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Is There Room for Xandros in the Server Market? 106

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the new-kid-on-the-block dept.
Robert writes to tell us CBROnline is reporting that almost two years after discussing the possibility, Xandros has finally named a date for their first Linux server product. From the article: "While there are plenty of Linux server distributions on the market, the market is undoubtedly dominated by Red Hat, Novell's SUSE Linux a distant second. In order to find a gap in the market with Xandros Server, due May 1, the company will have to differentiate it from the pack."
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Is There Room for Xandros in the Server Market? More

Is There Room for Xandros in the Server Market?

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  • Looking att thees [businessreviewonline.com] numbers it looks like novell isnt doing so well...
    • FYFA:

      1Q06
      $13m
      "Linux platform products and other open source products"

      Sure you can live with quarterly income of $13m, but what kind of a life would that be ...

      I'd better say we need something new. Something that can run linux executables for backward compatibility but that is much cleaner and much more network-i/o minded than linux is right now. And it's own applications ofcourse should kick the %^*&$&# out of ms and linux counterparts.

      Perhaps something that is designed for our shiny
      • Have you tried solaris 10? Slackware? Gentoo?

        "Linux" covers a whole world of possibilities, from uclinux up to linspire. Saying it's bloated drags us back to the Negroponte article [slashdot.org]

      • Something that can run linux executables for backward compatibility ... and it's own applications ofcourse should kick the %^*&$&# out of ms and linux counterparts.

        That bit sounds a lot like OS-X to me. Personally I want Haiku to really pick up, or s similar project created for OS/2, I really liked both of those systems.
      • Have you ever looked at Plan 9 [wikipedia.org]? (Its official page is here [bell-labs.com], but frankly the Wikipedia article is better.)

        I think it was basically what you are envisioning -- a ground-up reconstruction of UNIX, with an emphasis on networking and the distributed multiuser environment, developed and backed by a large corporation with deep pockets and substantial R&D resources. It doesn't have a Linux binary compatibility layer, although it seems like you could probably build one if you really wanted to and were running it
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • That's because Novell has perfected the art of killing product lines. I'm not trolling, just look at Novell's history. Suse used to be filled with great people, and they still have some great people, but they are being managed by typical corporate minds and its a bad thing. The culture at Red Hat is much more fitting to open source development (just look at their corporate structure, and who they have running things, as an example one of their VPs was the original creator of the GNU C++ compiler). Novell co
    • Primarily a SuSE shop here, the HP and Oracle relationships with Novell as well as the boardroom recognition of the Novell brand were the determinants. Admittedly, it's easier to sell Novell to the board than RH, RedHat simply doesn't have old-school recognition like Novell does. To me it feels like RH applies far more pressure trying to extract money for access to updates. That said, technically, at least on headless servers, there's very little difference between them other than the admin tools (yast vs.
      • Well, can't say about this for everyone, but at my company (predominantly windows for the back end) we are retiring our single Redhat server (ES 3.0) and putting up 3 Novell/SuSE (SLES 9) servers. I found SuSe to be superior to Redhat in many ways. For one, RH ES 3.0 had a nasty habit of having root's profile become corrupted. No other user had this issue. While the machine was very stable otherwise, I found SuSE better in many many ways. The part about not being under the gun for updates was a big sel
        • Agreed.

          We are running a couple datacenters and whenever we use Linux, we try to do SuSE Pro whenever we can - it is de facto standard now.

          I myself recently stumbled across a mind boggling issue with the newest RH ES -- when installing on a fairly typical IBM x346 it failed to install LILO complaining that kernel (RH stock kernel at that!) was too large, but silently finished install leaving a machine in an unbootable state!

          The only place we've RH left now is where we have Oracle DB, but we've asked to inves
        • roots profile becoming corrupted?

          sounds like user error to me.
          • considering I am the only one who logs in as root and I have done nothing to it besides....su to root and on occasion launch X, I should have no reason to think that the profile (including the X session files) become corrupt. This is all on an IBM 1U box that otherwise runs fine. Luckily my regular user and root's profile are strikingly similar. I can just rewrite the files that become corrupted faster than going to a backup tape. After the third time, I kept a backup of the files tar'd up in a safe pla

  • Not a wise move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by liliafan ( 454080 ) * on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:13AM (#15098323) Homepage
    Whilst I wish Xandros a lot of luck in their venture, I think it is a mistake for them to move into the server market. I haven't used Xandros myself but I have known people that have, they have nothing but good things to say about their desktop environment, Xandros is the kinda company we need leading the way for the desktop market, they seems to have done a lot of what lindows (now linspire) promised, a high quality desktop platform with decent windows compatibility (thanks to crossover and wine).

