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As a result of having an eeePC, and finding the advanced desktop pretty good, I decided to buy Xandros and install it on an old laptop that dates back to Windows 98 days and struggles with Windows XP. I wanted a more modern operating system than W98, and Xandros seemed just the job. I hoped it would breathe new life into the old machine.
Installation went fine, and all suitable drivers seemed to be pre-installed, so I didn't have to install anything.
The first surprise was that the computer did not boot quickly at all. I was hoping for something as prompt as the eeePC. I appreciate that the eeePC has a solid-state drive, but I wouldn't expect that to account entirely for the fast boot.
The second surprise, and disappointment, was that the Xandros web site offered me all sorts of updates, which it could install for me. As a result of doing that, the machine now doesn't boot at all!
Allan
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Sometimes, you don't always get more for paying and in my opinion, this is one case.
You would probably have a much better desktop os with Ubuntu (or Xubuntu, as we're talking about an older machine), without paying a dime.
Xandros is fine for what it does (and it does run well on the Eee), but when compared to other more recent, more compatible, more documented and more actively developped free linux distributions (Ubuntu being at the forefront), it just comes up short, even on older hardware.
The difference in boot time isn't surprising. Yes, it turns out that the solid-state drive accounts for a large part of why the Eee boots up so quickly. The optimization also accounts for some more, as Asus could cut some of the fat off from the boot process, as they knew exactly what hardware that OS would run on. The Xandros folks cannot assume as much for all of their customers, so to keep maximum compatibility (which it doesn't really achieve anyway, considering how you're not even able to boot anymore), they load more modules and services.
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The eeePC doesn't use standard Xandros. It is especially optimised for the device.
Xandros boots like any other distribution of Linux and probably is no quicker (if not slower) than a new installation of Windows.
I used Xandros for a while on one of my older laptops. It is quite good but certainly updates are a bit slow, especially compared to some other distributions. I'm not sure why your laptop stopped booting though.
Regards.
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I have tried booting Eeepc Linux 1.0 (in a SD card reader) on a HP Compaq desktop workstation (Pentium 1.8 GHz, SATA disk). It still boots up very very fast. So, I think it is mainly the "fastinit" that gives the speed.
Actually, I think it is possible (though may not be legal) to transfer the eeepc default OS to a desktop with some modifications including copying the kernel from Xandros 4.0 (or re-built a new kernel with all hardware drivers), built the /dev filesystem, and modifying the initramfs to add dev and modules required for ide support, etc.
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