If you are looking for a desktop Linux with all the ease and user-friendliness of OS X, Linspire Five-O is a great option. It may not be the best for advanced users, but home and SOHO users will be happy with its performance, support, and great looks, the review says.
Linspire Five-O Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
i have tried linspire a few times and every time i have been less then impressed… while it is easy to use it runs painfully slow, even on modern hardware.
anyway…. i guess i am what the author would consider an advanced user so…. this review isn’t really directed towards me anyway
in any event….. i would direct a newbie towards simplymepis before i would send them to linspire
“in any event….. i would direct a newbie towards simplymepis before i would send them to linspire”
Not that SimplyMepis is that easy to use.
Just two examples:
1)A newbie needs to learn about apt, and that isn’t an easy task, especially considering that by Warren own admission Mepis is not fully Debian compatible.
2)Setting up an ADSL connection in Mepis is far from trivial.
Ever heard of Synaptic? Where were you all these years it has been around?
You know, Synaptic??? The GUI where you point and click and then it does everything for you. The one that is included in the default MEPIS install?
Ever heard of Synaptic? Where were you all these years it has been around?
You know, Synaptic??? The GUI where you point and click and then it does everything for you. The one that is included in the default MEPIS install?
I don’t normally respond to myself, but did you know that Click N’ Run is a GUI front-end to *gasp* apt??? Just like Synaptic. So please explain the difference.
(MEPIS and Debian being incompatable doesn’t matter, since newbies that can’t even grasp apt aren’t going to be mixing repositories anytime soon.)
“(MEPIS and Debian being incompatable doesn’t matter, since newbies that can’t even grasp apt aren’t going to be mixing repositories anytime soon.)”
Oh, I believed they were already mixed in Mepis’ /etc/apt/sources.list
And anyway, can you tell me where this great Mepis repository is? I want to add it to my sources.list
“Ever heard of Synaptic? Where were you all these years it has been around?”
I was using Debian and apt, and I knew that synaptic is only a convenient frontend for apt. Things could be (almost) OK if you ever only used Stable (although even Stable has its fair share of bugs, they aren’t just “release critical”)
But try a dist-upgrade in Testing or Sid and you’ll soon realize what I mean. As soon as a problems arise (and they do all the time), you need advanced skills and plenty of experience.
I learned Debian the hard way, and there isn’t any easy one: CNR tries to make a newbie’s life easier.
so can you do a dist-upgrade equivalent in CNR? if not then why would that be a comparison…..
You imply that everything is always ok in linspire? so nothing ever goes wrong? packages always cleanly install and uninstall? how many packages are available thru CNR?
“so can you do a dist-upgrade equivalent in CNR?”
You can in a sense. You can download all the upgrades provided by Linspire. I know, it is a limit to your freedom, but it is either that or learn the hard way.
“You imply that everything is always ok in linspire? so nothing ever goes wrong? packages always cleanly install and uninstall? how many packages are available thru CNR?”
Nothing is ever perfect, but they do their very best to make people’s life easy.
How many apps? I believe around 3000: there is everything the average user will ever need: multimedia, games, P2P, development…
And it is still fairly compatible with Debian, so you can still apt-get install something missing.
Having said all that I use Debian, not Linspire.
But I paid for a lifetime membersip to support their ideal of linux on the desktop made easy for everybody.
so you think paying for CNR makes sense when synaptic is practically as easy… all a distro would have to do is make sure to have their own repositories and to setup the sources correctly, or be debian compliant and use debian repos… even linspire could of went this route…
so why do you use debian instead of linspire?
well you mention dist-upgrade and CNR making a newbies life easier in the same sentence but that doesnt seem like any comparison at all…
you can apt-get something but tommorrow you may totally trash all your other apps because of dependency issues….
too many complaints at the forum, and way too many end up being “sorry it just dont work with linspire” and wharts up with that boot time…
i think xandros offers about as much as linspire and also offers a free edititon that is limited but may suite a newbies needs, and at least it lets you test it and play before you decide to pay…. And I have never had any problems installing software from my debian disks and/or libranet disks on xandros…
now i see linspire offering CNR and CNR GOLD…. comeon…
oh, what happens if linspire goes out of business tomm and you have to reinstall… what will you CNR then?
