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Linspire CEO dispels Linspire Linux Myths 278

Posted by samzenpus from the not-just-for-root-anymore dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Chances are that you think Linspire lets you run Windows applications, that you have to run it as root, and that it's really not quite a proper Linux. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. At LinuxWorld in Boston this week, CEO Kevin Carmony explained what Linspire Linux is, and isn't all about. Carmony said that people are still getting these things wrong. Yes, in the beginning, Linspire had the goal of letting Linux users run Windows applications with WINE, but it dropped that theme years ago. As for requiring you to run as root, that was, Carmony said, only the case with an early alpha release that was never put in the public's hands. As for not being a real Linux, that's nonsense, too."
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Linspire CEO dispels Linspire Linux Myths More

Linspire CEO dispels Linspire Linux Myths

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  • Linspire does actually run as root... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gossi ( 731861 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:08PM (#15088224)
    ...By default. When you install Linspire, it sets you up as root by default. I know this because I supported it from Lindows 4 to Linspire Five-Oh. You have to go and manually add a user account, should you want one. That said, it is actually a lot more secure than people make out. There _is_ a lot of FUD about Linspire. For grannies and people who can't be bothered with technical things (including me, sometimes - I just want things that work) it's great.
    • When you install Linspire, it sets you up as root by default.

      Looks like a good opportunity for an Ambidextrous Linux/Windows Virus [slashdot.org]

      But who ever installs Linspire? Doesn't it come installed from the shop?

    • Even if it doesn't set you up as root is is of almost 0 consequence for a desktop machine made for someone buying the thing at walmart. If your account gets compromised, it is trivial to install a trojan which conviniently logs your keystrokes the next time you type in your root password to install widget 2.0.

      As far as the general case virus, as long as the thing destroys all the user's personal files, they aren't gonna care that the thing didn't get priviledged access to low level ports or that it
    • Exactly. And this is why their protestations, while technically true, aren't relevant. The users that *need* the protection of a user account the most, the ones they explicitly market to, are exactly the ones that aren't gonna have a freakin CLUE what 'create user account' means and will just hit cancel and go on their merry way.

      They really should work out a system like Apple is using, where the first user account is automatically in the wheel group and can sudo, but is otherwise a normal user account, with

      • "They really should work out a system like Apple is using, where the first user account is automatically in the wheel group and can sudo, but is otherwise a normal user account, with the root account disabled entirely."

        Several Linux distributions are set up that way, including Ubuntu and Mandriva (unless Mandriva has changed that in the last couple of years). But not Linspire, apparently. It would be a better idea for a distro that bases its marketing appeal on user-friendliness, wouldn't it?

        • Interesting. I haven't used either of those (well, I used mandrake for awhile before the name change, but it didn't do that then.) But it sure works fine on my Apple, and I know I could set it up manually on Debian or Slackware without much trouble, so I don't see why they can't do it.

          I remember, way back when I was first trying Linux, I made the mistake of trying to 'startx' while logged in as root. It absolutely refused to run that way, forcing me to learn how to make a user account and run it properly. S
        • Mandriva was never like this.
    • A virus that infects the user account can destroy everything that matters. It can email my private data to anybody.

      I'll be generous, and say it can't change $PATH or define an alias for su or sudo. :-) It certainly couldn't make a wrapper for xterm or install itself as an X input method. :-)

      What is protected? Oh, the OS itself. I got that from a CD-ROM. I don't even need a backup for that data. Heck, if it gets trashed, I'll use the opportunity to upgrade my OS.

      We don't have real security until users get th
      • I couldn't agree more. I'll never understand those "running as root is dangerous" people who are talking as if their system was more important than their personal files. I guess they don't do anything useful with their computers.

