Do you remember the old Corel Linux distribution? Based on Debian, this Linux distro made its debut  about five years ago at a time when Linux aficionados were heavily into marathon Linux install fests. These install fests were not simply an excuse to consume enormous quantities of pizza, Coke, and floppy disks. At the time, Linux was downright nasty to install—let alone bring up— with everything in working order. And all of that hubbub was just over standard desktop PCs. Anyone caught in the act of just  thinking about putting Linux on a laptop was considered certifiable.

Into that madding environment burst Corel Linux OS, which was destined to become my first Linux distro. Having been a VMS bigot who naturally migrated into becoming an early 'NT Trailblazer'  for the first release of Windows NT, I watched with bemusement as colleagues bloodied themselves on early releases of SUSE. The idea of an operating system requiring the coordinated efforts of a band of intrepid souls just to get loaded seemed ludicrous, no, utterly deranged. Nonetheless, when old friends asked me to come to AndoverNet to set up a testing lab and launch a Linux publication, it was an offer that somehow challenged me to say yes.

The idea of course is to provide a distribution of Linux for the typical desktop user who is not technically savvy.  The goal of this exercise is to make the transition from Windows as easy as possible. To this end, the Deluxe distribution of Xandros includes OpenOffice 1.1, Evolution 1.4, CrossOver Office and Plugin 2.0.2, and the Xandros File Manager. Also included are Mozilla 1.4 accompanied by Flash and Acrobat plugins, RealPlayer, Gnu Cash, and Scribus, an intriguing Open Source alternative to Quark Express.

Just who is this typical desktop user, and  how non-tech are they? Here Xandros hedges its bets with a definition that encompasses just about every computer user on the planet. Xandros declares that their desktop OS "provides a desktop application suite that is ideally suited to both the technology enthusiasts who have embraced Linux and typical users in business and home environments." With such a broad target range, it would seem impossible for Xandros not to score a bullseye somewhere. Then again, there is that great line in Gilbert and Sullivan's the Gondoliers: "When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody."

The out-of-box experience with Xandros is literally unlike any other OS on the market. Here Xandros has gone to great pains to distinguish itself from any other OS vendor's approach. In both ease and appearance the installation of this OS truly deserves to be called elegant.

Ease of installation is a hot button for every vendor, where one would anticipate  an approach similar  to the personality and demeanor of a big, friendly, Saint Bernard puppy. Xandros, on the other hand, takes on the self-assured personality of a royal Siamese cat.

Forget about Tux and pictures of happy geeks. They are nowhere to be found in loading this distribution. While the single CD installs, a fashionista cavalcade of special-effect images of oh-so-cool users spins across the screen.

A key observation point is about one CD for the entire distribution. How can you get all of that software on one CD? The answer is, you can't. And that leads to one of the more interesting aspects of this distribution: Xandros Networks.

Network-based upgrades are nothing new.  The value proposition of Xandros lies in the ability of the OS to simplify and clarify the complex. That Xandros does with great aplomb.

Any serious operating system needs to have a simple means of keeping the system up-to-date and that means putting security patches on line. This is an important function. So how many 'typical'  end users—IT doesn't count—regularly click on their Windows Update link on their desktop system? I don't know of anyone. I'm not even sure if more than a handful know where to find it.

 That's because personal computers, whether laptops or desktops, for typical end users are nothing more than mere appliances. A security patch that fixes an obscure browser vulnerability is just so much noise. A functional improvement in a favorite application has a much better chance of gaining their attention. But a new game or gizmo to buy is a sure winner.

As a result, Xandros Networks is a lot more than a systems update vehicle. Xandros Networks is the software installation mechanism for all software, whether loaded from the Net or a CD, that is installed by means of a DEB or a .RPM package. This is all very nice from the viewpoint of that 'typical' end user with T1 or high-speed broadband access to the Internet; however, this has some special implications for IT. Essentially all the hooks are there in the Xandros OS to make push distribution from corporate servers a rather easy function. So watch for an early launch of some very needed enterprise applications and extensions for the Xandros Desktop OS.

In the current Xandros Desktop OS distribution, an elegantly decorated version of the standard KDE Control Center is all that's available. This can be problematic for enterprise sites and is reflected in the meager tools to simplify the installation of network printers.

The standard KDE tools are perfectly adequate to perform the task, but this is not the value proposition of the Xandros Desktop OS. As long as the person configuring the printer knows its network ID and the explicit protocol/port it is using, there is no problem. Without that information, it is very easy to improperly configure the printer. The only feedback will be a status message that the printer is perpetually busy while still accepting jobs. Unfortunately, no job from the Xandros system will ever get to the printer.

The real headaches, however, are reserved for Mozilla. Headaches persisted through several reinstallations of the components involved as well as several reinstallations of the operating system.

We began by setting up e-mail accounts in the Mozilla e-mail client. The Bayesian filter is quite useful in catching the few false negatives that slip through SpamAssassin in our Openexchange server. Everything went perfectly until we tried to connect to our server. For what remains an unknown reason, the Mozilla mail client would never get past the authorization phase. We verified all of our configuration data with Mozilla running on SUSE 9.0, and still the Xandros installation would not work.

Since we were running the Deluxe Edition, we simply fell back to downloading Ximian's Evolution and setting this package up exactly as we had done Mozilla. Evolution worked perfectly.

We next  turned to the Mozilla Web browser. As with the e-mail client, the advanced capabilities of the Mozilla Web browser to suppress annoying popup windows has made it a favorite. These functions along with the Flash plugin all worked perfectly; however, the browser had no record of a RealPlayer plugin having been installed. What made this curious was the presence of RealPlayer running as an independent application.

To remedy the situation we used Xandros Networks to uninstall and then reinstall RealPlayer. RealPlayer worked, but still no plugin in the Mozilla browser. We then downloaded a tar file and manually installed the plugin outside of the Xandros Networks application. Still no working RealPlayer plugin.

To resolve this, we used CrossOver Office and Plugin, which are included with the Deluxe Edition, in order to install MS Internet Explorer 6.1 along with the Flash and RealPlayer plugins for Windows on Xandros. This worked without a hitch.

Our problems with plugins was not over, as we discovered trying to read a PDF brochure on the Xandros Web site. The Acrobat Reader plugin consistently opened a small window within the browser that could not be re-sized. Once again, this problem like all of the others never occurred with Mozilla running on SUSE 9.0.

Having reached the point where frustration, if not homicidal tendencies, would have set in for the 'typical' user, we decided to bypass Xandros Networks and download the latest release: Mozilla 1.5. Since program files are seldom located where you expect to find them, we then uninstalled the Xandros enhanced version of Mozilla 1.4 using Xandros Networks, which simply deactivates program links.

Mozilla was once again a happy application. We lost the distinctive Xandros skin, but we gained an e-mail client that worked perfectly. The Acrobat plugin behaved according to Hoyle. As for the RealPlayer plugin, Mozilla could at least recognize that it had it. Unfortunately, while logged in as root, RealPlayer generated an error message that the root account did not have sufficient privilege to run an automatic update. Ah, the joys of the simple life!

Like a Gewürztraminer pulled too early from the vat, Xandros has far greater potential for the future. The soon to be announced (LinuxWorld later this month) enterprise applications could soon prove to be an interesting challenge to SUSE and Mandrake with their far more complete toolsets.