    They are doing so great in that market a risky move like this could undo a lot of that good work, they could end up eating it on the server market not being able to compete with the big boys.

    Whilst the article mentions some cool stuff they are planning, if people want a windows like management console they are likely to stick to windows.

    Regardless I wish them luck.

    • On the contrary- a very wise move (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RebornData ( 25811 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @10:43AM (#15098827)
      It's pretty clear they aren't going after the "traditional" UNIX server market... that would be suicide.

      I'm a bilingual (Windows and *nix) small business consultant, and I would love to see a really easy Linux server for very small companies. I'm really big on long-term maintainability, and while I've got no problem editing config files, my customers do, and frankly there aren't alot of Linux fluent consultants serving very small companies either. So I've been very hesitant to roll our Linux-based servers because I don't want to leave them totally high and dry should we stop working together.

      I've looked at what's out there today with webmin and such, and it just is not something you could turn your average windows-educated sysadmin loose on and know that they'd be able to add users and new desktops, create shares, etc... If Xandros can put something together that has a consistent, logical config UI for non-linux users and package it with great maintenance and support, it would be very welcome. I just hope the price is right... it's got to be cheaper than windows SBS 2003 OEM to compete.

      -R
      • Agreed whole heartedly.

        Recently was surprised to find one of my mates was trying SME server inspite of a limited Linux background. But it is based on ancient Redhat version, and it shows, and I can't recommend it because it is so dated.

        There is definitely room for "based on Debian" server platforms. Xandros have things like email, and web servers pretty much for free, all they need to sort is the user management, which they will need to sort out anyway if they hope to move out of small site deployments on t
      • Well said. I think that Linux has a reputation--arguably undeserved, perhaps--of being hard to set up and difficult to maintain. When a small business needs to get a server, it's very easy to get them to buy Windows because Linux has a perceived learning curve; there's a feeling that if you have Linux servers, you need to have a full-time sysadmin, while a Windows file/print/email server can be run by someone for whom it's not their primary job.

        While I take factual issue with this, it's an attitude I've hea
        • I think there's a definite market for a Linux-based small office server, something that's easy to set up, deploy and maintain, and which doesn't require a lot of knowledge of Linux as an OS to keep running. I.e., everything should be accessible through GUI tools, lots of hand-holding through setup, use of Windows terminology, ...

          In a sense, you've just summarized why it probably won't ever happen.

          What is needed can be summarized as a drop-in replacement for whatever MS-Windows system is currently in use.

          Thi
    • Depends on what you target. If you target general purpose business server, they will have a hard market. OTH, if they perhaps target the home server market or Small business market, they may have something. These should install easy and have easy updates.

      So what do I mean by these servers? For a home server:
      • firewall specifically geared towards controlling kids access including times they can access
      • Squid designed to work with above to control what content the kids see.
      • Email sever with simple spam and ki
      • VMWare has a small offering of "community" vm appliances that address niche requirements such as those you listed above, with the number growing. Some of these appliances have nifty little web interfaces that handle all of the admin.

        Seeing how VMWare Server and Player are free, I can see an increasing market for compact virtualized appliances, which in turn reduces the value of something like a Xandros server product. Sooner or later, some bright guys are going to make an idiot-proof Xen appliance that wil
    • Let me preface this by saying I'm an IT support guy and try to keep my hands in everything, but tend to be Windows oriented due to the nature of the business.

      Xandros is among the worst desktop distributions I've been exposed to. A client, prior to my introduction to them, migrated 20 workstations to Xandros from Windows, but kept a Windows server with ADS and Terminal Svcs for their property management app. Xandros is (now 'was') a bloated, slow, obnoxious distribution. KDE apps were renamed 'Xandros "Ap
      • I have to agree, Xandros as a server makes me cringe a bit. I'm just a regular Linux user, not a guru, and I am using Desktop 3.02 on the machine I'm composing this on and Samba is just a mess. Xandros File Manager is flakey at best and doesn't let me write to shares on other machines, either Linux or Windows. Using smb:// from Konqueror lists share on other machines, but I am denied permission to actually read them. Some dependency problem prevented me from apt-getting smb4k, LinNeighborhood refused to
        • You should seriously install Ubuntu (and then 'sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop', dont use Kubuntu installer, tends to be flaky). It's light years past Xandros in terms of reliability and speed. I run a workstation at home like this and have rebooted 3 times since early February, mostly due to my own kludging around with my bluetooth toys.