“so you think paying for CNR makes sense when synaptic is practically as easy… all a distro would have to do is make sure to have their own repositories and to setup the sources correctly, or be debian compliant and use debian repos… even linspire could of went this route…”
Do you realize what you are saying? If Debian, with more than 1000 developers can’t make its own distro bugs-free, what makes you believe that a company/distro with limited resources could do that? And once again, synaptic is easy until you don’t come across bugs. Then suddenly you begin scratching your head.
“so why do you use debian instead of linspire?”
Because I am not Aunt Tillie and I don’t need that handholding.
“you can apt-get something but tommorrow you may totally trash all your other apps because of dependency issues….”
Sure, if you don’t know what you are doing. Then you are better off with Linspire. But an experienced Debian user can keep upgrading his system for years.
“And I have never had any problems installing software from my debian disks”
Did you change your mind? Do you use Debian now? And do you manage to do better than the most advanced Debian users? (because they always come across problems, only they know how to solve them)
well I dont see anywhere that i said that, i said that a distro can easily set sources and have repos and make life with synaptic as easy as with CNR….
The bugs in debian rarely are debian bugs, they are package bugs and will occur but linspire often creates their own problems…. jack and sound is a excellent example, poor isa support is another, having CNR and other resource hogs crank up automagically is another, not including compiler and so ofrth is another….
“And once again, synaptic is easy until you don’t come across bugs. Then suddenly you begin scratching your head. ”
and this statement applies equally well to CNR, go to the forums and you will see numerous problems with CNR as well… Atleast with synaptic I can dig into it and see what is going on…
So how long does a reinstall and all the CNR downloads take to have a full and complete system with all your favorite apps and stuff? How long will that take if something happens and you are stuck using dialup? WHat about NO internet…..
As I said there are WAYYY too many disadvantages to linspire that even if EVERYTHING worked as well as they claim there would still be so many cons that I still wouldnt consider it a good choice!
“Sure, if you don’t know what you are doing. Then you are better off with Linspire. But an experienced Debian user can keep upgrading his system for years. ”
well either compare apples to apples or stop! are we talking about how CNR compares or not? for a newbie user or experienced? stick to one or the other please. It offers nothing to a experienced user and it offers little to a newbie…..
Linspire is a poor choice since the price of admiision is so high and no guarantee it is compatible, no guarantee that CNR will exist tommorrow, no guaranttee that next year the cost wont be twice as high… etc…
“Did you change your mind? Do you use Debian now? And do you manage to do better than the most advanced Debian users? (because they always come across problems, only they know how to solve them)”
huh, i never said i didnt…. sure i have problems, well actually not many anymore and nothing that cannot be fixed with simple configuration changes and so forth… i have never ran across anything that “only they know how to solve them”! too funny… Often with linspire there is NO fix or it is only fixed until linspire rewrites the file….
poor choice overall, I am not saying that people shouldnt try it if they really want to…. I just personally do not think it is a good deal and that all things considered it does not offer a good value…
Linspire supportters just love to proclaim how good it is and the few good things it offers and yet usually wont even acknowledge the problems it has or even acknowledge that someone has a good point about some of the cons of linspire…. They just continue to change the subject to some other good thing in linspire and brush over the bad….
Heh? :/
“Not that SimplyMepis is that easy to use.
Just two examples:
2)Setting up an ADSL connection in Mepis is far from trivial.”
What do you mean? :/
I’ve installed SimplyMepis on several computers and I’ve never had to do one single thing to configure an ADSL connection. The connection, the ethernet cards, even multiple cards have always been detected and configured automatically during the Mepis installation process.
Nevertheless, you’ve completely lost me with that statement! :/
Have you even tried Mepis? If so, what stage was it in? Alpha?
i think MAYBE he mant ppoe which is sometimes troublesome but all in all I just think he is repeating stuff he heard….. overlook and ignore
“2)Setting up an ADSL connection in Mepis is far from trivial.”
What do you mean? :/ ”
I mean that I have never been able to successfully setup pppoe, which for instance is a trivial task in Kanotix or, indeed, Linspire.
And please tell that rude person that I never say anything which doesn’t come from my own experience.
“Have you even tried Mepis? If so, what stage was it in? Alpha? :o”
I have tried *every single release*
If you want to know the whole story, there was a time when I was a beta tester.
