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Linspire Announces Freespire Distribution
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Apr 24, 2006 06:27 PM
from the let's-muddy-the-waters-a-bit dept.
from the let's-muddy-the-waters-a-bit dept.
LinuxScribe writes "Is the world ready for another community Linux distro a là Fedora and openSUSE? We're about to find out, as Linspire used the Desktop Linux Summit to announce a community-driven version of Linspire, to be called Freespire. But here's the twist, Freespire will come in two flavors: a completely open source version and a version that includes all of the fully-licensed proprietary apps, drivers, and codecs in Linspire."
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[+]
Linspire CEO Considers CNR for Ubuntu 92 comments
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Kevin Carmony Responds to Criticism 300 comments
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[+]
An Early Look at Freespire Linux 171 comments
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.'"
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*~shudder~* (Score:4, Funny)
Re:*~shudder~* (Score:3, Funny)
But I thought that à la was French, not German...
Well, you see, this works... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
To beat an analogy to death (Score:4, Funny)
Re:To beat an analogy to death Word play? (Score:5, Funny)
If it gets really HOT, it'll be FreesPYRE.
If it sucks the life from other distros, it'll be VAMpire.
If it flat-out dies off, it'll EXpire.
If it continues to live, it'll REspire.
If it has a kernel panic, it might PERspire.
If it woos it's intended audience, then may it TRANCEpire
But, hopefully, it'll be really NEAT, and good things will TRANSpire...
(C) David Syes, 2006-04-24 2025
Parent
I wonder what's up (Score:5, Insightful)
Linspire, in contrast, is rather staid and unadventurous. One questions whether a "bleeding edge" is even required for that distro.
So what is the purpose of "Freespire"?
Re:I wonder what's up (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I wonder what's up (Score:3, Interesting)
And this is why Automatix was born. It works well and turns Ubuntu into something truly usable on a day-to-day basis.
I wish that Ubuntu was more pragmatic, and included the "Automatix" stuff on a 2nd optional CD. If you don't want the CD, then don't download it an burn it. But Automatix does essentially the sam
Re:I wonder what's up (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I don't get the point (Score:5, Interesting)
And before anyone says anything about CNR (click and run), I will point you to klik [atekon.de] - free open and wonderful, and not tied to any distro.
Enough said.
Re:I don't get the point (Score:2)
Not everything is available binary.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of the hottest and newest apps on SourceForge and Freshmeat don't have binary releaases. And if they aren't popular enough to get packaged by Linspire themselves you're SOL and have to make due with a shitty equivalent, or even worse nothing at all.
If I wanted to put up with sub-par software selection I would just use windows.
Mod Company -1: Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about as newsworthy as a paid-software vendor announcing a free trial edition that replaces all the "good stuff" with reminders to buy the full version.
Re:Mod Company -1: Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Mod Company -1: Troll (Score:3)
I really miss Lindows (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that I'd want to see "Macrohard Windows", "Slack Windows", "Brown Dog Windows", "iWindows", "eWindows", "Turbo Windows", "IBM Windows", "Debian GNU/Windows", "Windows for Playgroups", "WindowsBSD", "ClearWindows", "Sunny Windows"...
Aw, yes I would.
Parent
Re:I really miss Lindows (Score:3, Interesting)
nthesizer, and possibly others), and I presume others that I don't recall (had Star been shown off by then?), used "windows" to describe a section of the screen. At t
Re:Mod Company -1: Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me: When has selling Free / Open Source Software become a sin against humanity?
Parent
Hmm... Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, at least the "creating a user account so you don't run everyhing as root" step isn't optional [freespire.org] in Freespire. This "new" distribution is something that might be a good first step for newbie Linux users that want certain features (DVD/MP3 playback) immediately after install.
Oh My Gosh (Score:2)
Re:Oh My Gosh (Score:3, Informative)
If there are 600 distros, surely you have to accept that people are finding plenty of reasons to create new ones? Surely you don't think you can just declare that they are only faking this need or that they shouldn't do it?
It's easy (if a little arrogant) to look at the total and dismiss the effort as needless, but it's much harder to go through each distro and show that it doesn't fulfill some niche or need.
I picked a load of unpopula
No offense but... (Score:4, Insightful)
So if I had to choose between Freespire and say, Ubuntu Dapper, I'd choose Dapper all the way.
Nice... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I don't actually... I just thought it would be cool to be the first to say that.