        I do use a non-root account, but only because it's the standard way to work on a Unix system, which was designed from day one to be networked and multi-user capable. But whatever I do, my personal files are vulnerable, so... uh, why is it so dangerous to be running as root on a home
        • Think of the situation where there's more than one person with an account on the machine. As it stands the worst a viral 'rm -rf /' (or whatever) can do is trash my files. My wife's files are safe. If I run that same code as root, I lose my files, the OS's files and all conjugal privileges!
        • Well, if you're running as root and get compromised, it might do more than just steal or delete your data. It might install spyware or a bot that infects / spams / whatevers other people, and continues to corrupt / steal your data going forward.

          There's a lot more danger to a virus than losing your personal data. There's other users of the same machine, and even for single-user machines, there's forward going infection, and danger to other netizens.

          Get a rootkit in place, and you might be unwittingly givin

  • Linspire doesn't equal linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reklusband ( 862215 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:10PM (#15088237)
    I don't think anybody ever thought it wasn't linux, just that it was a CRAPPY version of linux. I also don't think too many people thought about linspire in terms of OS, more in terms of questionable politics.
    • questionable politics.

      OS-Nazi-speak for "trying to make a buck."

    • questionable politics

      where questionable politics = retail-boxed and OEM Linux that can play media files without "stealing" a codec from Windows.

    • Re:Linspire doesn't equal linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tonymus ( 671219 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @07:54PM (#15088762)
      "I don't think anybody ever thought it wasn't linux, just that it was a CRAPPY version of linux."
      That's bullshit-ese for "they dare to charge for their product".

      I've been using Linspire for years; it's my third try at Linux (after Mandrake ver 7 and Lycoris Desktop L/X). It's stable, has lots of eye candy, runs KDE, and install and runs much Linux software with one click, thanks to Click 'N Run, the killer Linspire application. It supports many Internet file formats automatically, and lets me use my computer DVD player without becoming a pirate (per US laws).

      I understand the OS is a bit slow loading, and some OS'es may be a bit quicker in spots, but this doesn't bother me much at all. Linspire is MY choice for linux; YMMV.

      Really, these religous wars among distributions doesn't do Linux as a whole any good...

      • I understand the OS is a bit slow loading, and some OS'es may be a bit quicker in spots, but this doesn't bother me much at all. Linspire is MY choice for linux; YMMV."

        I've been a Lin(spire)dows Insider since it came out in late 2001. I heard about it when it was just starting up and purchased my first version, .091 in Nov. '01. Shortly after they started offering the Lifetime membership we purchased that as well. I have been an on/off user for the last year or two because it doesn't handle built-in video

    • I'm an IT geek by dayy, running a 200+ system Linux shop, and *I* am interested in Linspire at home. At home, I just want to install an OS and have everything work. I mkean *everything*. It sucks when my wife wants to do something basic, and I have to go download a bunch of stuff and try to make it work with my current version of Linux.

      If you're not referring to the fact that they include some proprietary software, please explain. Otherwise just realize that Linux will never* get out of cult status in t

      • It sucks when my wife wants to do something basic, and I have to go download a bunch of stuff and try to make it work with my current version of Linux.

        I keep thinking this, but then I try to get Windows to do similar stuff and that's harder. In the end, the stuff that matters just works under Linux unless you're doing something stupid like upgrading Slackware 5 to udev by hand without upgrading glibc.

  • Getting ahead of themselves? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kijori ( 897770 ) <ward.jake @ g m a i l . c om> on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:12PM (#15088245)
    Aren't they getting a bit ahead of themselves trying to dispel 'common myths' about Linspire when the vast majority of people have no idea what it is, let alone whether its main goal is to run Windows applications?

