 system was due to the dual-core CPU. Since you can hardly buy a new computer these days that doesn’t have a dual-core processor in it, I can’t understand why the Ubuntu team couldn’t properly test their release on one. Furthermore, the strange laptop keyboard problem I had was one that I have never seen before in the four years I have been writing about GNU/Linux, Unix, and BSD operating systems. It is highly unlikely that this is specific to my one test machine, so I have to blame the release engineers for sending the product out the door too early. Perhaps six-month release cycles are too soon for Ubuntu Linux — or perhaps the Ubuntu developers need to take some lessons in release engineering from the OpenBSD crew.
- Include NDISwrapper. It’s not very large, so I don’t understand why NDISwrapper can’t be included in the base install. When you don’t need it, you don’t know it’s there, but when you do need it, its absence is intolerable.
- Web Browser plugins. I realize that licensing restrictions prevent many plugins from being shipped as part of the release, but what about the mplayer plugin? And can’t something be worked out with Adobe to include the Acrobat Reader and Flash plugins?
| Purpose | Desktop operating system |
| Manufacturer | Canonical, Ltd. |
| Architectures | x86, AMD64/EM64T, SPARC64, Niagara, PPC |
| License | The GNU General Public License version 2, although some parts of the base system are under the BSD or other free software licenses |
| Market | Desktop and server computers in any setting |
| Price (retail) | Free to download, or have an Ubuntu CD set mailed to you for free |
| Previous version | Ubuntu Linux 5.10 |
| Product Web site | Click here |
Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.
Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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Writing analysis
IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl is easy to read and follow. Every term is clearly defined and included in a glossary in case you need to look it up again. References to product manuals and other texts are included in a bibliography, and the book is also indexed to make it more easily searched.
The author assumes that you, the reader, are a project manager in charge of developing, releasing, and maintaining a commercial Java application, though any member of a management or development team will also benefit from IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl if any or all of the following tools are used in their work environment:
- IBM Rational ClearCase
- IBM Rational ClearQuest
- Apache Ant
- JUnit
- ThoughtWorks CruiseControl
The book does not officially recommend an integrated development environment (IDE), but there are a few tips specific to Eclipse here and there. The author doesn’t touch the subject of actual coding, though some of the tools the book covers are specific to or originally designed for the Java language.
Putting the book to the test
Since IBM Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest are not generally available to people like me (they’re part of “enterprise installations” according to the author), I couldn’t really test the procedures in the book. The best I can do is tell you that IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl has directions that are easy to follow, diagrams that make sense, and if you’re following along in the book while creating or converting your own development project, you should end up with a highly organized environment for building and releasing Java programs.
Rational ClearCase is presented in the book as the center of the project development environment. Serving in satellite roles are Ant, Rational ClearQuest, JUnit, and CruiseControl. The book shows you how to customize this stack for your individual project needs, and for the needs of each individual developer involved with the project. The author walks you through all of the necessary configuration files, but only to the extent necessary to prove the examples. In other words, he shows you how to initially configure the software for your project, but doesn’t explain every setting and option available. There are product manuals for that, and the book lists each and every one of them where appropriate.
IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl is more than a tutorial; you’re not just shown how to set up the software environment, you’re also told why it’s important to do it that way. This is just as much a guide to proper software project management as it is to customizing and using the build and release environment. Just reading the book gives you a good understanding of how commercial software should be developed.
Summary
This book is more of a guide than a manual. If you’re developing Java programs and can afford the $4100 per user license fees for IBM Rational ClearCase, and you plan on using all of the (apparently outstanding) build and release management tools that the book recommends, IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl could be the best non-fiction book you’ve ever read. The further you drift from those qualifications — developing in another language, using different project management and development tools — the less useful the book will be. At the very least, IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl is an excellent introduction to project management in software development.
If you’re a manager who has inherited a Java development project that can best be described as a “train wreck” in terms of organization, developer collaboration, build automation, testing, and release engineering, I don’t think there is a more appropriate book for you than IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl.
Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.
| Title | IBM Rational ClearCase, Ant, and CruiseControl |
| Publisher | IBM Press Books |
| Author | Kevin A. Lee |
| ISBN | 0321356993 |
| Pages | Paperback, 384 pages |
| Rating | 9 out of 10 |
| Tag line | The Java developer’s guide to accelerating and automating the build process |
| Price (retail) | U.S. $45. Buy it from Amazon.com |
Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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What company is the single biggest threat to SUSE Linux Enterprise adoption? What is Novell doing to erode that threat?
We prefer to look at the market in terms of opportunity We don’t view any company as the single biggest threat to SUSE Linux Enterprise adoption. We have multiple competitors in the market — Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun, just to name a few. We’re very early in a 15 to 20 year operating systems lifecycle and I believe Novell is uniquely position to drive and realize a lot of the opportunity. Specifically, our Linux offerings are addressing the enterprise wide needs for a vertically integrated Linux offering. By that I mean the same code base (and skill requirements) for Linux server, desktop, data center, real time, point of service, etc deployments – all of which Novell offers. While our competitors (Linux specifically) offer some of these capabilities, none offer the enterprise breadth and depth we do with the global ecosystem and support behind it.
On the server side, Linux now truly offers UNIX-equivalent functionality. SUSE Linux Enterprise scales to 1024 CPUs and 10TB of memory and can handle those mission-critical enterprise workloads, like Oracle or SAP, that historically ran on big UNIX boxes. With SUSE Linux Enterprise, organizations can reduce nearly 50% of their infrastructure costs for these applications by choosing Linux over UNIX. When you add in new technologies like Xen virtualization and AppArmor application security — both of which are available exclusively from SUSE Linux Enterprise right now — the story becomes even more compelling, as organizations can consolidate workloads, reduce server sprawl, and then lock down those applications against intruders.
On the desktop side, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is the first true alternative to Microsoft Windows. I’m a realist — I know that Windows dominates the desktop market. But the coming introduction of Windows Vista has re-opened the buying decision for many Microsoft customers – a decision that will involve a migration not a simple upgrade. They’re questioning whether they need a fully-loaded desktop with expensive new hardware for every single worker in their organization. With the innovations we’ve delivered in usability in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop — such as the multiple desktop environments and integrated real-time desktop search — and the innovations we’ve made in the OpenOffice productivity suite — including the ability to run Visual Basic macros — customers now can seriously evaluate another desktop choice for their enterprise. To help them introduce Linux into their desktop environment, we’ve made SLED completely interoperable with Active Directory through our unique deployment of SAMBA. That means you can just drop a Linux desktop right into your existing infrastructure and hit the ground running. By the way, all of this available at 1/10 the list price of Microsoft’s OS and Office Suite.
So in a nutshell, we’re addressing the opportunity by offering a compelling enterprise wide Linux offering that offers unprecedented innovation and a great value.
When Red Hat switched its business model to focus on “enterprise” products, it dropped its consumer desktop product in favor of a community-supported software distribution. Is openSUSE going to become Novell’s Fedora Core? If so, what measures are going to be taken to prevent openSUSE’s quality from diminishing in the absence of standardized corporate quality assurance procedures?
openSUSE is our open source development project. It’s how we collaborate with the open source community to develop the next innovations that you’ll see in the enterprise product line. One thing that’s consistent across all Novell products is our high code quality. We’ll continue to work with the openSUSE community to ensure that high code quality, because much of that code eventually finds its way into the enterprise distribution. One example of this is our openSUSE Build Service. This service enables openSUSE developers to compile their code across all the major hardware architectures at the same time. In other words, I can write for x86 and compile on x86, Itanium, and zSeries. This tool is a developer’s best friend — it saves hours of time and enables you to find bugs more quickly and fix them. The openSUSE Build Service uses the same technology as our AutoBuild service that compiles our SUSE Linux Enterprise platform. So that’s an example of how we are sharing our enterprise technology with the open source world to ensure quality.
Will Novell offer SLED 10 to home users, or will it be strictly a corporate product?