And in fact Mepis has a small but important contribution from me. Without it Mepis would be a lot less popular today, because of thousands of angry new users having their Windows partition destroyed.
” i have tried linspire a few times and every time i have been less then impressed… while it is easy to use it runs painfully slow, even on modern hardware.”
Strange. I use Linspire Five-O in my PIII 975MHz and I find it fast. I have used Mandrake, Ubuntu and at the moment have SuSE 9.3 as another system in my computer. Linspire is clearly faster than SuSE and works better.
It shows all the .wmv etc. videos where SuSE copmplaints about missing plugins. The fonts and general look is better also in Linspire.
SuSE gets the points of having OpenOffice 2.0 and newer KDE.
They talk about how its good for older systems, then they use this as a test rig
Test System:
“DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra-D, Athlon64 3200+, Gigabyte X600 XT, 120GB Maxtor HDD, 2×512 Mushkin PC3700”
I don’t know of too many people that have this just laying around as a second computer.
Perhaps stick to the reviews with people buying old p3-700 ibmthinkpads from ebay.
just sayin…..
Yea, the article frequently critiqued Linspire for speed issues. I don’t think it’s meant for a second pc thing to play with, I believe Linspire is looking to live on your pimary pc. And it’s really done with selling to places like microtel in mind; which ship old pentium 4’s and cheap semprons.
usually slow… lots of resource hogging software – cnr,virussafe,etc…
it seems to do really good for a select few and not at all or REALLY poorly for the rest!
overall, i dont consider it a very good distro there are others that offer about the same or similar and often work better on various hardware and are way more flexible.
I think I predicted about a year ago that they would fold and go under with two years to three at the most… i am guessing closer to two
oh and has anyone ever got a source cd? GPL requirement you know…
“I think I predicted about a year ago that they would fold and go under with two years to three at the most… i am guessing closer to two
”
If that happens it is because it is happening to all commercial distros: you can’t make much money from a boxed linux when so many good ones are available for free.
You need to add some extra value. But linspire does just that: it makes Aunt Tillie’s life easier.
There is NOTHING user friendly about the sentence I found on the Web site:
“has been becoming increasingly”
IMO synaptic is as easy to use as CLR and simplymepis is free, in additon to that… mepis has a massive repository and is nearly 100% debian compatable….. in additon to that… it’s not slower than fricken molasis in january.
.. ok…. think about this….. you are an average windows user…. you install simplymepis which has all your net plugins installed and preconfigured by default, you have an instant messenger client (gaim), and you have an office suite. The average user will hardly need to install software anyway
most people on here are power users and think as such….. but the average windows user is not a power user… and SimplyMepis blows linspire away (for free)
I’ll be totally honest… i don’t use a debian distro anymore on my primary box because i have graduated to more power user oriented distro which will remain nameless
A friend of mine bought a emachine which came with Linspire on it because he wanted to learn linux (not planning too use Linspire of course). I booted it up and was very shocked at how slow, annoying and none user friendly this distro is. It is cluttered beyond belief and extremely, and i mean extremely, ugly. Maybe CNR is a redeming quality but it’d have to be pretty damn good to make up for how crappy the rest is.
In the end we installed ubuntu on the machine. I am a gentoo user and must say that even I was very impressed with how great ubuntu is. It’s not too fancy yet (next few releases should fix that soon) but the gnome setup, apps pre-installed and gui for apt is just great and easy to use.
Do they still by default make an admin user like windows? I felt that was a pretty stupid decision on their part. Browsing internet as admin is kind of stupid for average users.
Re: “Do they still by default make an admin user like windows? I felt that was a pretty stupid decision on their part. Browsing internet as admin is kind of stupid for average users.”
From all the reviews and comments I’ve heard Linspire Inc still believes in making the distribution as easy to use as possible. Though in the process they also use the Windows model of setting up all accounts with Root (Administrator) level access and leaving it to the end user to have the intelligence and patience to set up Limited user accounts. It is stupid for any company to knowingly take part in something that weakens the security of a consumers software while making a profit from it. They could fix this but they have chosen not to.
Linspire gets major kudos for including Reiser4.
when will SUSE manage this feat? the next release (10.0) in october…………?
and what are people waiting for exactly? i understand there is some argument about putting support for it in the kernel (2.6.13?), but which kernel, and when?
regards
Re: “when will SUSE manage this feat? the next release (10.0) in october…………?”
