With their recent dealings with Microsoft, does it spell the end of road for Linspire/Freespire? (like Xandros and SuSE)

Linspire may not die, but you can bet they will be doing damage control and a lot of sandbagging...

Hi everyone,

Here is an interview with the CEO of Linspire about all this. It is quite enlightening and enjoyable. Linspire is as strong as ever!

http://enterprise.linux.com/article..../06/17/0335242

Sincerely,

Richard L.

Strong as ever can be interpreted different ways, since they have been sliding ever lower over at DistroWatch for a long time now. Linspire 6.0 is well behind schedule and that does not help. I do wish them well, but I suspect Microsoft is only interested in them for their CNR Warehouse technology's ability to distribute "commercial" software for Linux. Once they have it--and perhaps similar connections to Ubuntu and other CNR partners as well, Microsoft will have no more use for them.

Don't worry about Linspire. The original founder of Lindows.com, Michael Robertson, is the epitome of an entrepreneur. Kevin Carmony, the President and CEO of Linspire, though not quite like Michael, is also in his own right an innovator, not so much of new technology, though certainly in ideas.

I think it is terrific that there are distros like Freespire and companies like Linspire. Not everything they do will succeed. Don't worry about that. Kevin has his head screwed on straight. He knows what niches to carve, and he also seems to know when to abandon an idea that does not work and then go on.

Also, Kevin Carmony believes that Linux is about choice - the choice to use completely free software, the choice to use completely proprietary software, and the choice to use a blend that includes some of each.

As an new customer into the LINUX world I was a bit disappointed to read of MS interest in Linspire which was to be my choice of LINUX desktop, hence i won't be touching it with a bargepole!!!!

Having worked with PC's for over 10 years now, I want to move into a 'familiar' destop OS that is totally windows independent, hence the interest in Linspire. I use my PC to download drivers, pdf's etc for work and my sons use it for on-line gaming. I am aware(possibly wrongly) that a few linux OS do have compatability issues and that adding peripherals can be a bit of a pain.

Any suggestions as to which is the most 'nugget compatable' OS??

Please be gentle :-)

Although I have used Linux and UNIX at work for over 10 years, I typically only used Windows at home except for an occasional peek at Linux for curiosity's sake. However, due to Microsoft's increasingly anti-consumer behavior, I started the conversion at home as well. My focus was not on emulating my work environment, but my home environment. Like you, I wanted something that would make the transition from Windows to Linux easier for myself and my family. Over time, I have pretty much settled on two distributions that fill that bill, although not perfectly: Mandriva and SUSE. Linspire behaved a lot like Windows, but was slow and seemed somewhat neglected by its parent company. (Minimal and slow security updates, a long time between new releases, etc.) Of course, SUSE (via Novell) is in bed with Microsoft like Linspire, so really reduces the options (from my perspective). Although I use and enjoy other distributions, many of them have shortcomings for people who are used to Windows. For example, Slackware can outperform most of the "polished" distributions, but installing and configuring a fully functional Slackware system requires a lot of time and patience the first time through--probably too much for a "newbie."

2 Q's,newbie1063, 1 serious, 1 not :

1. Is a "bargepole" more or less than 10 feet long?
2. What do you mean by "'nugget compatable'"?

Richard, welcome to LQ, your breadth of distro experience will be a valuable addition here.

Hi Cogar and Archtoad6,

thanks for your replies. By 'nugget compatable'I mean that any suggestions on a good LINUX OS should refer to an OS that is relatively easy to install and navigate around, as I have very little working knowledge of LINUX. I do have some basic UNIX skills however relevant that may be!?!

I will be looking into Cogar's suggestions in the next few days and am greatful for your help.

IMO....yes
It has been a long time coming but I think the end of *spire is nigh not necessarliy due to the deal but simply due to the fact they are very slow to accomplish anything and IMO the distro is not at all on-par with other offerings. Debian has faster releases than Linspire.

