Linspire Makes Click and Run Free 158
An anonymous reader writes "After five years of charging an annual fee for their CNR (click and run) service, Linspire has dropped the annual fee, making the CNR service free. This combined with their previous announcement of open sourcing the CNR client, and the Freespire project, is all very big news. This means Freespire users can now have a free distro, using a free CNR service."
The Reason Why It can be Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for him, and good for us! I guess that's what happens when you become innovative and create multiple products / services!
Well Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite cool (Score:4, Insightful)
I took a while, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I post this is in the hopes that the geek I met 5 years ago will read this and realise how much of a stuck-up geek he is. I was at the bus terminal waiting for my bus to go to work. I saw this guy holding a PDA, casually glanced at it, and he just got all excited that someone was checking it out because he had Linux on it and wanted to show it off. So on the bus ride he's prattling on about how great Linux is, how you can do everything in Linux that you can in Windows, how much better Linux is over Windows. So I ask him if he's checked out this new disto, seeing as I just found it and thought it was a cool idea. Nice, easy, user friendly, had this cool utility that downloaded and installed software for you in a single click. "It's called Lindows" I said. "Looks cool enough, and would be nice for the average person that doesn't want to rebuild their kernel." His face dropped...he looked so disgusted. It was like I just killed a puppy in front of him. He could barely even talk. He asked for my email address to "talk about Linux", but I never heard from him. Dumbass stuck-up geek...THIS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO AREN'T GEEKS! It's so that these people bother other people to help them, or don't need help at all because the damn thing just works! It's to free up the geek's time! But he just couldn't see the potential...too disgusted that it was "like Windows"...
Does anyone actually use this? (Score:3, Insightful)
So if anyone is reading this and does use this as their main distro, I'm curious why you use it, and what you tried before it.
Because I'm just not clear on the point of this distribution. Looking at free (as in beer) Linux distributions like OpenSuSE and *buntu, I just don't understand why anyone would pay for this.
Paying for home desktop Linux just strikes me as....bizarre.
(And no, I'm not a SuSE user, but I've played with it.)
Someone step in and drop some science on this please.
Re:Well what do you know (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Does anyone actually use this? (Score:2, Insightful)
True (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does anyone actually use this? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I understand you exactly and agree with your point(s).
But to explain, I've seen quite a few people buy Linspire (and a couple even pay for the CNR access). I thought they were loons but after seeing this repeatedly I had to think about it.
The conclusion that I came to was "consumerist training". People are taught to think like that -- just watch TV if you don't believe me. These people have a strong "feeling" that if you pay for something it has to be better. In short, they're "Americans" with "American values".
I see the same thing all the time with Windows users. Some people actually get a certain satisfaction at buying anti-virus software and registry maintenance software and other odds-and-ends $20 or $40 utilities that are unneeded in a GNU/Linux system.
It sounds bizarre, but I'm serious -- some people do like that to a limited extent. They always say, "It's just $30 so what's the big deal?" And it gives them a certain satisfaction because in their mind they're "helping" and "optimizing" their computer.
Re:Does anyone actually use this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One question (Score:2, Insightful)
sorry to be rude, but if you are a real n00b to linux, are you qualified to judge lindows, er, linspire, er, freespire beyond the install and first impressions phase?
sadly, I think computer OS and apps are still polarised into two models:
1/ trivial to get started, difficult to do non-standard tasks
and
2/ hard to understand, easy to do your own thing".
As a simple example, consider the humble Palm.. trivial to use out of the box, doing anything complex with wifi or bluetooth is difficult or impossible. Then take a Zaurus, it quickly becomes non-trivial to use, but immensely rewarding with the full linux tcp/ip stack.
Many have tried and failed to bridge the gap, and it seems only Apple have really had much success.
Re:One question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One question (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, it's that "hard to understand" part that is a major problem to getting non-geeks, or even geeks who don't like spending a lot of time twiddling with their computer's software, to be interested in Linux. I'd say that trading #2 for #1 (in your post) is not always a bad thing, depending on your ultimate goals for the system.
Re:Eliminating a $20/year fee is BIG news? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is very little difference between $19 and $20. There is a huge, vast, gaping chasm between something that costs $1 and something that is free.
If you can now play with a service at no cost, I think more people are likely to try it out, who wouldn't have even considered it before just because it costs money. Now, it's a valid question whether these sorts of folks are really worth anything as customers, but that's a separate issue.
Re:Does anyone actually use this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Freespire is the first distro I've tried where it just worked, right out of the proverbial box. I've tried Ubuntu, Suse, Debian, Fedora, Knoppix, and a handful of others. My pattern would be to install it, play with it for a while, try desperately to get a wireless driver working, and then give up and go back to Windows, because I don't want to have to sit right next to my router, and I don't want to have to buy a new wireless card.
With my next computer purchase, I will totally do my research and make sure I'm buying hardware that works under any distro, but for somebody who is spontaneously thinking about making the switch from Windows, if their hardware doesn't work, they will generally give up.
So, for me, it is the proprietary drivers that are the big selling point. It's nice having Java, Acrobat, and others ready to go, too, I must say. Before, you could just apt-get Synaptic and you've got free software downloads and updates, but now with free CNR, which I've heard is rediculously easy, maybe I'll give that a try.
Re:One question (Score:3, Insightful)
the one certainty is that end users are never going to take more than a passing interest in the internals of an operating system.
why linspire is the black sheep or used to be (Score:1, Insightful)