Novell provides ReiserFS 3.6.18 with SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 and will provide an update via YaST Online Update (YOU) when they feel it’s proven stable enough for their customers. While some people like to have bleeding edge technology there are a lot of people that don’t want that at the sacrifice of performance, security or stability. If you’re using Linspire you should be more concerned that you’re running as Root from the default installation.
last i checked not even linspire was using reiser4 by default….
heck as much trouble (superblock issues) that linspire had with reiser in 4.5 that was never corrected you would think they would have not been so quick to jump on 4, or maybe that WAS the reason….
is that linspire is NOT FOR YOU
it is marketed at windows users
it can be used as an introduction to linux for people who have used windows for years.
it will give them a taster of how good linux can be.
I know it is slow, I know it is limited, I know how to use APT, I know what Synaptic is for…. but like I said, Linspire is not for me.
windows users? intro to linux? pleeeze…. I find that xandros works better out of the box better than linspire and more things “just work”….
why pay for a “taster” when you can get the meal for free and nibble as you go….
Most users will greatly appreciate it if their OS is available in their local language. There are people who don’t even speak English – catering them an such an OS would definitely not be user-friendly.
Linspire has no mention of internationalisation or localisation. Thus, Linspire is – if anything – “The US English language market’s easiest Linux”.
in agreement, i have played with linsire here and there and find it usable. my girlfriend, who lives in brasil, does not know anything about linux. i have asked the good people at linspire to provide a portuguese translation, but they do not…at least not out of the box. to make a short story long, when i travel to brazil next month for my wedding, i have promised cristiane to teach her the basics of linux with ubuntu.
uuhhh, it’s really too early in the morning, noticed my spelling is way off, my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. of course, the topic here is about linspire and not linsire. brazil or brasil, take your pick here, one is the english version the other one is portuguese.
Feature for feature Linspire is the world’s easiest and best desktop Linux. Only Xandows half way close.
what features would that be…..
please elaborate!
xandros built in network browsing…. what linspire feature equivalent is there?
I haven’t been a big Linux fan so far but thought I’d try Linspire Five-O. It is awesome! It is very user-friendly and intuitive, well integrated, blazing fast, and visually it looks darn good. I have to admit I am pretty much sold on it. You might want to give it a try and you are in for a very pleasant surprise.
how easy is it to install gnome? linux is all about choice right? so how much choice do you have? only as much as linspire gives you i think….
fast huh? system specs please… ever had CNR almost hang the system checking for updates and so forth….
as i have said it has SOME good things going for it but all the bad things dont outweigh the good for most people..
actually i think it was kevin carmony or micheal himself said he didnt see anything wrong with running as root and challenged anyone to tell him what was so wrong with doing so….
I personally do not see this as a very large issue but certainly more secure is always a good thing, and you do have the option (i think) during install to setup other users…. but doing so often causes trouble in linspire…
Re: “actually i think it was kevin carmony or micheal himself said he didnt see anything wrong with running as root and challenged anyone to tell him what was so wrong with doing so….”
The reality that neither have a clear concept of what security is and why it’s important especially in regards to the OS. Consider Linspire the equivalent to leaving the keys in your car with the doors unlocked or leaving all the windows and doors of your home open for any criminal to come in. There’s very good reasons why people should set up Limited user accounts. Such as limiting damage caused by either outside sources (ie: crackers, script kiddies) or the user (ie: wiping out an important directory, etc). I’m sure business owners don’t want their employees having full access to every program or directory. If Linspire really cared about what’s in the best interests for consumers then they would have Limited user accounts mandatory during installation similar to distributions such as SuSE Linux and Mandriva Linux. Then those that choose to run as Root (Administrator) 24/7 have only themselves to blame when the system comes crashing to a halt.
how hard it would be to “hack” or at least “hijack” the cnr system? could it be a security risk?
also it just feels like it could be turned into a “automatic update” kind of thing….
what version of firefox is in CNR? anyone know? So can you remove the default browser and just install firefox?
There is a free Linspire 5.0 offer going around at the moment: http://supportforum.sun.com/sjds/index.php?t=msg&goto=8545&rid=0
that is a FUNNNY thread…. everyone should read that! I love it….
does it come with a source cd?
