Diff — Corel Linux

{{infobox

| title = Corel Linux

| subject = The word-processor company's doomed operating system — the friendliest Linux of the boxed-set era, killed by a handshake

| span = Beta September 1999 → public release November 15, 1999 → sold to Xandros August 2001

| based on = Debian GNU/Linux + a customized KDE 1.x desktop

| the claim = "Linux for the rest of us" — a four-click installer aimed squarely at Windows 98 users

| the end = A $135 million Microsoft investment (Oct 2000), then the Linux division sold for ~$2 million (Aug 2001)

| related = [[Year of the Linux Desktop]] · [[AdaLog]]

| image = corel-desktop.png

}}

**Corel Linux** — officially *Corel LINUX OS* — was the strangest bid of the [[Year of the Linux Desktop|boxed-set era]]: a desktop operating system built not by a Linux company, but by the maker of WordPerfect and CorelDRAW, one of the few software firms on Earth with both real desktop applications and a corporate reason to want Windows to lose.

It lasted less than two years. It is still one of the most instructive failures in desktop history — because the product was genuinely good, and it died anyway.[[cite: Corel LinuxOS entered public beta September 21, 1999 and released November 15, 1999; the Linux division was sold to Xandros in August 2001.]]

## Why a word-processor company built an OS

Corel's founder Michael Cowpland spent the late 1990s as one of the few CEOs willing to say the quiet part: Microsoft Windows had a monopoly problem, and somebody ought to ship an alternative. Corel had motives no pure-play Linux vendor could match. WordPerfect — the office suite that once outsold Word — needed a platform Microsoft didn't control. CorelDRAW needed a future that wasn't hostage to a competitor's OS roadmap.

So Corel went Linux-first years before it shipped a distro. WordPerfect 8 arrived for Linux in 1998 — a full commercial office suite on a free OS, a genuine event. Corel contracted CodeWeavers to push Wine forward so its applications could run without Microsoft underneath, sending improvements upstream — one of the earliest sustained corporate investments in Wine. It even bought a hardware play, the **Netwinder** ARM network computer, in 1999. The LinuxOS was simply the keystone of a strategy already underway.[[cite: WordPerfect 8 for Linux released 1998; Corel's Wine work via CodeWeavers was upstreamed; Corel acquired the Netwinder line in 1999.]]

```fact

The installer was the product.

Reviews of the era converge on one point: Install Express was the friendliest Linux installer then shipped — roughly four clicks, automatic partitioning, hardware detection that mostly worked. Corel understood something the community resisted admitting: the desktop would not be won by the best kernel, but by the least frightening first ten minutes.

```

## Corel LinuxOS

Corel launched LinuxOS at Comdex in November 1999 to an audience primed by the Red Hat IPO three months earlier. ZDNet covered it under the headline "Corel puts a penguin on the desktop" and called it "the first end-user Linux" — the phrase "Linux for the rest of us" attached itself immediately.[[cite: ZDNet, "Comdex '99: Corel puts a penguin on the desktop," November 17, 1999 — "the first end-user Linux."]]

Underneath the polish it was honestly built: a Debian base, a customized KDE 1.x desktop, apt package management behind a friendlier Corel Update tool, the Corel File Manager standing in for KFM. It competed explicitly against Windows 98 and 2000 — and also against Mandrake and Red Hat, who were fighting for the same shelf space.

**Second Edition** arrived August 15, 2000 in three flavors: a free download, a regular box, and a **Deluxe** edition bundling WordPerfect Office for Linux — the full "alternative stack" vision in one SKU: free OS, commercial office suite, one vendor.[[cite: Corel LinuxOS Second Edition released August 15, 2000 in download, regular, and Deluxe editions; Deluxe bundled WordPerfect Office for Linux.]]

It reviewed well. It sold, by Corel's own numbers, almost nothing: LinuxOS revenue was about $2.7 million in fiscal 2000 — roughly 1.5% of the company — and falling.[[cite: Corel FY2000 SEC filing (10-K MD&A): LinuxOS-related revenue ~$2.7M, down 24% year over year.]]

## The $135 million handshake

On October 2, 2000 — seven weeks after Second Edition shipped, weeks after Cowpland resigned as CEO — Microsoft announced a "strategic alliance" with Corel: $135 million for 24 million non-voting convertible preferred shares, joint .NET work, and a settlement of legal disputes between the two companies.[[cite: Microsoft press release, October 2, 2000 — $135M for 24M preferred shares at $5.625; .NET alliance and legal settlement.]]