          I'm glad I'm not alone in my frustration with Xandros. The knowledgable end user support just isnt there on their forums and paying for support for simple .conf rec
    • The server market is important because companies are more likely to pick the same vendor for both their server and desktop if they pick a Linux desktop. If Xandros wants to sell desktops to business, they've got to have a server product.

  • Is there room? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jchawk ( 127686 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:14AM (#15098327) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure there probably is room for them but the thing that I always struggle with is the cost associated with running distro's such as Redhat or something from Novell... If you look at what you can expect to pay Redhat per year to keep your server up to date with updates it definately starts to get expensive...

    I'm all for linux on corporate equipment that's why I've been running Debian for years, I have boxes in production that were installed years ago with Debian and have happily churned away without any trouble, and really have only had to be rebooted a few times to update the kernel due to security trouble.

    I know I know people want support and need to have that warm fuzzy feeling but if you higher good help you should be able to support these boxes internally on your own.

    • Re:Is there room? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Numen ( 244707 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:20AM (#15098337)
      People want support for more than warm fuzzies... you *boss* wants support so that when you go under a bus he has some chance of keeping his systems up and running when the new guy turns up.
      • My boss could never even hope to manage a server. I would be shocked if he knew how to download from a ftp site!. Hell I would be shocked if he got his head out of his ass for five minutes.
    • I'm sure there probably is room for them but the thing that I always struggle with is the cost associated with running distro's such as Redhat or something from Novell... If you look at what you can expect to pay Redhat per year to keep your server up to date with updates it definately starts to get expensive...

      Where I work it is easier to persuade the PHB's to accept an OSS product if paid maintenance contracts are available. Otherwise they count their reliance on inhouse expertise as a risk.

  • Suse is a distant second, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:15AM (#15098330)
    Novell's other products are increasingly becoming Linux based. That should change the statistic. There is still a large installed base of Netware/Open Enterprise Server.
    • Novell can't market anything. They're losing their existing customers faster than they're getting new Linux customers.

      They could turn that around if they would support GroupWise 7.0 on Red Hat and Ubuntu. It already runs on SuSE (Novell's own distribution). There is no reason why GroupWise should not be THE email/calendaring server on Linux.

      We're running NetWare 6.5 with GroupWise and ZENworks and the only reason we're still with Novell is because of all the documentation that our users have stored in Group
    • Novell's other products certainly are becoming more and more linux based. But what I don't see is why they are behind RedHat, and how Xandros can even think optimisticly about entering the linux server market.

      Redhat are up there because they do make some very stable server systems, as for support - I've never used it, and I'm not too keen on their kernel mutilation.

      What I don't see is why Novell haven't become much much bigger, considering they have a very stable server base (Suse/SLES), the desktop integra

  • It's about Support (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xzvf ( 924443 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:35AM (#15098379)
    For companies that don't the internal expertise to maintain their own distribution and relationship with the community, the issue is support. RedHat and SUSE are not litterally selling their distribution. They are selling entitlements to a collection of open source and closed packages that they are willing to support. There's room for Xandros if they create a competent help desk, patch management system, work with hardware vendors to get on supported lists, engineering team to make custom changes or write patches to send upstream, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now.
    • I totally agree. While everyone here may be able to know what a fcsk does, when to do it and how to manually partition their stage 1 Gentoo install, the rest of the world does not. Most business, surprise, surprise, and in the business to do their business. And that is usually not IT, it is something else they know about. They need the server as a tool to further proceed in their business, not an end all solution for the IT guys.
  • Every single distri added means one more to compete for the market, one more needed to agree to form a standard and one more voice to make sure that no single distri can go the MS way and force a "standard" down the other's throat.

    And there certainly is a market. Being big doesn't mean jack if you're too big to support all your customers and satisfy them. Actually, being a small company can be a selling point for some companies.

    Imagine a big corp, deciding to use the flavor of Linux from a smaller distri ma
    • The addition of all these new distro's is a TERRIBLE thing. Every single distro does its own thing and there is no standardization whatsoever. It's terrible. People complained and mocked Microsoft about Windows Vista because it will have 7 different releases. I ask those people this, how many different distributions of Linux are there? Which one do you think consumers would have a harder time understanding?