> 800 MHz or higher processor
Having an 400mhz celeron I’m left out, then.
When I bought my notebook (toshiba satellite 4090) back in ’99 it was shipped with Win98.
I need to browse the internet, view some pdf, do some C++ coding with Jedit, using gcc (c++) for h8/300 micros.
Is there a compact and fast distro that let me do it ?
From a desktop experience what gnome/2.10 or Kde3.4 gives to me more than Win98 ?
I’m not talking about Security and Stability.
Those big requirements for a modern Linux distro are the price for Security and Stability ?
I think the desktop experience didn’t improve that much from Win98 (imho).
You could told me to use XFCE but when I launch Jedit, or Firefox I’m in the pain again.
Right now I’m listening Bach, browsing Firefox with 3 tabs open, and gnome terminal open (debian/sid gnome 2.10).
Running top I can see that firefox is using 32% of memoery, gnome terminal 8.8%.
When I boot my machine, after the login (I use startx to launch gnome) and running free I see that my OS is using about 64MB of ram.
So without any graphics half of RAM is alread gone.
For what ?
You only really listed you CPU for your system specs. You should consider Vector Linux or even distributions such as SuSE Linux Professional can run on older hardware. In the end though with very old hardware you’ll be limited to what applications and the services you can have running.
http://www.vectorlinux.com/
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/sysreqs.html
Whoever says “Use Synaptic, it is just as easy” hasn’t got a clue about Debian and I have no time to waste with them.
If developers allow you to believe that, they deserve to be hanged.
Look here http://www.irmateam.com/
They’re actually trying to push a big effort at getting all the international strings together if you read.
Yet of course this will be criticised because… they tried to make Windows programs run on it… and you only run as root. Jesus wept.
I wish people would even try the frigging thing, aye a current version, before they spout this same old shit.
maaybe i am dense but what does that have to do with it?
try a current version huh, everytime we do and there is a problem we are told to wait for the next version since it will fix everything….
spout same old stuff becuase it is the same old thing….
Strange that you had the time to post that you dont have time… here is the synaptic screenshot page
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/action.html
how difficult does that look?
I do wish more distros would cater to people that need a one clicky shiny installer but I hardly think that installing software on most distros is hard! Heck aunt tillie probably doesnt need to install anything extra so I dont think it is that big of a issue with aunt tillie types. I would say it is more of a issue with carl jr types that loves to install every piece of software so he can to ‘play’ with it. Carl jr doesnt want to take 5 minutes to learn something, just clikc next a bunch of times. I mean 5 minutes would be the max time on his attention span anyway so CNR may be just the thing for him. Most advanced users have their favorite software and rarely instll others and anyway they know how to install software without a problem. SO not a issue there.
It is fairly simple to write a little “hackish” one click installer that runs from a cd with nice little screenshots and descriptions… maybe more should try this route….maybe
So can I sell you a car that is nice and shiny, got the bling bling, spinning caps and all. Of course the sound systme is a mess, sound is usually a few seconds behind. Oh and it doesnt run that well because the protection coating that actually doesnt do that much takes upa lot of resources as does the ‘phone home’ CNR system checking checking checking for updates. And of course this car only runs on the big fast highways, not those slow dialup highways……ok i willl stop
as i have said before, if you like it USE IT ! But weigh the pros and cons and I think there are numerous other distros that while they may offer a bit less in a area or two they more than make up for it in other areas! Linspire has some glaring “gotchas” that everyone loves to overlook and rave about how shiny it is, how easy it is….well how about at least acknowledging some of the problems and discussing those!
“here is the synaptic screenshot page
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/action.html
how difficult does that look?”
Once again SYNAPTIC IS ONLY A FRONTEND FOR APT.
So it is easy to use until there aren’t any problems.
Once problems arise, and they do very often in Debian these days, you need a deep knowledge of dpkg, apt and possibly aptitude, and you have to use the CL.
Even for me, with thousands of hours of experience, problems never seen before do arise. But I can figure it out. So I hope I have made it clear once and for all that CNR is a huge boon for any new(ish) user, be it Aunt Tillie, Carl jr or Jo User.
Of course a great many of them decide to learn what is under the hood and eventually they don’t need Linspire and CNR any longer.
