Well have Linspire on my computer for free thanks to the freespire promo. I would like to know tho before commiting $20 to CNR (Maybe $50 if the software I want gets big enough a discount) Is there another Linux distro that's "double click to install" A LA MS Windows? I am no rook when it comes to pc usage, but as far as me and Linux are concerned it's day 3 for me. I did not like Ubuntu because I had made a small boo boo and ended up trashing the whole account, the ONLY account I could use and had to reformat the partition. Now I put Linspire on a single 12 gig parition because XP is still my OS of choice. Any advice/suggestions? I would appreciate anything especially before I committed to a year of CNR.

ubuntu is a great distro, as many will tell you. you should _never_ have only 1 account on a distro.. if you do, it means you only have the root account. you should also _never_ log into the root account, except only when 100% necessary, for times of system administration, etc.
that doesnt make ubuntu bad at all, it was just your mistake i guess.

i definetly wouldnt pay for a 1 year subscription for software (where you can get elsewhere for free, legally) for linux.. ever. hell, i dont even pay for M$ crap, but somehow still have it.

it seems people consider something like mandriva or SuSE user friendly distros, maybe give that a shot.

also, in the distro u use you should use the package management software which is included.. ie for ubuntu, use the 'synaptic' program to quite easily (click) to isntall/manage software.

so, my answer, again, is no. i wouldnt recommend buying into it. if you choose another distro youll save money and gain knowledge.

There is nothing wrong with paying if you like the distro. It helps to support it and keep them making better software.

You can try Xandros free version but I think you need to buy it to get full access to other sources of files.

i never said there was.
what i said is i would never pay for an annual subscription to linspires CNR when i can just use another distro and get the software legally for free and do it myself, while learning how.
i never said dont support the distro either, i even suggested to buy a cd to support it rather than downloading/burning ISOs yourself.

again, i was referring to the annual subscription that linspire offers (which costs a fee) that i would never pay for..its different from supporting software developers.

Good point ndroj, I'll definitly check out other distros, I got this for nothin legally anyway so in my opinion no harm no foul. I just don't know where to get decent Linux software for DVD playback and things of that nature. About my screw up with Ubuntu: I know what I did (sorta) I had only 1 account and I read in Ubuntu that root is disabled by default, well this wasn't a root account because my primary goal was to edit a file only root could edit. So I tried making the account I was on an "all powerful" account by selecting all of the groups such as: user, root, adm and so on and so forth. Then after that the acount was shot... After that I couldn't even go into User accounts to enable root to login.

Use Mepis. It's almost all point-and-click, and it's free.
The CD is both a live CD and installer CD.
It's even easier than double-clicking to install software:

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/winuxinstall.php

you can use synaptic on a LOT of distros and it is fairly point and clicky once it is setup! Another thing is once linspire stops supporting the version you have then you are stuck with only the OS or risk breakage useing debian repository or similar....

I guess you can use Synaptic on ALL Debian based distro's
As for Linspire not supporting older version, since Linspire Five-O they have a multiple-warehouse setup for CNR so in the future when they upgrade to a newer version (like 6.0 for example) the people who choose to still use 5.0 and not upgrade should be able to still use CNR and install their software. (Offcourse the people who use 4.0 won't have that option). I'm not sure but I think they are now supporting 5.0 and 4.5 (I know they have 5.0 and "thrillseekers" for Insiders to beta-test newer software so the multi-warehouse etup is working).

but there is no guarantee they will support anything older? how old do you think they will go since they WANT everyone to buy the newest and subscribe to the newest etc....

Jaketate is right - Slackware has slapt-get/synaptic, RPM based distros have apt4rpm/synaptic and, yes, all the Debian based distros have apt/synaptic.

And although I agree that linspire will stop supporting older versions, let's not forget that LQ and other forums and mailing lists will still offer advice and help. Having said that, most people tend to want to keep their versions up to date to advantage of security and bug fixes.

I didn't know Slack was able to use APT, but I know a Slackware user who claims the Slackware package manager (forgot it's name) is superior to APT (I find it hard to believe though).

I've been very happy with PCLinuxOS.

Easy to upgrade with synaptic and a fine selection of software. For a few bucks you can get access to upgrades and new packages well before they are made available to the general public. I've yet to have a hiccup with any upgrades or software installs, unlike some Debian offsprings I've tried.

I'll second Mepis. It comes with official Nvidia drivers (most distros come with unofficial nvidia drivers that just aren't as good), Adobe Reader (most come with something, but Adobe's is the most compatible with pdf documents), Flash Player for surfing the web, mp3 codecs, and Synaptic is a very easy to use installer. To play dvds, you need to install the libdvdcss package (click on Synaptic, put libdvdcss in the search box, then install it). The only thing that took me awhile to get used to is that Mepis defaults to single clicking like a Mac, which I wasn't used to.

Well I don't know for other Distro's but Debian tries not to include then bacause they want to be 100% GNU/Linux (and using the NVIDIA drivers is "tainting" the Kernel).
Offcourse the Official drivers might be better but for Debian they are not a default option (it's a principal mather for them).

Actually, I believe the nvidia driver is a module. Not integrated into the kernel. Thus it shouldn't taint the kernel. I believe that it is not included in general because it is free as in no money, but not free in the Linux use of the word. I'm also not completely sure whether or not nvidia officially allows their drivers to be licensed to people who don't have a card, so that could be an issue as well. The fact is, whether or not you like the philosophy of including non-"free" software, it makes it easier to have the stuff installed.