Interesting, I didn't know that Xandros and SuSE were at the end of the road

I know a lot of Linux users do not think much of Linspire but I am only a Linspire user since 12 2003 as it has worked for me so far. I am not a techie type but do not want to use windows anymore.
I cannot say if Linspire/Freespire will die but the troops are definitely outraged at what "might" happen when Linspire 6.0 comes out. If you get really bored, go to http://forum.freespire.org/ and read some of the post. If you join up, it is free, go to the Linspire General Discussion and read about the Upgrade to 6.0 and see what the powers to be are attempting to do the the CNR Gold subscribers.
The Linspire/Freespire Microsoft "marriage" is also another vibrant topic. I thought Polygamy was outlawed. I guess I have not kept up with the times. Maybe with so many "wives", Linux will drive MS crazy.

Rich

G'day from Australia,

I think we need to recognise that when Michael Robertson founded the predecessor to Linspire - called LindowsOS - in 2001, his goal was to create a simple system on which to build his vision for a "Click-n-Run Warehouse".

This is still the aim, hence the expanding of CNR into other OS's, with co-operation from Ubunutu currently with the new test versions of Freespire and Linspire.

Many people overlooked this, with the hype through LOS ver 2, ver 3, ver 4, ver 4.5 and ver5. I was one, and while it didn't come as a huge shock, I believe there is still the ongoing problem of communicating, frequently, with the parent organisation, Linspire Inc, which we should recognise is a commercial organisation in the same way as Novell is a commercial organisation, as was SuSE which Novell bought.

It is interesting that Microsoft has got into bed with both Novell and Linspire, which another poster suspects is for what MS can get out of it. They have always worked that way, so we should not be surprised.

Regarding what to try. May I suggest you download and play with either PuppyLinux, or GrafPup - which is a derivative of Puppy - they both run as fast as a LiveCD as an installed system because of being very lean and loaded into RAM. The ISOs to download are around the 80 to 100Mb, not the 700Mb of a full sized CD jam packed with stuff you are not likely to want or need. A better product imho than DamnSmallLinux and Knoppix and its clones.

This will give you hands-on experience with Linux which imho you need before playing with a larger system.

Should you choose to go with either (or both) using the provided installer you can stick them on the HDD with a minimum of fuss.

Should you want to try something different, try PC-BSD, which is a desktop version of FreeBSD and very much up to date also.

Google will provide you with the urls; I feel they should not be publicised on another OS's forum.

Please get back with your thoughts mate. Remember development takes time, and Linspire 6 while not quite ready, has been unavoidably delayed by switching from in-house Debian code to code provided by unbuntu, which in turn is based on Debian

Richard


PS
It is interesting how there are many concurrent attempts to create simple one-click installation of applications (and removal of same) to be user-friendly like the Windows way of doing it.

PC-BSD is designed around the pbi installer, which works like the Linspire CNR - but that's where it ends.

Puppy and GrafPup both use the dotpet (previously called dotpup) similar concept installer.

There are others.

I feel the pbi method is probably overall the best, because it assumes that everybody has spare space on their HDDs, so dependency-hell is eliminated by putting all dependencies for specific applications in the one directory. So if you need to update a particular library for one application, it doesn't affect any other application that uses the same named library. Cunning

Richard

A lot has happened since the last post. Freespire 2.0 has been released and I must say that it has come a very long way since version 1.x. Looks great, very responsive, and seems very stable. There was a glitch getting CNR basic up and running, but that seems to be cleared up for most people. What I like best is its support for the Broadcom based chipset my wireless card uses. First distro to work with it out of the box without any tweeking, very impressive.

As for recommendations of a distro for new users, if Freespire is not your cup of tea, try PCLinuxOS, it has good hardware and third party codec support. Mint Linux also does multimedia well, supporting most proprietary formats out of the box.


With regards to the original question about Linspire's likehood of dying, I don't know but the fact that Linspire's CEO has resigned from the company to pursue "other opportunities" can't be a good thing for its long term outlook.


Joe