      • Re:The more, the merrier (Score:5, Insightful)

        by massysett ( 910130 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @09:42AM (#15098591) Homepage
        Big difference: with every Linux distro, every user gets the very best that the particular distro has to offer. There is no crippled version. At worst, a distro might have one version that doesn't have some proprietary packages, like OpenSUSE versus regular SUSE.

        With Windows on the other hand, Microsoft intentionally cripples the lesser versions of Windows. Look at XP Home versus XP Pro, and how Microsoft intentionally crippled out of Home features that were in Pro. For example, XP Pro has advanced control over user permissions--the capability is on Home too, but MS crippled it out.

        With Linux distros, the maintainers are adding as much functionality as they can. With Windows versions, MS figures out what functions it can remove, in order to goad users into spending more $$.

        • While that is true, it always bugs me that it seems like every distro I use (and I use a lot) 'adds so much functionality' to the /etc/init.d init scripts scheme to make it just different enough to be incompatible with everything else, and it makes it a pain to make my own packages for multiple distro's.

          --jeffk++
          • Yeah, personally I wish every distro would just use Gentoo's init system. Out of every Linux system I maintain, it is by far the most beautiful.
            • Yeah, personally I wish every distro would just use Gentoo's init system. Out of every Linux system I maintain, it is by far the most beautiful
              It is true that gentoo's init system is easy to use, yet is it really hard to fire up Yast/RHcontrol center/whatever debian uses and edit the runlevels? or even to add the extensions by hand? plus i havn't come across any GUI for gentoo's init system (havn't really looked either) but is an admin who is switching from a windows server ( this seems to be the theme
              • I think learning to type:
                rc-update add [service-name] [runlevel-name]
                rc-update del [service-name]
                rc-update show [runlevel-name]

                is definetely not anything a competent admin would have any trouble with whatsoever. In fact, by the time a Windows person can go Start->Settings->Control Panel->Administration Tools->Services->*Find Service*->*Right Click on Service*->Properties and set their service to do as they wish I would have already had my service set up and have been posting this reply
      • > The addition of all these new distro's is a TERRIBLE thing.

        This is a matter of opinion, and I strongly disagree.

        > Every single distro does its own thing

        This is simply and plainly a lie. I can think of no gentler term to use (although I can think of harsher ones). As a software developer, I have no problem whatsoever developing for "Linux", even though there are several hundred distributions. In fact, it is the market leaders who are most likely to "do their own thing"--the vast majority of Linux
      • Every single distro does its own thing and there is no standardization whatsoever.

        I humblely disagree.

        Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) [pathname.com]

        The filesystem standard has been designed to be used by Unix distribution developers, package developers, and system implementors. However, it is primarily intended to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to manage a Unix filesystem or directory hierarchy.

        Gentoo FHS [gentoo.org]
        RedHat FHS [redhat.com]
        Suse FHS&LSB [novell.com]

        And for binary distros there is Linux Standard Base (LSB) [linuxbase.org]

        The LSB specificati

  • why not? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sfing_ter ( 99478 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:47AM (#15098417) Homepage Journal
    I have used Xandros since it came out,before actually, they bought Corel Linux. And has "out of the box" the best windows network integration. Even allows AD domain logins, not that other distros don't have this capability, just not straight out of the box.They also create a fake "C:\ Drive" environment so converting some people is easier.

    What they are doing is creating a server that supplies updates and management to the rest of Xandros boxen on the network, and groupware. Why shouldn't they? So far nobody has integrated this functionally proper even in the windows environment.

    • Re:why not? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by slantyyz ( 196624 )
      As a desktop distro, Xandros isn't bad. Not great either. Other distros have gotten a lot more attention than Xandros or Linspire in the past 18 months, especially Ubuntu.

      As a server distro, however, I would be looking at how well funded the company is. Many companies want to keep a server operational for five years, maybe more. If I'm going to go with Linux, I'm going to choose a reasonably well funded company like Red Hat, or I'm going to go totally free.

      I'd also be concerned about support. I used to chec

    • Re:why not? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 )

      Ahhh, so that's what happened to Corel Linux. I wondered about that. I've got several old CDs of corel laying around somewhere, along with a Corel Office product (corel office? forget what the name was). I remember them being a cut above the rest in usability.

      Seriously, though... the competition was redhat 6.2. No one knew how to edit their x11 config. By comparison, today every linux distro is significantly easier than Corel was back in their day.

