Dunbar, are you into music, you mention midi, does this mean you write compose perform. If so, forget Linspire etc and hunt out a distro called DeMuDi, (Debian Musicians Distro.)
Built for the muso in us all. There is not a single distro in the whole world that just works. They all need some research and tweaking to some extent. I have been playing with Linux since
1999 Caldera on a 486, and there is always some thing or other that just doesn't work.

Getting hot under the collar wont help either everybody play nice or I will tell your mum.

best of luck and merry christmas

regards shorty943.

SooooAnd so forth, and so on, ad nauseum.

If I could block you off this thread... I would.

You posted that you do not like *Spire, yet you post in my thread where I ask about *Spire and you tell me your distro is better?

So you are saying I should stop trying *Spire and go... no, I should 'DISTRO JUMP' back to some other distro? That is about ALL I can get out of your last post.

Kindly, I ask YOU, IndyGunFreak: do NOT post in this thread again about any other distro. As the saying goes: "Lead, Follow, or GET OUT OF THE WAY"Thanks.

Sometimes, IGF, the best way to help someone is to NOT post at all. :tisk:

Well, I like to 'Loop' and run a tracker. That means midi. I'd also like to use Arts as a synth, but haven't yet tried that in FreeSpire.DeMuDi already failed to install in this and 2 other systems.Actually, *Spire has more things working correctly on this box than Slackware 10.2, SuSe 10.0 and SuSe Professional 9.1/9.2/9.3.Well, I'm grateful that my ISP booted me off... my initial response to IGF was NOT pretty, but I had to logout and login in order to recover Lbrowser and thus I lost the contents (I haven't figured out the FreeSpire sudo issue quite yet... I'm only a few days into FreeSpire... otherwise the logout wouldn't have happened).

Time will tell... I'm still tracking down a slow modem connection issue; I got much of my 56K back when I added an new init string to KPPP... I went from 9600bps to something like 24kbps. I know this hardware and my ISP can do 49.333k so this is still running about 1/2 speed. I'm thinking MTU is not set right ... or maybe flow control. No need to address the modem thing, I have a different thread going over at FreeSpire support forums.

dunbar,

I can tell you that I have an ATI Radeon 8500 All-In-Wonder and Linspire 5.1.427. I was able to get TV output to work and it worked better than Windows (less screen jitter). I had to install the Linux drivers from the ATI site to get the TV out, which was easy for me being a noob.

I use all VIA chipsets with AC97 onboard audio. Works great for me.

MP3's play, DVD Player works (got to pay $10 to use it legally for encrypted)

I have not had the need for the other stuff you mentioned so I dont know how well you can get the other stuff to work. You might want to check their official forums too.

I would also recommend giving Freespire a try.

Umm, thanks??
 

Good advice, lol!
I know about their forums, thanks!

Good to hear that so much hardware is working with *Spire after I saw so many failures in other, more 'respected' distros.

I recently found out one of the reasons that several things "just work" with Linspire and Freespire that do not always work with other distros. When Lindows.com had its name litigation with Microsoft, it won some great battles. Lindows.com agreed to change its name, and Microsoft agreed to pay Linspire over $20 Million to cover expenses. They also agreed to give Linspire access to Windows Media and possibly other formats as well, which explains why certain things "just work". A few other vendors have these things. They have either also gone into agreement with Microsoft (as is the case with Novell and SLED - SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop), and others provide the stuff and take the chance - though most commercial companies will not do this, and that is why so many things do not work out of the box with Linux when you try to run Microsoft drivers on them - either for devices or for applications that have specific formats.

The only thing (other than money) Linspire got out of that deal was the Windows Media libraries. The reason other things just work is because they do in house hardware testing and certification and work with some hardware companies on getting driver support. You can also run the LiveCD on any internet connected computer and issue a hardware report to them (it's not automatic, do not worry they are not taking info that you have not consented). This has given them a large list of what works and what does not work.

One downer to using Free/Linspire is it's a very light install and most of the software you want to use you need to download. Pretty bad for the dialup user. Linspire does have a CD with the most commonly used software, but I'm not sure how up to date it is.

I'm not sure about the MIDI support. I know Free/Linspire supports MIDI but I'm sure it depends on the soundcard used. You mentioned AC'97, my guess would be it should work fine. If you do install anything try to use Click-N-Run, it will give you the best possible hands free shouldn't have to configure anything installs. This is the lazy man's distro :) .

As far as Video cards, I always install the latest Nvidia drivers. All it takes is download and extract the Kernal source, then run the Nvidia installer, couldn't be easier. As far as ATI, good luck... I say try installing it from ATI. I doubt the drivers that come with the distro are any good, but I would try it first and see what happens.

I've been using this distro since Lindows 2.0 and the main thing I have to always configure are the video drivers, everything else seems to work fine.

Freespire is my current distro, if you are having issues with root access from your user, look on the wiki or the forums for the "root menu", simple to setup and solves and lot of access denied headaches.

I've seen no uber geeky Linux user give Free/Linspire the credit it deserves. Oh well.

I have tried linspire and had little time to fritter away on*spire derived distributions and not liked one of them that I tried.