-Advs89
This is good (Score:3, Interesting)
Confusion is not really an issue, because anyone looking at Linux will be getting a friend who has a favorite distro, or will have a computer vendor with only one or two choices, which will likely be a choice between Freespire and Linspire or Fedora and Red Hat
Plan 9 is better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Plan 9 is better (Score:5, Interesting)
Plan 9 is a research operating system. I like Plan 9's architecture, file system, and many other ideas. Plan 9's goal is to further extend the notion of Unix's "everything is a file" idea. Everything, even the windowing system (rio), is a file. Plan 9 also vastly simplifies systems programming (compared to Unix). Plan 9 is a wonderful research operating system that I would love to tinker with and explore.
However, it isn't a desktop replacement for Windows/OS X users or even for Linux or BSD users. There is no office suites (or even a word processor unless you love text editors and TeX or troff), no browser on the scale of Firefox or Konqueror, no music/video players, nothing that 99% of the world uses with a computer. Besides, I'm pretty sure that users are more comfortable using this desktop [kde.org], these desktops [gnome.org], or especially this desktop [apple.com] before they use this desktop [bell-labs.com]. For even the most ardent *nix hackers or computer scientists, Plan 9 would be something they played with on the side (kind of like Minix or an operating system that they're working on), and Linux/BSD is their main OS.
I like Plan 9, but it isn't a desktop OS; it's a research OS. However, Plan 9 is a very innovative operating system; I wish that the major OS sellers (I'm talking to you, Apple and Microsoft) would be a bit more cutting-edge in the architecture of their OSes rather than just appearances (even though Apple has done very well since the bought NeXT; they have a hybrid kernel, for one). Plan 9, L4, the MIT exokernel project, and other projects look very interesting, and I would like to see them in use.
Parent
And what if they hadn't changed their name? (Score:4, Funny)
Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
So, if they hadn't been forced to change, would this new distro be called Freedows? The mascot could have been the Freedow Bandido!
Here's the twist... but it's not a new twist (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, maybe, but they're hardly the first to do that: Mandriva (Mandrake) has been doing it for a long time, with the commercial version including extra drivers as well as applications. Probably others have too.
What makes a community effort stand or fall is how well the outside people are integrated, and how much voice they have.
One reason I the distribution I do is that it attracts both seasoned programmers and newcomers, and there's a good chance I can show my laptop to people and say, here, this is what it's like, you can use the same as me. It's not clear that I'll be doing that with Linspire, nor that a community-based version that's not as good will in fact help me. Who will it help?
Ubuntuspire... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ubuntuspire... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Ubuntuspire... (Score:3, Informative)
I'll do even better, I'll give you her address [ubuntu.com]! Right now, she's sleeping with a lot of people though. They're making sure she's clean so if you're worried, you can wait a bit :p
Freespire = give up your freedom for a driver (Score:5, Interesting)
---
Stefano Spinucci
Re:Freespire = give up your freedom for a driver (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
With Lycoris by and large a dead issue, a Freespire might be just the ticket for folks who are just not ready for Ubuntu/Kubuntu yet.
There are some differences (Score:5, Interesting)
The indications are that they have thought this through quite thoroughly. The initial announcement and the web site are quite well done, I think. Considering it is still four months until the first beta, they have a good FAQ (here [freespire.org]) which is worth a read. I intend to at least give it a try when the time comes.
First Beta in August 2006? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're announcing a Linux distribution that won't be available for download in BETA for another 4 months?
Re:First Beta in August 2006? (Score:3, Funny)
not *all* the codecs are included... (Score:3, Insightful)
How many PCs can this crash? (Score:3, Funny)
I think that really says all that needs to be said.
Notes from the Freespire announcement (Score:3, Informative)
I thought that his positioning of Freespire and his reasoning behind it are worth sharing with Slashdotters. Linspire is, of course, a purely commercial effort, with the goal of selling a shrink-wrapped OS that looks externally as much like Windows as possible. His target audience is not the Slashdot crowd, but rather the people who buy their computers at Wal-Mart. Really! For them, it's all about the out-of-the-box experience, starting up a computer with preinstalled OS and apps and just using it. As someone who has recently installed Mandriva, Fedora 5, and Ubuntu Breezy on various machines, I think that the experience is much better than it once was, but still falls short of the "Wal-Mart" or even the Windows experience.