  • Uh... okay (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:12PM (#15088246)
    But here's the important thing. There's, like, ninety-six linux distributions. I already know that Ubuntu is friendly when you don't want to spend a lot of time configuring things, and Redhat is friendly to people in suits. But why the heck should I care about this one, Linspire? What, if anything, differentiates it from the other ninety-four linux distributions I don't personally have a use for at the present time? Because if there isn't a good answer to that question, it needs to go get back at the end of the line.
    • There's, like, ninety-six linux distributions.
      Actually, according to Wikipedia it's closer to 300. [wikipedia.org] That doesn't include abandoned distributions or distributions being developed/used without the intent to publicly distribute (i.e. companies, military, the occasional linux user)
    • You probably don't have any reason to care about it. N00bs care about it because Linux installation procedures are sufficiently confusing to them that it's worth $20/year to them to avoid having to learn any of it.
    • What, if anything, differentiates it from the other ninety-four linux distributions I don't personally have a use for at the present time?

      Because of the three remaining OEM Linux boxes sold out of Walmart.com, two run Linspire. The chain, it seems, has lost patience with Linux.

  • Intersting statement from TFA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:12PM (#15088247) Journal
    Linspire also doesn't rely on downloads, subscriptions, or box sales for its revenue. Instead, Linspire's bottom line relies upon two things. The first is sales of Linspire-equipped PCs.

    "I don't care about how many people download Linspire or buy our boxes in the stores. What I care about is how many people bought a computer with Linspire on it," [Linspire CEO] Carmony said.
    I'm not really sure what to make of this statement.

    It strikes me as somewhat... odd. Especially coming from a CEO.
    Maybe someone can put my vague feeling into words.

  • Re-tree (Score:5, Insightful)

    by x2A ( 858210 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:15PM (#15088264)
    Many complaints I hear about moving over to unix like systems is the filesystem hierarchy. I think for a really easy-for-noobs and for grabbing windows users, I'd like to see a patched distro where /dev, /proc, /sys etc are moved to (for example) /system. Put them all together and move them where the users knows they're not gonna need to go into.

    Could even have a chrooted dir with mount --binds to make a seperate namespace for unpatched/closed source apps.

    We really could do with tidying the root. Yes it breaks compatibility with unpatched software, but as it is breaks compatibility with users.

    (let the flaming commense)

    • Re:Re-tree (Score:2, Interesting)

      by helmespc ( 807573 )
      I actually agree... the Linux/Unix file tree is confusing and gives the impression of being unorganized. I find it difficult to determine where things exist on my Linux machine as an advanced user, I can only imagine how it looks to a novice. A lot can be done to Linux to add usability for less advances users while keeping the options open for experts... I'd like to see even more strides made toward usability in future releases.
    • (let the flaming commense)

      You overestimate how controversial your statement is (or, really, isn't). Many people have said the same thing. You offer nothing original to this discussion.
      • "You offer nothing original to this discussion"

        I didn't say what the commensing flaming would be about, whether it's controversialness or it's unoriginality, but you still stepped up :-p

    • Re:Re-tree (Score:5, Informative)

      by maxx_730 ( 909644 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:26PM (#15088332)
      Already exists :D

      Check www.gobolinux.org

    • Re:Re-tree (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Eideewt ( 603267 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:33PM (#15088371)
      I would say that root is a place that users never need to go into. A user's home directory is the only part of the computer they ought to mess with. Ideally, a noob will never know about the directories above /home/yournamehere unless they decide they want to learn some stuff and muck around with the guts of their system. The current way puts the user's zone in its own litte branch of the file system, which is pretty much the same as hiding the rest of the system in a subdirectory, except instead of knowing not to enter the dreaded system folder, users don't even have to be aware of it (and they can't rm -rf * it). A user should never ever be messing around in root. That's why a normally configured system doesn't even let them do more that look at it. It's true that most home users will at some point need to be their own admin as well, but in that case, it doesn't much matter that the system files are right there, since the admin is working with them anyway.

    • Re:Re-tree (Score:5, Informative)

      by GlassHeart ( 579618 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:48PM (#15088459) Journal
      Many complaints I hear about moving over to unix like systems is the filesystem hierarchy. I think for a really easy-for-noobs and for grabbing windows users, I'd like to see a patched distro where /dev, /proc, /sys etc are moved to (for example) /system.