Right now, we are targeting SLED10 at the transactional, scientific, fixed function and general knowledge workers of the corporate, government and education markets. We are considering a consumer version of SLED, but we have not made any final plans yet. That said, SLED is available to all who want to use or pilot it in their enterprises or home. One can research SLED on www.novell.com/linux and buy the product direct from the Web site for $50.
What does SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 offer that no other GNU/Linux distribution — such as Mandriva Corporate Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux — has?
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 enables businesses to deliver mission-critical IT services-with enhanced security and reduced costs-while improving data center reliability and performance. SLES10 is the first enterprise Linux solution to integrate Xen virtualization into the distribution, so that organizations can consolidate applications and reduce server sprawl. Only SUSE Linux Enterprise Server includes Novell AppArmor, an application-level security solution. AppArmor protects the operating system and its applications from the harmful side effects of attacks, malicious applications and viruses. So whether an attack originates internally or externally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 ensures server integrity, reduces administration costs and prevents downtime-related business losses. Only SLES 10 comes with Novell’s global reputation for service and support.
Finally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is an enterprise-quality server designed to handle mission-critical workloads in the data center. We’ve designed SLES so that you can deploy it as a general-purpose server or you can tailor it to run a variety of specialized workloads, and the entire solution offers seamless interoperability with your existing data center infrastructure. We’re particularly proud of our joint development with SAP and Oracle. Included in SLES are specific installation options that optimize SLES to run either Oracle or SAP. So when you install SLES, you just click “yes, I want an SAP server” or “yes, I want an Oracle server,” and the software installs only those packages you need to run Oracle or SAP.
What’s the question I’m not smart enough to ask about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop 10?
What is the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform?
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 is the Platform for the Open Enterprise. We’ve built SUSE Linux Enterprise to be the best-engineered, lowest-cost and most interoperable platform for enterprise computing. From the desktop to the data center, only SUSE Linux Enterprise offers a complete open source platform for the mission-critical applications that drive your business — whether that’s office productivity on your desktop or SAP in your data center.
Novell is the only Linux vendor to offer a complete enterprise-wide Linux solution. With the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform, we have solutions that can deployed in a variety of workloads — from thin client, to general office worker desktops, to file & print, to e-mail kiosks, to web servers, to ERP & SCM applications. No other Linux vendor offers the breadth and depth of solutions that Novell offers. And we back it all up with enterprise-caliber tech support, consulting, and training.
Novell is an innovator in the Linux market, and SUSE Linux Enterprise proves it. Look at what we’ve brought to market — six months ahead of the competition. Integrated virtualization. Tighter security. Intuitive management tools. New and exciting graphic innovations on the desktop. Microsoft Visual Basic macros running natively on Linux. A new hardware device driver update. Those are just a few of the innovations that SUSE Linux Enterprise brings, and it’s why we think the customer will choose Novell as a partner.
Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.
Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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Xandros overview
If you have never used Xandros Desktop Linux before, this section will give you an overview of it. If you’re already familiar with Xandros, you might want to skip down to the next section, which covers the changes introduced in version 4.
Originally developed and sold as Corel Linux, Xandros is a KDE-centric GNU/Linux distribution that is loosely based on Debian. While it offers a rich desktop environment, it is possible to use the Debian package tools to adapt Xandros Desktop Home Edition for a variety of different uses. Its heritage plus the excellence of its design equal an operating system that is easy to use, but powerful when necessary.
The base distribution includes about 1.4GB of software, though most of that is the base operating system and “filler” — ancillary KDE software and other programs that are rarely or never used. The default Xandros Desktop Home Edition installation offers few useful applications, but the Premium version comes with CrossOver Office 5.0 Standard, which allows you to run many Windows programs, and Versora Progression Desktop, which enables you to safely move all of your data and settings from Windows to GNU/Linux. You’ll also find a small collection of proprietary extras: the Java Runtime Environment, Adobe Flash Player, RealPlayer, and hardware-accelerated Nvidia and ATI video card drivers installed and ready to go. In essence, Xandros is more of an operating system with the ability to expand, whereas most of its desktop GNU/Linux competitors are self-contained software distributions.
