DEAD - Get 50% off purchase price of Xandros Desktop Home or Premium Edition v.4.0

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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Last Day!
.
Don't cost nuthin ta bump it. Thanks!

Rebate Form

Link to Offer Page

For those with recently left with orphaned Win 98/SE/Me on their confusers. On purchases from July 28 thru Aug. 31st. And the rebate form has to be postmarked by Sept. 7. So some of you may just need the form and proofs as noted in the "fine print".

Super deal on one of the easiest to install and use Linux distros out there. I'll be turning my machine back into a Win98SE machine shortly so I can print out the info they want - worth the effort, IMO. Gets the price on the premium version below $30. with careful shopping. The Home edition down to pocket change...

.bh.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Eh, I guess I'll go for this deal. I've tried installing linux (typically mandrake) on my home computers in the past, but it's typically a bust. Still, there are 3 computers in my house that really only see light office and internet browsing use, and 98 attracts a ton of spyware that's virtually uncleanable. Not to mention I've lost my XP Home disc (and windows authentication is getting more and more painful all the time), so this might make a good alternative for future installs or just getting 98 off the computers.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Oh, just to sweeten the deal a little, Amazon.com has these products (the Home Edition Premium I think is the sweespot for upgrades, since it doesn't look like the Standard Edition can run Windows programs) for much cheaper than Xandros does. Not to mention free shipping I believe, plus I think they're currently running a free trial of amazon prime that gives free 2 day shipping. The rebate says it's valid at any authorized dealer, so amazon.com's Home Premium for $62 and change or Standard Edition for $20ish should still apply for the rebate. An under $20 operating system really is pocket change.
 

longhorn

Senior member
Nov 14, 1999
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Is this any better than Ubuntu? I had a heck of a time getting Fedora to work
right, and then I tried the newest Ubuntu distro. I had an old Dell 1Ghz Pentium
on the internet in about an hour, and had the wireless and printer working in
about another 30 minutes. And I am a Linux noob.

The ISO is right there on the Ubuntu website, and the price is right. (free)
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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Depends on what you mean by better. Many think the Xandrox file manager is the best available on any distro. There are other exclusive features as well. Knoppix is a fine distro that has one of the sweetest installs of any. Xandros is right in there with the easiest installing distros like Linspire, etc.

Some might consider your post a thread crap as everyone knows that lots of Linux distros are free for the DLing - including Xandros OCE and Ubuntu - but OCE is not up to v.4 yet I don't think. ;)

.bh.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Supposendly Xandros has the closest approximations to Windows and Mac GUIs, which is a good thing for replacing Windows on the computers of non-techheads.

Besides that, there's also Linspire, and it's free variant that just came out, Freespire. Freespire actually looks like it could be a damn user friendly free OS, even more so than Mandrake.

Oh, and Xandros apparently releases the previous version of their OS as free, so you'll be several years outdated if you download the free version. Freespire is a slightly outdated version of Linspire (5.1) and looks pretty up to date, but doesn't seem to provide the same ease of use that Xandros does for migrating a Windows system to it. It sounds like Xandros can practically do an upgrade install over Windows and keep many settings, files, etc.
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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Newegg has the best shipped price on the Premium edition that I've found at $60.63 incl. 3-day shipping.

.bh.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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Originally posted by: Zepper
Newegg has the best shipped price on the Premium edition that I've found at $60.63 incl. 3-day shipping.

.bh.

Oops, I didn't even think of Newegg or pricewatch. Oh well, I've got the Amazon Prime trial so I have free 2-day shipping anyway. I was originally going to buy from Xandros direct but $10 shipping plus another $10 for digital download was too much. I also wanted it immediately, so I looked for retail stores that had it, then compromised on amazon's cheaper price plus 2 day shipping.
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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Actually Fox5, I now think one would come out a few cents ahead by buying from Amazon as the rebate is for half the purchase price of the software, NOT the software and shipping. So net AR from Amazon would be $31. and net AR from the Egg is $33.14. So up to a point, the more you pay for the software, the less the net AR might be. Buy.com also has it at the Amazon price.
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
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Last Day to Buy for Rebate

I went and tried to order on Amazon and using their "Free, SUper-Saver shipping" it wasn't guaranteed to arrive until the 11 or 12th of Sept. Need to mail the UPC code and rebate form in by the 7th. So I canceled the order and went and ordered from the Egg. It'll ship tomorrow and I could have it as early as the next day - Monday latest. Plenty of time to mail off rebate.

..bh.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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Yeah, I noticed Amazon wasn't shipping either, so I cancelled it and just went to Compusa and picked up a copy. Honestly, I'm surprised at some of the software they have there and the amount of it, I can't possibly imagine it all sells. (not too many linux distros, though there were a few, but how many boxes of niche software does that store need?)
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Well, easier than previous Linux distros I've used, but not without it's share of troubles. Installed it on an old Duron 750mhz computer with a SIS chipset, 256MB of ram, and integrated graphics and ran into a couple struggling points.
It wouldn't install off the cdrom. I had to look on the Internet, find a message post on the Xandros forums, read through it, and find out I had to enable scroll lock and then type install to start the installation after booting off the cd.
And right now in Xandros it isn't finding my cd rom drives. Following another message board post, I switched the cd rom drives to PIO 0 mode in the bios, but I'm still waiting for Xandros to reboot to see if it works. For whatever reason, it hangs for an ungodly long amount of time on the "Detecting hardware" screen as Xandros is booting.

Besides that though, this would make a very good OS for the average user. Faster and more responsive than Windows, especially given the hardware it's running on, and I'm going to assume that it will probably remain spyware free. Haven't installed all my software yet, since the cd drives aren't working (yet) but the Windows emulation program (which is just a GUI for Wine) works well and actually runs Windows programs faster than much faster spyware laden computers I've used. (and even not so spyware laden that just have wierd driver problems or too many preinstalled applications) It offers various GUI choices as well, the primary one is a Windows 98 look alike (actually looks better than 98, but not as good as XP imo) and there's a few Linux varients, as well as a MacOS one. I'm assuming that it tries to make itself look like MacOS9, since it doesn't compare at all to Mac OSX in looks/flashiness. Most notably, it's missing the application bar at the bottom, but it does has the Mac file menu at the top which is about the only thing I can remember the differentiated my old Windows 95 computer from my cousin's old Mac. Too bad, if Xandros included an OSX look-alike GUI (are any available online?) I could probably get quite a few non-geeks to use it just based on that.