      Check out MacOS X sometime. If you use the Finder (the GUI), you see your drives (technically, a partition on a drive, but they are displayed with a drive icon). Clicking on the main one shows you four directories: Applications, Library, System, and Users. However, if you bring up the terminal and cd to the root directory, you see all the other Unixy directories, along with the four named above.

      Thus, newbies who don't bring up the terminal never see the Unix directories, people who want to can still do it, and software don't have to be patched.

    • There will be several effects, IMO:
      • A very few people will go "Yay! It doesn't look so confusing now. I'll just ignore /system. For those few, it'll be good
      • Other people will initially be like above, but will then go on to download something like the Linux version of Neverwinter Nights, and be really puzzled that it doesn't work. Then they'll go scream at Bioware, and complain that Linux is crap and why can't just it be like Windows where you click on setup.exe.
      • Application developers everywhere will be ann

    • It makes at least as much sense as the Windows structure.

      "C:\Documents and Settings\Bob Jones\My Documents" vs. "/home/bob"?

      "C:\Windows\System32\etc\hosts" vs "/etc/hosts"?

  • Seems to me... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:16PM (#15088276) Journal
    My impression is that Lindows/Linspire has always been viewed as outside the world of "real Linux" because:

    1) None of the ultra-user-friendly commercial distros have ever really caught on with the Linux enthusiast community.

    2) Linspire's business plan has alwasy been based on charging users for installing sofware, something that is free everywhere else in the Linux world.

    3) As #2 illustrates, there's always been something sleazy about Linspire. They appeared, making ludicrous claims about Windows compatability, stepping on Microsoft's trademark while prominently advertising rebadged KDE apps as their own, and they've been like that ever since. They may not do anything wrong but it's always ... off.

    • Re:Seems to me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by tktk ( 540564 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:25PM (#15088327)
      3) As #2 illustrates, there's always been something sleazy about Linspire. They appeared, making ludicrous claims about Windows compatability, stepping on Microsoft's trademark while prominently advertising rebadged KDE apps as their own, and they've been like that ever since. They may not do anything wrong but it's always ... off.

      So...you're saying it's the used-car saleman of the linux world?

    • stepping on Microsoft's trademark

      Microsoft won in the end but I don't believe they had moral ownership of the word "windows". X was there before MS windows.

      • Re:Seems to me... (Score:5, Informative)

        by One Louder ( 595430 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:55PM (#15088494)
        Actually, Microsoft didn't win - when it was clear from some of the judge's rulings that they were about to lose the "Windows" trademark in the United States on the basis of genericness, they decided to buy themselves out of the litigation they initiated by paying Lindows/Linspire $20 million.

        Technically it was a settlement, but it's rare that the plaintiff pays off the defendant in order to get out of a case.

        • decided to buy themselves out of the litigation they initiated by paying Lindows/Linspire $20 million.

          I didn't know that. I am off now to make up my own "Windows" trademark. I can feel retirement coming on.

    • 1) None of the ultra-user-friendly commercial distros have ever really caught on with the Linux enthusiast community.

      Oh you mean like Mandriva, or Mepis, or Ubuntu....wait, there are pretty popular amoung Linux users to my knowledge, unless they are running supercomputers or bigass servers.

      2) Linspire's business plan has alwasy been based on charging users for installing sofware, something that is free everywhere else in the Linux world.

      3) As #2 illustrates, there's always been something sleazy abou

    • Linspire's business plan has alwasy been based on charging users for installing sofware, something that is free everywhere else in the Linux world.

      Linspire charges to make it easy for people who don't know linux to install software. In the business world this is called "Value Adding". They sell ease-of-use and they've never hidden that. They do not prevent you from eskewing their Click-n-Run server for apt-get, which works perfectly fine by all accounts.

      In short, either you've never really used Linspire

      • "They do not prevent you from eskewing their Click-n-Run server for apt-get, which works perfectly fine by all accounts."