The officially supported method of installing new software (and updating currently installed programs) is through the Xandros Networks framework. This consists of a self-contained program that both tracks your current software situation and informs you of other applications that you can install. It’s much like Linspire’s Click N Run (CNR) system, though Xandros Networks is not integrated into the KDE menu structure like CNR is. Lastly, Xandros Networks has a taskbar notification applet that tells you when software updates are available.
The general “look and feel” of Xandros Desktop Home Edition is like a cross between Windows XP and Sun Java Desktop System. It’s easy to use and navigate if you’re used to the Windows Start menu interface philosophy, but not really all that sensibly designed according to modern usability standards. One thing you won’t find in Xandros is clutter — the Launch menu is clean, focused, and easy to navigate. Most other desktop GNU/Linux operating systems will have up to three separate Web browsers, office suites, and email programs. Xandros, in contrast, only has one standard program for each purpose.
Desktop Home Edition is only one of Xandros Inc.’s GNU/Linux products. The others include a business desktop product and a deployment management server; a business server edition; and an education desktop and server edition for schools. Xandros Desktop Home Edition and Home Edition Premium are the only two Xandros products aimed at consumers.
What’s new in 4.0
The most noticeable change in Xandros since version 3 is the interface. Everything from the installation boot splash screen to the KDE desktop and all points in between has been graphically enhanced. Cosmetically this is an impressive distribution, but I am growing increasingly weary of blue themes. I think this must be the “blue period” for GNU/Linux — SUSE, Linspire, Mandriva, Red Hat, and Xandros all have blue standard themes.
Unless I missed it in the previous version, Xandros now requires product activation to enable the Xandros Networks program. Previously you needed a subscription to take full advantage of Xandros Networks, but you could still get updates. In version 4, the whole framework is inoperable until you put in your support serial number, which is sent to Xandros to generate your product activation code, which is emailed to you. Then you enter that code into a prompt in the XN client to enable it. Word on the Xandros forum is, you can only use your serial number five times before you have to make a phone call to activate your XN subscription (normal business hours only). Some Xandros customers are upset about this, complaining that it’s no better than Microsoft’s product activation schemes. In effect, Xandros actually is a little bit better; Windows XP requires product activation to use the operating system, whereas Xandros only restricts support requests and product updates — the base distribution is perfectly usable without the activation code. Secondly, every other major commercial GNU/Linux distribution except SUSE already does this — Mandriva, Red Hat, and Linspire — so there aren’t a lot of alternatives in the top tier if you’re trying to avoid any kind of product registration. I’m not saying what Xandros is doing is in any way ethical or respectful of its customers’ privacy; I’m just pointing out that everyone else is doing it, so there really is no surprise here.
The Xandros Home Edition 4.0 license is rather strange — it now allows customers to install the entire distribution on an unlimited number of home computers and one business computer. This is a sensible choice because, quite honestly, it’s what people do anyway regardless of license restrictions. I don’t know how this broad allowance reconciles with the fact that you can’t activate your support serial number more than five times.
A new feature in the Premium Edition is the Xandros Security Suite, comprised of a firewall, anti-virus scanner, and file system protection application. The latter two programs wanted to run memory- and disk-intensive services at frequent intervals, so I disabled them. Realistically, I think most users are going to have to do the same in order to avoid a noticeable system performance decrease. These services seem like they are designed more to assuage the fears of paranoid-by-experience Windows refugees than as useful security precautions anyway.
Also new to Premium Edition is the Xandros Storage Manager, Xandros File Manager, and the Paragon NTFS kernel module. The latter allows you to write to Windows NTFS partitions; the standard Linux kernel module only allows reading NTFS volumes, so this could be a great asset to people who need to share data with a Windows partition.
