An Early Look at Freespire Linux 171
An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com takes an early look at Freespire Linux in a recent article. Linspire will be releasing their first version of Freespire, the first community Linux distribution to include many third-party proprietary codecs, drivers, and software. From the article: 'While I still have my doubts about the long-term wisdom of using proprietary software and drivers with Linux, I must say that if you feel you need to use such programs, Freespire makes it much easier than any other Linux distribution. And, when is all said and done, that's really what Freespire is all about -- making Linux as easy as possible for users.'"
It's about time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's about time... (Score:3, Interesting)
for the support.
I agree with the notion that 'non-free' software with an 'open' api and documented
formats is not a true evil and should be allowed as a choice on a free system. If you
use such an application you are not truly locked in to it as you can migrate your data.
The only problem I see with Freespire is the same one I see with other Debian clones.
They may use
Re:It's about time... (Score:2)
From all what I can tell, most Windows users have fear of tech support. In all my years of helping people with Linux, I found it to be very very easily supportable. Hardest part is to convince user that there is nothing in Linux monstrous like e.g. Windows' registry, that even if user screwed something up - all the damage can be easily recovered.
Still even after that, most people are very reluctant to
My problem with Linspire (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My problem with Linspire (Score:2)
It's more like Ubuntu in that regard - a user account with sudo privileges with the account's password.
It's quite easy to create user accounts in Linspire, and it's even recommmended during the installation.
Re:My problem with Linspire (Score:2)
Honestly. What makes people think that if Desktop Linux starts attracting virus writers, they won't try to sudo their Bad Things?
Your user should not be a sudoer. Your account should have to explicitly su root and enter a password. If you're talking security, anything else is just masturbation.
Meanwhile, I run as root. I don't give a shit about security; I have a mostly disposable system, viruses aren't targeting linux nearly enough for me to
Re:My problem with Linspire (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My problem with Linspire (Score:3, Informative)
How long is this rumor going to live? That hasn't been the case for quite a while now. And version 5 is extremely nice! Much faster and much more stable than ever. It's actually at a point where I'd use it daily at work if I could.
Re:My problem with Linspire (Score:2)
But, I'm glad to hear that I (as another poster who mentioned this) was wrong, and it's been fixed
Re:It's about time... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, I'll have to really give credance to the FSF's take on proprietar
Re:I wonder what the ratio here is (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's not look at the way things are when we decide the way things should be.
Re:I wonder what the ratio here is (Score:2)
How many Windows-users pay for programs they know are free? Try this: charge a newbie Windows-user for something like the Gimp, pocket their money, point them to the official website where they can get
Nonsense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Try this: charge a newbie Windows-user for something like the Gimp, pocket their money, point them to the official website where they can get it for free, explain what you did was perfectly legal and then watch their reaction. Think they'll pay you again? No matter how legal it is for Linspire to run their CnR thingie, *nix-users don't want to pay for free software and a great many view it as a (legal) scam
If all you do is point, the user has a right to be pissed. That's not what Linspire or any other L
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Re:I wonder what the ratio here is (Score:3, Insightful)
Usually, linux needs careful configuration to get it working well, and when it's done, it works better than anything else. But it takes time and patience.
Not dissin
Re:I wonder what the ratio here is (Score:2)
Hell, the first thing I do when I install linux is get Flash, Java, Acrobat, the MPlayer windows codec pack, and the 300M archive of freeware and MS universal accessibility fonts from my windows computer. Not to mention the Windows driver for my wireless card through ndiswrapper (it's an SiS 162U - completely linux unsupported without ndis).
It'd be nice if I had stable OSS / CC solutions for all this stuff, but I
Easy != Low initial learning curve (Score:2)
Linspire following the fundamentally flawed (and now abandoned) windows model of using root accounts for normal users is just dumb.
Odd name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Odd name (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Odd name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:nice quip (Score:5, Insightful)
You appear to be misinformed however. Freespire will be released in two distinct versions:
One containing entirely free software, and one containing proprietary codecs (paid for and licensed by Linspire).