On the horizon
 

Is Freespire 2.0 which is much better than Linspire. You may pay for Linspire and get "support" for your money but they are running into the age old problem that Windows has... No updates. Just slow to release any updates or new versions. This is Linux. A new version comes out every day! Besides, with great forums like these who needs to talk to a BPO in India?Anyhow, I have used the Freespire and Linspire distros. Freespire outperformed Linspire by far and is much more bleeding edge. They also allow users to try out Alpha builds of beta versions. Something Linspire charges you 99.99 to do! Whaaa? Anyhow, Freespire supported devices such as my Broadcom(Motorola) and Belkin USB wireless adapters! That has NEVER happened with any other distro. It also works quite well with my all-in-wonder ATI card and recognizes everything out of the box. Other distros that I have found that work well and do come with live cd's are PCLinuxOS and LinuxMint. A great site for links to cd downloads and news on the latest distro releases is www.distrowatch.com. Don't forget Linux magazine which comes with a new distro DVD every month for 9.99(Borders or Barnes & Noble). Incidentally, why are you still on dial-up? Even the cheapest broadband connection (usually 768k @ 24.99) is faster. I've taken my laptop to coffee shops with free connections and downloaded an ISO before. Annddd if you have a wireless card you can almost always without fail find an open wireless network in your neighborhood. I mean your phone probably costs 30.00 alone plus what? 15-25 dollars per month for internet? Best deal I've found? Comcast gives you phone(keep your existing number) cable(expanded basic) and internet(6Mbps) for 99.99. Anyhow, whatever you do, don't pay for Linux! It's open-source and always should be!

Freespire 2.0? Although it should be out this quarter, it is not yet released AFAIK and is still under development. A release candidate or alpha version is hardly a responsible recommendation to someone looking for a distribution that just works.

Comparing Freespire to the $99 version of Linspire that includes CNR gold is an unexpected comparison. Incidentally, Linspire has regular sales. Anyone who keeps an eye on them can generally save something on the order of 50%.

Linspire is targeted at the consumer OEM market--more of a direct competitor to the strength of Microsoft than any other Linux distribution except perhaps Xandros. Therefore it makes sense that it would include support and charge for it. :twocents:

That is NOT a benefit, friend. That is preventing people from documenting anything to any great degree.That kind of support should exist everywhere in Linux... not just in Freespire/Linspire. Why is the support code not made GPL?? Besides, D-Link needs nothing!! D-Links can be controlled and upgraded by any modern web browser!!Maybe because my distance exceeded the distance that DSL could serve and Cable internet wanted $500 for installation??? Rural, my friend... some people are RURAL. Think!!!Laptop... I still dream of getting a Pentium II laptop.... I have a Macintosh Powerbook 520C, but that isn't wireless, does not have CD drive and a mini-CDs have more capacity than the laptops internal hard disk. A PII laptop is about all I can afford. Until recently, I could only afford trailing edge devices such as that 1998 ATI TV All-In-Wonder. Keyword: afford. Money. I'm unemployed, and have been underemployed for years. Maybe you just have to understand that people suffer their circumstances the BEST they can and you need to accept that they actually have reasons for their 'senseless' decisions. Your griping really does nothing for me.Nearest house is over 1/2 mile away... wireless NICs can't reach that distance and sponging off their access is not really courteous.Internet is $8.95 per month from www.isp.com, I've had nearly flawless service for 4+ years.Comcast not available in my area... nearest Comcast installation is 4 miles. RURAL, dude, RURAL. THINK!!!!

Dialup was all I had ... until a few days ago. I just learned that DSL service is NOW available to me, so I signed up and I now have 6MBPS. For a few months, I'll keep paying for dialup while I use DSL, then I'll commit to DSL if DSL still works to be the reliable answer.

So all in all, for what I get out of this thread, you said Freespire supported everything you threw at it.

Well, I've been using Linux since the late 1990s, used ArchLinux, SuSe, Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, you name it. I know about Alpha and Beta and stable. Just tired of the incessant 'not quite 100% compatible with everything in my box' situations. I really want to USE Linux, not get a degree in installing/administering Linux.

First, none of my comments were directed at you, dunbar, although they were intended for your ultimate benefit. My apologies for not making that more clear.

Second, are you actually looking for something or filling up your free time by carrying on a rant and insulting people? The latter, it appears. FWIW, this forum is very helpful for someone with a desire to learn who doesn't have a chip on their shoulder.

Incidentally, my point is not to rag on you . . . really. Still, for your own good, you might reread this thread and consider the tone of your responses. If the online attitude you have displayed in this thread comes across with employers, I don't find it difficult to believe that they may be left with a less than positive impression. :scratch:

I like the *spires...aside from my few camera problems in the newer revisions of them, I've had an excellent time with hardware detection and having it be the only distro that has worked with my dial up modem out of the box.

And yeah I don't think anyone who responded was in any way talking down to the OP, who seemed to get mad that his question wasn't being answered the way he wanted it to be answered.

Peace.

Go online and order a Freespire disc, you can get one for about $2.00. The Beta 2.0 is out too. I believe you can either install or run from the disc.