  • yup.. sure (Score:3, Funny)

    by phreakv6 ( 760152 ) <phreakv6@gma i l . com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @08:57AM (#15098445) Homepage
    yes.. definitely.. what is there now? redhat and suse ?
    the chameleon and hat dont take much space. if u want to
    optimize, we can put the chameleon inside the hat. There is
    lotttttts of space for XANDROS.
    Rock On.
  • Server distros aren't driven by "market" conditions, rather the same OSS qualities that have made successes from other distros. Ask an incorrect question and you're unlikely to get a correct answer. The commercial distro version have lots of room. May the best distro win.

  • Differentiation is the key (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @09:24AM (#15098532)
    I saw the Xandros Server at LW in Boston and they are definitely doing something different. It's basically Windows 2000/2003 for Linux. It's a full GUI interface in a native Linux application (not Web). It may not appeal to some but it will make people migrating from Windows a whole lot more comfortable.

    It comes with a full groupware solution (they haven't announced which one but it's a commercial product) and a commercial backup solution. They also announced it's bundled with Helix Server which is cool if you want to get into streaming media.

    Their site is still short on details and no screenshots but it gives a pretty high level view of the product. www.xandros.com [xandros.com]. If you want to know what it looks like, just look at Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

    • If you want to know what it looks like, just look at Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

      Why is this a good thing? The MMC is such a royal pain in the arse for system management, I have absolutly no idea why any *nix system would want to imitate it.

      For that matter, I'm not sure why any systems administrator would want to install a GUI on top of their services. Added "features" add complexity which increases the likelyhood of 0-day vulnerabilities. Isn't the second rule of secure system administation (a

  • They Should Concentrate on a PDC and kill the CALs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HighOrbit ( 631451 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @09:27AM (#15098540)
    From TFA
    Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos. "The Xandros Server platform was designed to map that vision of how modern businesses really work. Our platform connects communities of users, services, and IT architectures, whether they are local or dispersed. It offers a new, user-centric operating philosophy that has enabled the design of powerful features and protocols such as community management, task workflow automation, and centralized remote administration."
    Tsk Tsk, Mr. Typaldos. Please ditch the PHB-gibberish and speak English. Xandros is a desktop company, so you should "leverage" that strength. If you make a general purpose linux server, then it will either 1) be a jack of all trades but master of none, or 2)be lost in the crowd of general purpose linux servers.

    So try on this "vision". You are a desktop company, so connect your desktops. What would really distinguish your company and provide "added-value" is to make a Xandros-Domain Controller by integrating Samba, a Directory Server (perhaps using the now open-source Redhat/Netscape DS), along with a slick admin gui. Provide support for an office running mixed Xandros and windows clients. It could be based on Linux, but it's linux-ness should be almost invisable and irrelavent.

    • So try on this "vision". You are a desktop company, so connect your desktops. What would really distinguish your company and provide "added-value" is to make a Xandros-Domain Controller by integrating Samba, a Directory Server (perhaps using the now open-source Redhat/Netscape DS), along with a slick admin gui. Provide support for an office running mixed Xandros and windows clients. It could be based on Linux, but it's linux-ness should be almost invisable and irrelavent. Thats similiar to what I'm trying
    • It should be a plug'n'play, probably apples.

  • There is plenty of room... (Score:3, Informative)

    by PenguinBoyDave ( 806137 ) <davidNO@SPAMdavidmeyer.org> on Monday April 10, 2006 @09:33AM (#15098555)
    Xandros is an awesome distro, and they release great products with top quality, compliments of Ming and his engineering team.

    I have used Xandros Desktop since Desktop 1.0 and will be looking forward to implementing their server product.
  • As far as I can tell they did find 2 niches.

    1) A dedicated Real Media Server. There aren't good options on Linux because RedHat, Suse etc... aren't in bed with Real

    2) Integration with Xandros desktop management tools.
    • A dedicated Real Media Server.

