Anyone care to read this!

[Dawes, Stephen]

Jinina,

Here is another article that Fred Langa wrote that does mention the
hardware that was used in the test. 
So, I hate to say it, but your assumption was wrong.

However, it is bad experiences by end users, or people new to Linux,
like the one that Mr. Langa has written about that truly paints a bad
picture of the open source world. It is companies that are trying to
profit off open source that are only in it for the money and don't care
about supporting their clients are the real problem here. Xandros just
appears to be the latest one to join the money for nothing game.


-----> From the article <-----
The good news: It's very, very polished. The interface is the most
well-thought-out of any I've seen in Linux. It's also especially
Windows-user-friendly,
with naming conventions that instantly make the Xandros system
components and add-ons familiar. The interface is visually nice too,
with many available
themes or skins; you can even make your system look so much like Windows
you'd fool passers-by. <g>

Like Lindows, Xandros also makes it very, very easy to update your
system with an online function that's analogous to Windows Update: You
go to a special
web page, an applet sniffs your system, sees if anything needs updating,
and if so, will download and install the updates for you. Also like
Lindows, you
can use the same facility to add new software to your system,
effortlessly.

But I couldn't get Xandros to work with my sound card at all, despite
the fact that I was testing it on a new system with an utterly standard
Intel motherboard
with built-in Intel sound. This is not some weird, off-brand system; the
lack of sound support for a totally mainstream Intel board is
incomprehensible
to me.

After doing a little reading and troubleshooting, I decided to try ALSA,
the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, which is supposed to provide more
or less
standardized sound support for Linux, and to get around the need for a
million different sound drivers.

Oddly, I could get that to work--- but only until a reboot. Then the
sound went away again, and nothing I could do (including reinstalling
ALSA) would get
it to work again.

I reinstalled the whole OS, from scratch--- four times. I poked. I
prodded. Nothing helped.

So I contacted tech support. They asked for some log files and
diagnostics. I sent them. Tech support then had me edit the Linux
equivalent of some INI
files, but that made things worse--- the system then lost all graphics
modes. I could login only in text mode; otherwise, the system was
unusable.

I told tech support, and asked them what I should do next: They said to
put things back the way they were. Well, gee, thanks.

It's been about a week now, and I'm beginning to think that the Xandros
folks simply have no clue what to do or why their distribution fails on
a totally
mainstream system. In any case, they're not answering my email.

In all, the whole experience--- mysterious, intermittent software
problems, especially with sound--- reminded me of Win95, or maybe the
very earliest days
of Win98.

Every time I say this, I get angry mail from Linux fans telling me it's
not true, but it *is* true: Linux is a fine system with a bright future,
but its
hardware support is still years and years behind Windows. (BTW, the same
sound system that Xandros can't get to work behaves perfectly under XP.)

If--- *if*--- Linux can run with your hardware, you truly can use it as
a full-time OS; and in that regard, Xandros looks like a top contender
for full-time
use. But even having an utterly mainstream motherboard, cpu and sound
system is no guarantee that Linux will work for you. Hardware support in
Linux is
still much more of a roll of the dice than it should be.
-----> End of Article <-----


Steve Dawes
Phone: (403) 268-5527
Email: SDawes at calgary.ca


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