There are also other distros which try to make your life easier, like Libranet, but Libranet doesn’t come cheap either (except for the very old 2.8.1, based on Woody)
dude where did you find the time….
thats ABOUT all CNR is, a nice frontend for apt… the exact same problems occur and happen which are usually dependency issues…..
dependency issues rarely happen in debian if you stick to the released distro and dont go off trying to mix stuff. That is the reason they call it a stable release after all. So problems never happen in CNR? What do you do to fix thosee? Does Kevin Carmony come to your house and fix it for you? CNR is nothing but a installer and a expensive one at that!!!
“Even for me, with thousands of hours of experience, problems never seen before do arise. But I can figure it out. So I hope I have made it clear once and for all that CNR is a huge boon for any new(ish) user, be it Aunt Tillie, Carl jr or Jo User. ”
Can you give me a example of these problems? What have you made clear? I dont see that you have offered anything that clearly shows how CNR offers a huge boon as you put it! If anything you have proven my point that linspired people love to harp on a couple things in linspire while ignoring everything else!
“thats ABOUT all CNR is, a nice frontend for apt… the exact same problems occur and happen which are usually dependency issues…..”
No they don’t, because they make sure that the CNR is like Debian Stable, almost bug-free.
“dependency issues rarely happen in debian if you stick to the released distro and dont go off trying to mix stuff. That is the reason they call it a stable release after all”
I have said that already: if you use Debian Sarge you should have very few problems. But what did you do before the release of Sarge? Use Woody, as old as dirt?
Moreover, the majority of distros are NOT based on Stable. And what do you do when Sarge become old (it is already beginning to feel outdated)
“Can you give me a example of these problems?”
That proves me once again that you have never worked with Debian.
Examples? Thousands. Just a couple for you: install apt-listbugs and try:
# apt-get -t testing dist-upgrade
or even worse:
# apt-get -t unstable dist-upgrade
and have a look at the list of bugs: I bet you’ll be scared.
(of course you can ignore the bugs: do it and see what happens-fam is a very interesting example)
Else try:
# apt-get -t unstable install gnome
Another one? Try to install KDE 3.4.1
And I hope you’ll finally begin to understand.
“CNR is nothing but a installer and a expensive one at that!!!”
$49 a year, including every new release of the OS.
Libranet, as an example, is $90 and in one year time it will be totally outdated.
marketing says linspire is
“….based on linux…”
is that the correct way to put it????
testing something…ignore me
http://forum.linspire.com/viewforum.php?f=149
here is a real good one
http://forum.linspire.com/viewtopic.php?t=410469
and plenty more dependency issues and all of this is their NEWEST version….
http://forum.linspire.com/viewtopic.php?t=410800
http://forum.linspire.com/viewtopic.php?t=409588
libranet has a free version
xandros has OCE edition
mepis
plenty of others….
all of these you can try out and decide if it works for you and if you like then pay and get more… not linspire….
$50 bucks a year and if it doesnt work then you wait and pay for the next version, and maybe you wait three years to release the new version then what… dude pay your money, be happy, i will pass and I would say most others will too….
well if you agree that sarge doesnt give problems then why do you think linspire is such a great value?
the more you talk the more you prove you dont have a clue….
“the more you talk the more you prove you dont have a clue….”
No, that is you:
“libranet has a free version”
Two years old
“xandros has OCE edition”
With limits. Then SUSE gives you a full free version.
“mepis”
Many people don’t like it, with good reasons.
“and maybe you wait three years to release the new version then what…”
Nonsense, they release every few months and you don’t pay for it, can you grasp that?
“dude pay your money”
I paid only once and I am a member for life
Enough! You can say whatever you want, I regret the time I have waisted: I know that you Mepis users are incredibly arrogant and clueless.
“Nonsense, they release every few months and you don’t pay for it, can you grasp that? ”
yea a bug release ONLY, not new version… not new KDE or anything…. when was 4.5 originally released… a FEW YEARS ago…
yea you are a member for life but you said you dont even use it, you prove you wasted money and yet you tell others to do the same…. oh and you are a member for life or until linspire changes the terms! technically you are a LINDOWS member for life and lindows doesnt exist anymore… and if linspire closes shop tommorrow then what?
keep talking…..it keeps getting deeeper
notice you didnt have any retort to the dependency problems….
This really is a rather interesting thread.