        Yes they do. When I was new to Linux I downloaded and installed Lindows. I read a tutorial on how to use apt (it was quite accurate, I know that now) and Lindows immediately broke. It locked up so that I had to reboot and then went into a kernel panic. What was I trying to install? The Gimp. I've read numberous posts from people who had the same experience at Distrowatch, LinuxQuestion

        • It locked up so that I had to reboot and then went into a kernel panic.

          I'll accept at face value that you may have legitimately tried it and found it lacking, but it's worth noting that you say you were new to Linux, probably a bit pissed that it didn't work as expected, and that impression has carried with you, whether it is justified or not.

          I had no trouble with apt on Linspire. I know others who had no trouble as well. More to your point, here's the ExtremeTech review of Linspire where they cracked it

  • Gnu/Linux for some people (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jc87 ( 882219 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:23PM (#15088315)
    I have read in the past some of this guy posts at Ubuntu forums (yes he sometimes open/reply threads there) and let me say he raises some good questions in several areas, in general i would say he manages to perfectly justify making a distro for dumb/proprietary human beings and recognizing Linspire is not a perfect distro ,neither one destined to every single person out there.

    Kudos for him at least for being modest and realistic.

    Off course i will never use Linspire , Ubuntu plus a extra repos to the sources.list works fine for me.

  • Secret shake (Score:5, Funny)

    by basneder ( 591273 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:26PM (#15088334)
    "Some people seem to think that Linux is a secret club, where you have to pay your dues before you can learn the secret handshake and run it."

    Dude, dont even mention the Secret Shake! It's supposed to be a secret.

    • The sad part is that those people are right. There is a secret shake. People must be able to get it installed on their computer (even if they want to buy a computer with Linux, it is still hard), and must learn which programs do what.

      Those are two very big problems, that make people unable to use Linux, because they simply can't touch it or because they feel alien on it and don't know what to do. And the bad news is that those problems won't go away, doesn't matter how well we make the system.

  • consumer reports... (Score:3, Informative)

    by wpegden ( 931091 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:27PM (#15088341)
    didn't like lindows at all... they reviewed the Walmart Lindows pcs. If you have a CR subscription (or know someone who does) it's a good article to read from the standpoint of understanding what still stands in the way of mainstream acceptance of these distros.

  • Carmony is great (Score:5, Interesting)

    by caffeination ( 947825 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:39PM (#15088395)
    Seriously, Carmony really seems like a decent guy. Listen to him [lugradio.org], you'll see what I mean. The Slashdot smart asses usually crap all over Linspire's quality, security, morality, business model, and so on and so on, but give the guy a chance, he's not all bad.
    • Obviously you've never dealt with him (or Robertson) personally.
      • I have dealt with both Michael Robertson and Kevin Carmony personally. I find them both likeable, pleasant, intelligent, honest and articulate. I personally don't understand much of the disdain for Linspire or Robertson or Carmony. Of course, no one is really a saint, and no one can be liked by everyone. But my personal experience with these guys is that they are decent, and most important to me personally, they do care about freedom in cyberspace.
      • Nor have you ever met me. The only intereaction I had with you was when we used some of your art in a Linux tutorial, not knowing it wasn't GPL, and when you coplained, we promptly removed it. You really should GPL your stuff. =) Kevin

    • Re:Carmony is great (Score:3, Interesting)

      by swillden ( 191260 )

      Seriously, Carmony really seems like a decent guy.

      Yeah, he probably is, just keep him away from the keyboard.

      My first job out of college (before I'd graduated, really) was working for a small Point-of-Sale software company that Carmony founded. I spent nearly two years there working on a POS system that he had written. What an unbelievable mess. After I'd been in the code for a couple of weeks, the engineering dept. manager mentioned to me that Carmony had hacked the whole thing in a few months of a

      • Welcome to programming. Your whole experience sounds pretty normal, given that most programmers who work on other peoples code have MAJOR hindsight is 20/20 advantage.

