| A review of Elx, "everyone's Linux" |
Emmily Prado (Dec. 8, 2001)
I recently got my test copy of Elx (Everyone's Linux), which made it almost certain to me that Linux is going to be on everybody's desktop much sooner than I ever expected. The complete system is so well crafted for users of Windows that it took my friend, who is a hardcore Windowsian, quite a while to figure out that its not just "another" version of his favorite Windows. "Is it some XP or something" came the reply before he could find out that it was Elx.
I had begun to become insensitive to claims of average Desktop user oriented Linux versions, after installing and using them for quite some time. My journey began with Caldera and recently ended with Mandrake 8.0, which I thought possibly the best that Linux can do for average Desktop users. Yet Mandrake, too, was a far cry from my expectations as a simple user, and so I concluded that it will take some serious efforts and time for Linux to live up to the expectations and requirements of an average Desktop user who does his/her work comfortably with Windows today.
And I think this situation has been well understood by the Elx team, which identified the brightest parts of open source, weaved them together, preserved the familiarity and ease (or habitualization, if you prefer so) of Windows and did what was very much required, creating the best Linux Desktop that has ever resided on my PC.
I was moved by what was on my desktop after installing Elx. "My computer", filled with what you expect and even more. And something I was so curious about before even installing Elx was its almost magical (for me at least) capabilities to become a part of ana existing Windows network. I could not believe my eyes when I saw my complete network by just clicking "Network Neighbourhood". Not only this, but after punching in my user name and password of WINNT PDC Elx it let me enjoy the same user privilages. I was thrilled that nowhere did it even ask me the name of my PDC or any other details regarding my Windows network.
For curiosity sake, I thought of changing my workgroup and computer name. Going intuitively I found "windows connectivity" as one of the options in the right-click menu, when I right-clicked on Network Neighbourhood. What appeared was a simple application where I entered my computer details. Going back to Network Neighbourhood showed my computer with changed parameters.
Launchpads, a very convenient feature, are somewhat similar to the Office startup bar in Windows -- but they do much more. There are seven of them in Elx, for office, internet, multimedia, graphics, games, development, and setup. On mouseovering application icons, a brief message is displayed conveying what the particular application does. For complicated applications, users can opt for a visual how to, a short visual demonstration in a step-by-step manner, although I was disappointed to see "content under development" when I clicked the help button for some applications.
Another significant change is the application menu, which has been thoroughly reworked for Windows users like me. I tried playing various multimedia file formats and got them working without any problem.
My Elx came along with OpenOffice 6, which is significantly better than version 5.2 which I was previously using. The addition of a project management application was a neat touch. I was told by someone associated with Elx that all applications have been recompiled with gcc 3.02 which makes them faster than others (pardon me if I've got that wrong, as I'm not a techie), and I did find Elx somewhat faster than my Mandrake 8 in terms of application loading. I'd like to see some techie reviewer evaluate it on these grounds.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with Elx on my machine and can certainly say I've got my "license to freedom" (that's what their home page reads, I liked it :))
For more info on availablity and other issues visit their site at www.Elxlinux.com.
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