The user gets to choose which he uses.
Hence the "Free" -- freedom of choice to opt into one of two free (as in beer) choices: a completely free (as in speech and beer) version, and a free (just as in beer) version.
Seems pretty free to me.
Any questions?
Re:nice quip (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Odd name (Score:2)
Why waste mod points on someone expressing their "information wants to be free" opinion? It's a waste of mod points, and one should mod great posts up rather than using mod points to knock down opinions they disagree with.
With that out of the way,
there is much to be said for pure F/OSS distributions. If you are in a corporate env
More Bubbly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:5, Insightful)
Eye candy is very appealing to the mainstream user, and will help A LOT to increase Linux's usage and familiarity.
Re:More Bubbly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:2)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:2)
Sadly, I'm not a fan of the 'bubbly' look of XP (or Linspire). Give me a functional look like fvwm or Gnome any day. Functionality and simplicity have their own aesthetic!
-b.
Re:More Bubbly (Score:2, Interesting)
...Of course, once they actually tried it out and used the slick features like apt-get the first time, they were head over heels.
Re:More Bubbly (Score:1)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't like it, don't use it. For me, I'm looking for a linux system that works BEFORE I start working on it. Give me a working system, then let me customize it. I don't have the chops to build a linux box from the ground up, and while that puts me in the minority here, I'm very firmly in the majority over the general population on this one.
I'm hoping this gives the linux movement a bit more momentum, even if it does do so at the expense of tarnishing the OSS camps' dreams just a bit.
Re:More Bubbly (Score:2)
Not exactly Linux, but my OpenBSD install worked quite nicely out of the box. X even booted in 640x480/256 mode the first time I typed "startx" (sort of equivalent to the "win" command back in the day?). "xorgconfig" was required to set X up to play nice with my video card at 1024x768, but that wasn't a big deal - the config took a minute and was completely straightforward.
Installing Debian was slightly more fun because of
Yes but, (Score:2)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:1)
Re:More Bubbly (Score:1)
Go for it:
http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
http://www.bb4win.org/news.php [bb4win.org]
KFG
Kickstart (Score:5, Interesting)
For example a proprietary document system that uses open formats and has open APIs does very little to harm the user and potentially fills a niche that cannot be served by free software very well (eg handles certain legal compliance issues, which requires expensive insurance and research).
As long as you *could* write your own software to replace bits of the system, or interoperate with the system, then you dont necessarily have to for the benefit to be very real indeed.
A lot (although not all) of the stuff that comes with Linspire falls into this category.
Re:Kickstart (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually.. (Score:5, Funny)
Usually, when all is said and done, more is said than done.
not exactly packaged with the distro... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: just one little thing (Score:4, Insightful)
legality.
Freespire uses fully licensed codecs (paid for by Linspire), whereas EasyUbuntu takes the gray area route of not using fully legal stuff.
Since Linspire is footing the bill for the codecs, I think we can all see which choice is both more practical for the user and more ethical.
It's perfectly legal in the rest of the world (Score:3, Informative)
>
>legality.
Only in the U. S. of Eh. my friend. Up here in the Great White North, not to mention the rest of the free world, (NOT Australia since they've joined the US copyright tyranny) it is completely legal to use most of those codecs that might land an American butt in the slammer.
What I find most frustrating is that because people are so afraid of what the Americans will do, they intentionally cripple these distros.
Re:It's perfectly legal in the rest of the world (Score:2)
Gee, that doesn't correlate at all with the massive fight we had to try and get them not to pass that stupid law.
Yep. Major improvement... (Score:2)
GPL violation? (Score:1, Offtopic)
How are they working around this?
Re:GPL violation? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GPL violation? (Score:2)
Except that binary kernel modules are illegal, and will not be allowed in, period.
Seen the various talks at OLS a couple of weeks ago? Seen the stance by Novell as a result of it?
Re:GPL violation? (Score:2)
But apparently, I was mistaken about the open-source nVidia kernel modules that act as the layer. They are not GPLed. If they are re-released under the GPL, then the nvidia binary drivers are perfectly legal.