Putting it to the test
Xandros Home Edition Premium installed completely in about 15 minutes and without incident on an Athlon64 X2 desktop machine and an Acer TravelMate 2300, both of which are notorious for having problems with poorly equipped operating systems. The TravelMate has an oddball integrated wireless network card that works well through NDISwrapper, but doesn’t have a native free software driver yet. I expected the software to prompt me to set up NDISwrapper for my unsupported wireless card during setup, but no such prompt appeared. Later on, when I went to run the cool NDISwrapper graphical utility that I’d raved about in Xandros Surfside Linux, I found that it had disappeared.
Actually it wasn’t gone — it was just hiding. The utility no longer appears in a sensible place. You now have to go to the Control Center, then click on Hardware Information, then Hardware Detection, then select the unsupported network device, then click Properties, then click Windows (NDIS) Wireless Drivers. If that isn’t a wild goose chase, I don’t know what is. I’m bothered by the decision to move the NDISdrivermanager utility to a remote corner of the interface because there are many laptop computer users who need it. I also think that operating systems should not purposefully be made more difficult to configure; to do otherwise is pure insanity. A Xandros representative told me that the NDISdrivermanager was put in the background because most wireless network cards are natively supported in Xandros Desktop 4.0. That’s no excuse for making the operating system more difficult to configure.
I had trouble getting the touchpad mouse to work properly on the laptop test system. This is nothing new, though — the default behavior of Synaptics touchpads in X.org is to enable an unbelievably annoying “scroll” feature. If your finger gets too close to the invisible scroll area to the right or bottom of the touchpad, it acts like a scroll wheel on a regular mouse. Unfortunately, that can mean that you often go back or forward in the Firefox browser history, which treats sideways scrolling as a back/forward event. The usual cure for this is a program called KSynaptics, which can be found in the standard Debian package repositories. Xandros does not come with any kind of touchpad configuration program by default, and KSynaptics is not in Xandros Networks unless you add the Debian sources to it. Don’t bother trying to do this, though — KSynaptics in Xandros 4.0 causes worse problems than it fixes. In the end, I had to manually hack the xorg.conf file from a terminal window, and even then I didn’t completely eliminate the problem.
I hooked up my Windows XP (NTFS) test drive on the same SATA drive controller that my Xandros test drive was on, then started the computer. While Xandros created device nodes for sdb and sdb1, there was absolutely no indication that the drive existed in the graphical interface. I tried the Xandros Storage Manager, but even that did not list the second hard drive. I tried to mount the Windows NTFS partition from the command line, but I got an error message saying that the drive was already mounted, even though mtab disagreed. So don’t count on flawless NTFS partition support in Xandros Desktop 4.0.
Although they were perfectly capable programs, I didn’t find much value in the Xandros File Manager and Storage Manager. They offer essentially the same (or less) functionality as Konqueror and KParted, except they are more stable and easier to use. The true advantage in these applications is not to someone like me, but to a user who is coming directly from Windows and needs familiar-looking programs to help them adjust to the new operating environment.
One flaw I noticed in Xandros Networks is that the Premium Edition extras like CrossOver Office, Progression Desktop, and the proprietary NTFS kernel module were not listed as “purchased.” In other words, even though these components were installed, the option to buy them was still there, and XN did not recognize the fact that they existed on my computer. This may seem like a small oversight until you consider product updates. How will XN know to update these programs if it doesn’t even know that they are installed?
My other big complaint about Xandros Networks is the fact that the Shop area is comprised mostly of demo or trial software, not the full version. If we can’t buy and install the real thing, why tease us with limited demos?
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| Xandros Desktop Home Edition: just like Windows |
Whenever there was a disc in my DVD drive, Xandros would spin it up and seek it about twice per second. This heated the disc so much that I couldn’t even pick it up out of the drive after fifteen minutes of use. This is a serious bug — CDs and DVDs can be ruined if you’re not paying attention. The operating system shouldn’t seek or spin up the drive unless it is currently being used.
There is still no native support for playing encrypted DVD movie discs; neither is there support for Windows Media Audio and Video (WMV, WMA) files. I figured out how to enable these options and wrote this article to show you how to do it.