        Still, quite amusing. :)

      • Re:Carmony is great (Score:4, Informative)

        by Kevin Carmony ( 673400 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:40PM (#15089448) Homepage
        LOL! Ah, a blast from my programming past (a very short-lived past!). But...let's put this in perspective though...that code was written almost 25 years ago!!! There weren't even hard drives when I hacked that code. It was put together on the very original IBM PC with 64K of memory and floppy drives. So, yes, duh, of course it was written in Basic, about the only thing you could hack with on those original PC's. My degree is in Business, and the only formal training I ever had was DP 101 in college. I've never professed to be a coder. But, that code that I hacked was used by 25% of all video rental stores to check customers in and out in its day. I turned it into a very substantial business, which I later sold for a great deal, and that business is still around today, 20 plus years later! How many of you can say that? =) Kevin Carmony

  • Long Overdue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by drDugan ( 219551 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:53PM (#15088482) Homepage
    After reading TFA and reading about CNR, all I can say is... great. I had written off Linspire when I first read about it - the wine stuff that I knew was impossible and buggy... etc. But the philosophy is a good one: bring Linnux under the hood on a polished, housewife/housewide audience - not just the hackers.

    I wish him all the best. Now I'll get back to trying to my dkpg-reconfigure and apt-get'ing the latest Ruby Gem from unstable while not upgrading my Standord C libs.


  • Something they don't mention in that article:

    "Linspire's chief technical officer, Tom Welch, agreed that his company would definitely consider DRM."

    http://news.com.com/DRM%20key%20to%20Linuxs%20cons umer%20success/2100-7344_3-6058790.html?tag=techdi rt [com.com]

    MjM

    • What does it mean for Linspire to "consider" DRM? Operating systems don't decrypt DRMed media files, programs do. There's only one company that can authorize development of software to play iTMS songs on Linux, and that's Apple.

      If they mean crippling the user with "features" like "secure video path", I think they'll soon find that implementing controls like that in a Free operating system is very hard. It might be possible with trusted computing, which if I understand correctly gives user programs a way

  • The reality of Linspire (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bob Loblaw ( 545027 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:57PM (#15088508)
    In reality, no OS has achieved the status of so simple yet so useful that grandma/sister/computer-novice can use without assistance.

    I have some experience being the family IT support guy and got so sick of cleaning our viruses, spyware and other junk from my sister's computer that I bough her a computer with Linspire 4 on it thinking that it was the easiest Linux for her to adapt to. In the end, I can't say that it was any better or worse than any other distro. The Click-N-Run concept is a good one but it is was very poorly executed. It certainly *did* encourage users to run as root and was a PITA to set up as a multi-user system.

    However, when things went wrong (as they do with any OS/Distro/computerized thing), I found that Linspire did things differently enough that it was very difficult to troubleshoot the problem, find help online and you ended up fighting with a system that tried to second guess you with automated scripts ... sort of like dealing with Windows sometimes.

    In the end I switched her to another distro (Ubuntu) and now have just as many problems but I don't have to pay a subscription fee and, if I don't know the answer myself, I can find answers online extremely quickly since it doesn't deviate too far from upstream.

    So all the power to Linspire in achieving that "easy enough for a novice to use" status but since we're not there yet, I would stick with a more maintainable distro like Ubuntu or Fedora Core.
    • I don't understand when people complain about PC, and Linux in perticular as being difficult to use. Administer? maybe. Use? No.

      Now, just like any parent, I would love to believe that my wife and I had so superior of genes that our offspring is simply genetically superior by a far margin than the rest of the population. We would also love to believe that our parenting skills are so much better than everyone elses that any child in our care is destined to be a genius. Unfortunatly, we also understand
      • There are a few factors at play here ... and none of them are retardation :]

        1) scope of usage:
        If your 2 yr old is writing letters, emailing, printing, transferring pictures from their camera, burning music CDs, balancing their bank account, tracking their stocks, etc. then I will be impressed by your superior genes. However, many people have no problems doing the simple things like finding a game and playing it. Yet with complexity comes difficulty.