Hasn't this been tried (Score:1)
Re:Hasn't this been tried (Score:2)
But this is web 2.0 stuff we're talking about here!
Caldera was early and the Linux desktop has come a long way since.
I'll hazzard a guess and say Linspire is still a little early to the game, but I think Longwait's convoluted marketing plan with different packages unlocking different functions only benefits Linspire.
If they continue to concentrate on OEM contracts, I think they'll provide a great deal of exposure to the Linux desktop. It will be a clearly lower priced and function as well. Let's not f
The RedHat Business Model (Score:2)
Maybe Redhat was onto something?
Re:The RedHat Business Model (Score:2)
No GPL Violations (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No GPL Violations (Score:2)
There's a good reason for that: the GPL is supposed to be portable. However, including a clause that says "The following do not constitute derivative works: [...] Licenses that differ only in this clause are considered to be fully compatible" might be a viable option.
We'll see. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:We'll see. (Score:2)
IMO automounting is not well integrated, even after Project Utopia. The Unix design is simply not made for automounting and removable media, and it shows. Only after the creation of pmount *useful* media mounting is possible (i.e. you dont have to be root).
Another thing I am not fond of is samba share mounting. It is really not trivial to mount
Re:We'll see. (Score:2)
I discovered recently that if you do not have a real local user (ie, authentication was via NIS, and you only access NFS disks) then pmount will not work because it can't work out which user you are. Just posting in case somebody else has a similar problem.
Re:We'll see. (Score:1)
Re:We'll see. (Score:2)
Re:We'll see. (Score:2)
Re:We'll see. (Score:2)
-b
low-quality drivers (Score:5, Interesting)
What sometimes gets left out of this kind of discussion is that closed-source drivers are often of very low quality. Recently, I've been scanning in an old 400-page book on an HP scanner, using HP's closed-source MacOS 9 driver and scanning software. The MacOS X driver wasn't released until a couple of years after we bought the scanner, although they claimed it would be coming "real soon now." When the MacOS X driver finally was released, I found that it crashed so often as to make it useless. So here I am, in the year 2006, booting into MacOS 9 whenever I want to use the scanner. IIRC a driver is available for SANE, but I think I had dependency problems getting it to instal on my Linux box.
I scanned the first 100 pages or so, transferred them to the Linux box, and made sure I could read them. No problem. I finished scanning the book, transferred the rest of the pages to the Linux box. Oops --- can't read anything after page 250. Why? It turns out all those files are empty --- zero bytes in size. Why? Oh, the Mac's hard disk had apparently filled up, and the software didn't check for an I/O error when it wrote the files.
I'm not saying that OSS is always perfect and bug-free, but I doubt that this kind of low-quality code would ever have become widely used if it was open source.
I don't really want closed-source drivers for Linux. All I want is two things:
Re:low-quality drivers (Score:3, Informative)
Contrast this with stuff like ext2fs for Windows. I can *still* use it, even after the updates and the switch from 2000 to XP. There s
Icon Similarities... (Score:2)
Hmmm.
iqu
It's an Operating System (Score:3)
Haskell : strange but true (Score:3, Interesting)
Wierd. (Score:2)
Re:Wierd. (Score:2)
Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
It cost a few bucks but that was a reasonable trade off as it was cheaper than Windows and generally worked as intended.
Freespire is aiming to be the free alternative to Linspire while maintaining that village idiot level ease of use.
As a free alternative, it doesn't work since you still have to pay $20/year for your village idiot to be able to use it. If people know enough to use apt-get and other such things,
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
So 20$ is actually cheap.
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
The let the 3 month period expire, get zombified, the machine slows down, doesn't work anymore, and then they find an idiot (me for instance) that fixe their computer when it dies.
Then somebody else downloads some free version, that expires, and then the "friendly helper (idiot)" gets tired and tells them they have to fork over a couple of bucks to get their manchine running.
so it does cost!