Lastly, I’ll take a moment to marvel at the fact that ATI and Nvidia video drivers were not only supplied with the distribution, but that they required zero effort to install or configure. I didn’t even know they were there until I ran the glxinfo program and saw that I already had full DRI and GLX support on two test systems (one using an ATI Radeon X700, the other an Nvidia Quadro FX 4000). Unfortunately, there was no hardware acceleration available for integrated Intel graphics chips. I tried briefly to enable DRI on one such system, but didn’t get very far with it.
Conclusions and developer recommendations
Xandros Desktop Home Edition 4.0 isn’t without its little problems here and there, but as far as desktop operating systems go, it’s the most complete one I’ve ever used. Very little has to be done to modify it to do practically anything you need a desktop OS to do, and those few procedures that have to be done are quick and simple. Adding new software and updating the programs you already have is easy and accomplished through a single, simple management framework. The menus aren’t clogged with superfluous options and multiple programs for common tasks, and in general everything is very easy to use if you’re a Windows refugee. Current GNU/Linux or *BSD users probably won’t have much of a reason to switch to Xandros, however.
I’m not sure that the standard Home Edition is worth buying. People who don’t need CrossOver Office or Versora Progression Desktop for Windows migration (it’s a really great tool for that — it couldn’t be easier to use, and gets all of your settings and data in one quick operation) probably won’t see more value in Xandros than they would in a free-of-charge distribution like openSUSE, Ubuntu, or Fedora Core. Xandros’ real advantage is in the ease of migration from Windows that it offers in the Premium Edition.
As I said in the introduction, this should be the GNU/Linux distribution that you recommend to friends and family when you don’t want to spend a lot of time helping them. Xandros is a snap to install and use, and includes a good paper manual and commercial phone and email support, so you can safely absolve yourself of the infuriating string of “how-do-I” questions that computer illiterates sap your time with. If you yourself are looking for a good way out of Windows, Xandros Desktop Home Premium Edition is your ticket to desktop computing happiness.
- Native DVD playback support. I don’t think GNU/Linux companies like Xandros are really putting enough thought and/org money behind native DVD decoding abilities. A significant number of people watch DVD movie discs on their computer. It’s time some company took the initiative to either find a way to make libdvdcss legal, or write a driver for one of the hardware MPEG2 decoder cards out there. Why can’t that company be Xandros?
- Make it easier to find NDISdrivermanager. It was a big mistake to hide this excellent utility. Not only should it go back to where it was among the other networking tools, but it should also be offered during installation so that people who don’t have any other way of accessing the Internet can complete the installation process properly with their “unsupported” wireless network card.
- Red, green, purple, orange… anything but blue! Please, no more blue themes — seriously. At least offer other color themes. Windows is blue and gray because those are the Microsoft company colors. I know that some people might feel more comfortable with what they’re familiar with in Windows, but I doubt that extends to tired old color themes.
- A control utility for touchpads. In general Xandros needs to work a little harder on laptop compatibility. In specific, it would be nice to have greater control over the behavior of the touchpad mouse.
- No more demos. Take the demo software out of Xandros Networks. If you can’t offer the full version, don’t bother teasing users with products you can’t deliver.
- A 64-bit edition. It’s getting harder and harder to find desktop CPUs that don’t have either the AMD64 or EM64T 64-bit architectures. It’s time to make the transition away from 32-bit software, and Xandros is among the last of the holdouts that do not offer a 64-bit edition.
| Purpose | Home desktop operating system |
| Manufacturer | Xandros, Inc. |
| Architectures | x86 |
| License | Proprietary, lightly restrictive. Most of the included software is under the GNU General Public License. |
| Market | Home desktop users desirous of switching to GNU/Linux from Microsoft Windows. |
| Price (retail) | U.S. $80 for the Premium Edition, or $40 for the standard edition |
| Previous version | Xandros Desktop 3.0, Xandros Surfside Linux |
| Product Web site | Click here |
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Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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