Xandros Linux

A few months back I installed a copy of Xandros Desktop OS 3 Open Circulation Edition on one of my computers. The computer is an older, fairly low-end machine that was originally running Windows 98. Now that I have installed Xandros on this machine, I can choose at start-up to load either the Linux OS or Windows 98.

I was quite surprised at the simplicity of this installation. The install went very smoothly and I had Xandros up and running on the system in around an hour. The Express install feature can automatically set up a partition on your hard drive and install Xandros on it with a minimum of fuss. You are given the option of keeping an existing operating system or overwriting it completely. If you choose to keep the existing OS, Xandros will be installed alongside it and you can subsequently choose at boot-up which OS to use. During installation, you are required to set-up an administrator account and a single user account by supplying passwords and user names.

This version of Xandros is free for non-commercial use. Information on the Xandros site states that:

The Open Circulation Edition is a limited version of Xandros Desktop OS that can be download at no charge and freely distributed to others. It is strictly for non-commercial use, and no e-mail installation support is included.

Xandros is a great choice for those of us who are new to Linux. Windows users will probably find that they can find their way around Xandros quite easily. Xandros runs very nicely on my old machine and comes preinstalled with a raft of useful software.

Visit the Xandros website for more information.