Buried in the SEC filing is the clause that tells the real story: on Microsoft's request, Corel was obligated to provide **thirty full-time engineers — twenty developers and ten testers — to port the .NET platform to Linux**. The company that built a Linux OS to escape Microsoft was now contractually available to port Microsoft's framework *onto* it.[[cite: Corel FY2000 10-K: obligation to provide 30 FTEs (20 developers, 10 testers) to port .NET from Windows to Linux on Microsoft's request, through October 2003.]]

Whether the investment directly killed the distro or merely made the decision easy is argued about to this day. Wired's reporting was blunt: Corel had decided "not to enter into a head-to-head battle with Microsoft." What is not argued is the sequence — Cowpland out in August, Microsoft in October, and the Linux division gone by the following summer.

## The Xandros afterlife

In August 2001, Corel sold the majority of its Linux division — code, team, and roadmap — to **Xandros**, a startup assembled by Linux Global Partners largely from the same engineers, for a reported ~$2 million plus a 5% equity stake. The strangest bid of the boxed-set era ended where many such stories do: the people kept the torch after the company dropped it.[[cite: Wired, "Xandros Buys Corel's Linux," August 2001 — majority of the division sold; reported ~$2M price; Xandros staffed by the same team.]]

And the code kept working for years. Xandros Desktop shipped in 2002 on the Corel foundation — and in 2007, a version of Xandros came preinstalled on the ASUS Eee PC 701, the little netbook that sold out worldwide and briefly made "a mainstream Linux laptop for normal people" a shipping fact rather than a prophecy. The four-click installer's DNA made it onto more ordinary desktops than Corel itself ever did.

## What it proved

Corel Linux demonstrated, early and at real expense, three things the desktop fight kept relearning:

- **Polish was possible.** A real company could ship a friendly, working, four-click Linux desktop in 1999. The technical problem was never the blocker everyone assumed.

- **Motive was the blocker.** The product died not of bugs but of incentives — a struggling application company could not sustain an OS war against its largest investor. Every later attempt (Linspire, Ubuntu's Unity push, the netbook wave) re-discovered some version of this.

- **The code outlives the company.** Debian underneath, KDE on top, Wine upstreamed, the team absorbed into Xandros, and Xandros onto the Eee PC — nothing Corel built was wasted, even though Corel itself kept almost none of it.

## Quiz

- [ ] Corel LinuxOS was built on Debian with a customized KDE desktop.

- [ ] Corel's WordPerfect and CorelDRAW work helped fund early Wine development.

- [ ] Microsoft's 2000 investment included an obligation for Corel to port .NET *away* from Linux.

- [ ] The Corel Linux codebase survived as Xandros, which later shipped on the Eee PC.

- [ ] Corel LinuxOS was discontinued because its installer was too difficult.

```hide Show answers — click to check yourself

1. **True** — Debian base, customized KDE 1.x, apt behind the Corel Update tool.

2. **True** — Corel contracted CodeWeavers and upstreamed the improvements.

3. **False** — it was the reverse: Corel was obligated to port .NET *to* Linux on Microsoft's request — 30 engineers' worth.

4. **True** — sold August 2001; Xandros shipped 2002 and landed on the Eee PC 701 in 2007.

5. **False** — the four-click Install Express was the friendliest installer of its era; the distro died of incentives, not usability.

```

## Notes

- Whether Microsoft's investment directly killed the distro is contested; this article reports the sequence (Cowpland's resignation, the October 2000 alliance, the August 2001 sale) and the SEC-documented .NET-port obligation, and lets the reader weigh causation.

- "Linux for the rest of us" was the era's framing (ZDNet's launch coverage); exact box copy varied by edition.

- The Netwinder, WordPerfect 8, and Wine sponsorship are covered as motive context; each deserves its own article.

## References

1. ZDNet — "Comdex '99: Corel puts a penguin on the desktop," November 17, 1999.

2. Corel Corporation FY2000 10-K (SEC) — Microsoft share purchase terms; the 30-FTE .NET-to-Linux port obligation; LinuxOS revenue ~$2.7M.

3. Microsoft press release — "Corel and Microsoft Announce Strategic Alliance," October 2, 2000.

4. Wired — "Xandros Buys Corel's Linux," August 2001.

5. Corel LinuxOS Second Edition release, August 15, 2000 — download, regular, and Deluxe (WordPerfect Office bundle) editions.

[[Category:Companies]]

[[Category:Computing]]

[[Category:History]]