      Not a slam, but I think I can count the Real streams I've run across on two hands so far this year. I know RealNetworks has been focusing on the embedded market and moving away from the PC market and that strategy seems to be working for them from a revenue stand point. However, this retrenchment strategy against MS simply doesn't work, ask Palm and Corel about it. If Xandros's strategy is to hitch it's server to a format that's in retreat, there are probably going to be pro

    • There aren't good options on Linux because RedHat, Suse etc... aren't in bed with Real

      Huh. That's weird. I wonder what all these are for then [helixcommunity.org]. Looks like I (or anyone else) can go get binaries for the Helix DNA Server v10 for:
      AIX 4.3/5.x on PowerPC
      FreeBSD 5.x on IA32
      HP/UX 11.0 on HP-PA
      Linux on IA32
      NetBSD 1.6 on IA32
      OpenBSD 3.3 on IA32
      Tru64 5.1 on Alpha
      Solaris 8/9 on UltraSPARC
      Windows on IA32

      And v11 for
      Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 on IA32
      Linux 2.6 on IA32
      Solaris 9/10 on UltraSPARC
      Windows S

  • Good to go alongside their business desktop distro (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ylikone ( 589264 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @10:03AM (#15098668) Homepage
    They already have the Xandros Business Edition [amazon.com] which provides a desktop environment that looks and feels much like a better-looking Windows 2003. Unlike Windows, Xandros is easy to install and maintain, and it doesn't come with all of the security flaws and virus vulnerabilities that Windows has. Xandros Business Edition also includes the full edition of CrossOver Office. That means that if there is a major Windows software package that you can't live without, chances are you will be able to install and run it on Xandros through CrossOver. Now with the introduction of Xandros Server, which will go hand-in-hand with their business desktop distro, they are ready to eliminate Windows from almost any corporate environment. More power to them!
    • All due respect, but it's not all there. I used Xandros a lot last year in an effort to wean myself off Windows... before I became a switcher when the Mac Mini came out.

      Xandros is better than most of the other linux desktop distros out there, especially when it comes to Windows integration. Keep in mind, that's not saying much at all. I found myself using VMWare running Windows more than actually using the the host operating system. Despite its many strengths, Xandros isn't a great substitute for Windows. M

  • Yes iff the following questions are answered (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @10:06AM (#15098672)
    1. Can it be certified to run Oracle (like RedHat)?
    2. Can it be certified to run DB/2 (like Ubuntu)?

    • Wouldn't they just be lost in the pack with a general purpose server? Being certified for Oracle or DB2 is already done by others. They should instead pick their own niche and run with it. From the other comments here, it looks like they are choosing some sort of media streaming niche. I'm not sure how many offices *really* need one of those for business. I think they should go with a custom PDC/Directory Server/Single-Sign-On niche, as there is real need in every office for that without the extortionate c
  • At this moment there seems to be plenty of room for various distributions on the market. The only thing they have to think of is keeping eachother standards compliant and not wander off too far from the rest. A split like the one in Unix land is not in any Linux vendors interest and such vendor will quickly find themselves obsolete and marginalized.
  • What would they bring to the table? What we they cost. We they stay around long term?

    What my server distro needs: 1) strong community support 2) strong security, automatic patch management 3) long term stability - three years minimum of patch support 4) a workable Samba package with ldap integrated from the package install 5) a workable, virtual domain capable, with easy administration, IMAP, webmail, ldap, and etc, email package with packaged *version* updates to at least clam for virus protection.

    These ar
    • Sorry for that first line. I guess you really should hit the Preview button. Make it:

        What would they bring to the table? What would it cost. Would they stay around long term?

      Somebody please moderate me down.
      • Sorry for that first line. I guess you really should hit the Preview button. Make it:

        What would they bring to the table? What would it cost. Would they stay around long term?

        Somebody please moderate me down.

        As long as you're going to be your own grammar Nazi, you could have also pointed out that the second sentence should have ended in a question mark. :)

    • Finally Redhat is too expensive and CentOS community support people are liable to try to run the life of one of my customers who accidentally asks them for help.

      You're clearly talking about the "Tuttle" incident. I don't think that threatening to call the FBI on someone is quite the same as asking them for help.

      Of course I'm not a whiney little bitch, so maybe our definitions are different.
  • Is there enough room for Xandros? Well, why would they even go in the server market? From my understanding and experience, Xandros is is a user friendly linux os for newbies and personal use at home. What nitch will it fill? Or more to the point, what need is there for it as a server?
  • I looked around, and most of the popular linux server platforms are non-free. If the Xandros server platform is free, that would give it a definite edge against its competition. However, considering that the only free platform Xandros offers has limitations that try to force you to buy the non-free version, this seems unlikely.
  • Yea there's a market, albeit small. I can see small companies with only a handful of computers using it. I'm thinking of real estate offices, optical shops and so on. Not Big Name Insurance company with 70,000 computers to serve to.

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