        2) familiarity
        If someone has learned a particular way of do
        • 1)Scope of usage: Yes, he writes letters, and prints. They may not all be actual words he is typing, as he is only now learning to spell, but yes, he does write letters. He also plays CD. Doesn't burn, but does play them. I know that I, and I suspect you do as well, regularly hear how difficult it is to do these things. Also, when you are talking about the Gnome vs. Windows difficulty, none of this applies.

          2)familiarity: I would put this in the 'retarded' category. If you can't associate "Start"

  • good stuff (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aurelito ( 566884 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @06:59PM (#15088516)
    People on Slashdot often speak of Linux as if it's a finite resource: that if Linspire takes off, it must mean distributions like Slackware or Debian or Gentoo are losing users. That's not true at all. Linspire's target market is a niche previously untapped (not even by Ubuntu or short-lived Caldera) of people who just want a workstation with a web browser, a word processor, a calculator and maybe solitaire. All the power to to Linspire for doing this. There's room in the Linux world for this. I think they're doing a useful thing, and if they come up with some good, non-crippling ideas that improve usability, perhaps other distros will benefit from their innovation one day too.

  • Funny how things change (Score:4, Informative)

    by stevey ( 64018 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @07:03PM (#15088548) Homepage

    It was only a short time ago that Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire [slashdot.org] said "I defy anybody to tell me why is it more secure to not run as root. Nobody really has a good answer. They say 'oh, yeah, it is!', but it really isn't."

  • I installed it on my wife's computer and my best friends,(both windows zealots), because they were constantly asking me to clean their computers. They would not use the tools they were given to work safely so... Linspire, and no more issues. I used wine to install IE for the wife because her job requires her to use IE only sites, other than that, it's all linux. they uses firefox at work, and the differences between OOO2 and ms office threw them at first but after a few, we do that this way...(kind of like
  • I own a copy of Linspire, I actually paid money for the 4.5 release. I wanted to try it out. They made programs that use Microsoft Windows format files like their own Media Player and iTunes type programs. They offer a lot of FOSS and Commercial Programs via the CNR (Click N' Run) program, and it also does the updates as well.

    I switched distros. Linspire, while based on Debian, disables the apt-get and rpm tools. I found a way to activate them, and install a gcc compiler to compile programs etc. Only I foun

  • Running as Root (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kevin Carmony ( 673400 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @09:01PM (#15089024) Homepage
    The very first sneak preview of Linspire didn't have ANY way to add users, but we never released that commercially. That first sneak preview didn't have a lot of things in it! Not sure it even printed. =)

    What Linspire does is during the install it has you first set up your Admin Password (root) and THEN takes you to a screen where you can add users, right during the install's install Wizard.

    Kevin Carmony
    CEO & President, Linspire, Inc.

  • For the record... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kevin Carmony ( 673400 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @09:18PM (#15089079) Homepage
    For the record... I didn't set out to "set the record straight about Linspire myths." (That was just the fancy spin this reporter put on his story. =) I simply gave an address at LinuxWorld called "Desktop Linux Adoption by Mainstream Consumers." During my address I made mention to a few of the things that consumers DEMAND which Linspire provides, which then create problems for some in the Linux community. For example, we support DVD, MP3, Windows Media, Real Audio, QuickTime, Java, Flash, ATI drivers, nVidia drivers, etc. We do this because most consumers won't touch Linux without these things (heck, I wouldn't!) Most have iPods and other MP3 players and want their computer to work with them. They have DVD's and want their computer to play them. Linspire pleads guilty to supporting all of this out of the box, and for that, we're not always understood. If I really wanted to dispel myths about Linspire, I'd have started right here on Slashdot (I read more misinformation here than anywhere about all sorts of topics, not just Linspire =). Kevin Carmony CEO & President, Linspire, Inc.

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