Re:Still have to pay for CNR? (Score:2)
Stop trying to look like Windoze... (Score:2)
Actually, give me a true 3-button mouse and allow different menus to show up at the pointer site with different combinations of button clicks.
-b.
Re:Stop trying to look like Windoze... (Score:2)
Re:Stop trying to look like Windoze... (Score:2)
Sell it with stickers for the mouse buttons. "Menu" "Change Program" and "Actions".
-b.
Re:Stop trying to look like Windoze... (Score:2)
I was thinking:
left - windowlist
right - actions
middle - normal launcher menu
left + middle = whatever the hell you want
right + middle = WTHYW
l + r = WTHYW
-b.
Two other versions in the works (Score:3, Funny)
Two other versions are currently being designed. One, which requires that users give the company some of their intellectual property in exchange for additional software packages, and another, which allows users to exchange a few hours' work for a robust Linux-based system. The first version will be called Inspire; the second, Perspire.
The company is also thinking of donating free software to relatives of the recently deceased. This will naturally be called Expire.
Glad they put users before developers (Score:2)
I'm horrified (Score:2, Interesting)
Because they've fallen for the same trap as Microsoft Windows: They put the button you push to turn the machine off in a sub menu of the button you push to start your work! What could possibly be next? Insert headers and footers in the View menu on the Freespire-customized version of OpenOffice.org?
May god save us all.
Re:Not the way to go (Score:1)
Re:Not the way to go (Score:2)
Re:Not the way to go (Score:3, Informative)
That license does NOT grant the right to run Windows on any other system.
But, on a different note. There are different points of view. The first is that the "Operating System" is simply a resource manager. Its goal is to maximize utilization of your computer. From this point of view, Linux is already superior to Windows.
Another point of view is that the "Operating System" is central to your (enjoyable) use
Re:Not the way to go (Score:1)
I guess that by "newbie" I mean me. I have 10 years Linux experience, and have just recently started to learn windows. I also find it illogical, and completely irrational. My Package dependancy issues are something I didn't explain properly. My gripe is not that packages have dependancies, it's that they break too easily, and it's not a trivial matter to build a package for you preferred distro. Also the sheer number of dependant packages with the most simple application
Re:Not the way to go (Score:2)
Don't we all?
Re:Not the way to go (Score:2, Interesting)
No. No 'we' don't.
Windows has been around in its' current incarnation for 11 years now. During the course of that 11 years it has remained decently consistent in its' interface and has provided a reliable mechanism to do tasks (keyboard shortcuts, cut and paste, etc).
There are places where the UI violates good UI de
Re:Not the way to go (Score:2)
So, you are comparing Windows 95 to Windows XP? Let's do that.
"During the course of that 11 years it has remained decently consistent in its' interface and has provided a reliable mechanism to do tasks (keyboard shortcuts, cut and paste, etc)."
Please compare Windows 95 and Windows XP. I guess you could use "decently consistent" for a sufficiently low value of consistent.
FYI, there ARE no alternate distributions of Windows. So comparing th
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the actual nVidia/ATI kernel module IS GPLed. It acts as layer between the kernel and the binary blob. This layer has an open API, which is used by the blob. Thus, the blob uses the kernel, it does not extend it. The extension comes from the GPLed layer.
The real issue is that nVidia & ATI use GPL code from other parts of the kernel in their drivers. This is the only issue, because the way I described above makes binary blobs perfectly legal.
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:3, Informative)
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:2)
But still, the layer idea allows binary drivers without violating the GPL.
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:2)
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:2)
Otherwise, all non-source based distros would be illegal, including Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Fedora,....
Re:non-GPL Kernel modules (Score:2)
Re:Binary == bad (Score:2)
Re:Binary == bad (Score:2)
Re:Question (Score:2)
If you want to use WINE to run Windows applications, you'll need to use the command line. If you want to recompile your kernel for a speed increase (mainly at boot), you'll need to use the command line. Most other functions you'll need are available with a GUI, and all of them through the command line as well.
SUSE might be as good; I haven't tried it yet. But Ubuntu fulfills your requirements, I think.
Re:Question (Score:2)