To listen to Kevin Carmody, Freespire is offered in the spirit of recognizing the contributions of the open source community, and giving people the opportunity to stay "pure", i.e., without licensed and proprietary pieces, or hybrid, where the user can choose to download and perhaps pay for the licensed and proprietary pieces. He gave an analogy with food, where the choices were Junk Food (Windows and proprietary software), Healthy Food, and Vegan. Open source vegans, of course, are those who would never want music in the proprietary MP3 format or images in the proprietary JPG format.
His belief is that most consumers and business people would like Healthy Food, which is some mix of Linux and those proprietary formats, plus some drivers for graphics cards, etc.. He and his company are actually going out to Fortune 500 companies and talking to them about why they should consider a move to something like Freespire rather than suffering the pain and expense of migrating to Windows Vista (if and when it ever ships). This is a fairly brave, not to say crazy, thing to do, and I think that they deserve some credit and support for their evangelism, even from people who don't care for the whole Linspire business. Getting 3-4% penetration of Linux (any flavor) on corporate desktops would be quite an achievement, and it won't come from Linspire on its own.
Carmody also said that they are going to open source Click N Run because they think that it is the best updating program, and are offering it to others for the taking. If I were responsible for Ubuntu or other Debian-based distros, I would be very tempted to take them up on their offer. I've done enough "apt-get"s.
People don't seem to get this (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it will be interesting to see how they integrate the proprietary stuff, (and how it's paid for, free as in beer is a big attraction of OSS, whatever the principles at stake).
Re:now more than 500 distros (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:now more than 500 distros (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to break it to some, but a lot of the people working on improving the distros (as a hobby or a job) wouldn't be doing so if there was only 1, 3, or even 7 ultra-distros.
Especially the hobbyists. They'd feel like their voice wouldn't be heard, that they are just another cog in the machinery, or the distro doesn't go in the direction they want (can 1 distro satisfy the goals of
Re:I don't know about you ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. While all the FSF absolutists will flame away I say it is about darned time. Of course I wouldn't switch distros JUST for the DVD player or any of the other closed bits, but if I could buy em and run them on my preferred distro I'd get a P.O. to em.
You see, it is only by being willing to compromise (the minimum I can get away with) on the Free principles have I been able to deploy a linux based desktop into a public library setting. Just one example, we use Crossover Office to get IE running. IE isn't negotiable, the only question is Crossover, VMWare or which other method I was going to use to get it running. Too many sites just don't work any other way. For example, assume I'd brazened my way past all the other objections and deployed without IE. Last year wne the Katrina refugees flooded in and discovered they couldn't file an application with FEMA from our labs I'd have been tasked with getting XP installed on am post haste. Especially when Rita hit us directly, making it OUR patrons that we wouln't have been able to help get disaster assistance.
We don't have much of a need to play video DVDs thankfully, but it doesn't go down all that well when I explain that it would be illegal to do it. People just can't believe it and I really don't have the time to explain the complicated legal probems involved. At home I use libdecss and say "screw em if they don't like it." Hell, I have even mentioned it in protest letters to elected officials. But I won't deploy it at work, the legal liability is just too great. This isn't a problem Free Software can solve. We already HAVE the code but there isn't any path to lagalizing it. Same for Windows Media, Real, etc.
Parent
Re:I don't know about you ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy Microsoft and run IE or we won't help you. Holy crap, my taxes pay for this?!
Parent
Re:I don't know about you ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well the flames they got over it has caused them to finally correct their site. But that is just one down and thousands to go, all too many of them government agencies that have idiot MCSE types designing web portals. The point is that we have to be able to provide a solution that allows patrons to get to IE only sites. It just isn't something that we can compromise on. So a 100% Free Software stack i
So what do you do? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're telling these people it doesn't work and to take it up with the publishers, then wow, you're a better man than I.
I really think that DRM and proprietary codecs are completel
Re:So what do you do? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a total bitch. Realplayer helps a little, the Crossover plugin gets us a few others, including Quicktime. Since Fraunhaufer doesn't seem to be chasing decoders I took a chance and deployed a version of xmms with mp3 support enabled.
The problem is most of the interesting (to the kids in the labs anyway) content isn't in html, it is in flash, windows media and such. You either find ways to deal with a fair percentage of it or the calls to install Windows will g
Re:Lindows, freedows, freeblows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even so, I'm not disagreeing with you. This is exactly the reason that Linspire is so good. By hacking up KDE to make it more Windows-like, along with all that other stuff they do, Linspire means that the rest of us have even less reaso