Testing Methodology:

The system that we used to evaluate the distributions had the following hardware configuration:

AMD Athlon XP 2400; 1 GB PC3200 DDR-RAM; NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT; 120 GB SATA HDD 7,200RPM; 160 GB IDE HDD 7,200RPM; MSI KM4AM Motherboard - VIA KM400A Chipset; On-board LAN and Audio and NEC ND-3500A DVD +/-RW.

We installed each distribution and used it regularly for at least seven days. We understand that seven days are not nearly enough to get to know a distribution intimately, but then, this is not an in-depth review either. We have in the past used SuSE, Mandrake and Fedora extensively, so we are quite familiar with them. Xandros, however, was the new addition to our test bed.

During the seven day testing period, we used the distribution exclusively to do all that you would normally do on a computer. We generally use this test bed for the following purposes:

1. Browsing the Internet
2. Using an e-mail client
3. Using a word processor for assignments
4. Audio/Video multimedia activities
5. Using SSH to maintain servers
6. Light web development for a test website
7. Graphics editing
8. Simple games to pass some time

As you can see, our usage is relatively simple (which is also what we decided on initially to conduct a more normal and a novice-based evaluation). We do not use or need extremely complex software on this machine. We tend to use the computer at least a few hours each day, at least five. In case there is a problem, our first response is to look up the company website, forums and finally the search engines.

With all that out of the way, let's start with Xandros:

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