I’ve used Mepis – Nice job they are doing. Only problem I have had is that after a week, inevitably something that has worked all week long just quits working. Wireless for example. Unlike some of you who have posted – I’m not a Linux guru. Just smart enough to get myself in a jam.
I’ve used quite a few of the distros being thrown around in the conversation. I have used Linspire since 3.0 and like it. Is it perfect? No. Is CNR perfect? Nope. Their forums are, however, an excellent source for getting help.
CNR has been labeled a front to Apt, but I believe CNR is something that they have created from the ground up. When they first started it was basically a frontend to apt, but it was rebuilt with their own proprietory code a little while back. Synaptic is actually much further along IMHO. You still cannot update KDE or the Kernel through CNR. The apps that are released to the warehouse are supposed to be tested before they release them. Not all bugs are found in testing, however. By the way – there are now two pricing plans for CNR. If all you want to do is download the apps – and you don’t care about getting the next version for free – then the best plan is to just purchase the $19.95 a year Standard CNR. The regular priced ($49.95) price is now called CNR-Gold. Of course – one could just uncomment the apt-sources and update it since it is now incorrect (like Xandros’s are) and use apt. The problem with doing that is that Linspire created their system from a “snapshot” of Debian Sid. If you use apt you risk breaking something. You definitely will break CNR, but if you don’t use CNR – who cares.
Root versus User. I prefer to set up a user and in Linspire they have a screen that asks you if you wish to create a User in installation. No they don’t force you to. In most other distros I am pretty much required to set up as User.
It really does come down to personal taste and which distros works best on your machine. I have Linspire on two of my machines and PCLOS on the other two. On my main system I have a hard drive rack and play with half a dozen diffent distros. Each one has it good points and bad. I much prefer Kubuntu over Ubuntu – Not a Gnome kinda guy. But that, again, is personal preference. Probably why the one poster thought Linspire was Ugly. Well – brown and gray are not my favorite colors either.
For what Linspire is trying to do – they are doing a great job. I most definitely don’t see them going anywhere but up. I definitely wouldn’t worry about them going out of business soon. They may not appeal to the more technically advanced, but then again – that is not their market and they are going to design the system to please the people they are marketing to Grandma – or as one poster said, “Aunt Tillie”. Their market is people wanting a secure second pc in their home to surf the web and write emails is huge! Their market is people who have NEVER used a computer before. Their market is the Newbie wanting to get away from Viruses. These are people who don’t care about Gnome, KDE, Apt, Debian, Sid, Sarge, RPM, or Linus.
“I definitely wouldn’t worry about them going out of business soon”
so how long would you operate a business in the RED before you threw in the towel???
CNR uses dpkg and has the same error messages as apt does when something goes wrong…. so you really think if you rip out apt and dpkg that CNR will work? nah dont think so….
A lot of stuff in linspire doesnt work as a normal user…
yes granny, you paid for your programs but now that you dont have the web, and we had to reinstall because you deleted everything well you cannot download all that again… or yes granny i know sound didnt work in the last version and there is no guarantee it will work in this one but they said it might, it is only another $50 bucks… yes granny we paid $50 last year and $50 this year and will pay it next year but they still havent released the new KDE you been wanting…. no granny we cannot try it out and see what we think before we pay all this money, we can only do that with those other distros. Yea, that one is neat Xandros, and you can install a bunch of software for free from debian repos or from the debian cds… no granny they still dont include a source cd so your son RMS doesnt like them… hehehehehe- ok i am pushing it…
>> Is there a compact and fast distro that let me do it ?
There are several compact distributions available, but most of them are slackware based. See this list:
Topic: “Small or lightweight distributions for use with older machines”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
DSL (Damn Small Linux) is the “de facto” Debian small distro, but unfortunately like Mepis, it is slightly incompatible with Debian.
There is one very small distro that is a “stripped down pure debian”, but it requires hand on install. It is not ready CD-based like DSL and other above. FOr more experienced, it is really small and suitable for low end hardware. I found it from
http://freshmeat.net/projects/stem-desktop/
“so how long would you operate a business in the RED before you threw in the towel???”
I could be wrong, but so far the only company really making a profit with Linux is Red Had. The more people sputter and complain about having to pay for a distros the less likely it is that any company will make any money off of it.
I kinda laugh when people come out with guns blazing about Linspire charging for CNR. HELLO! They are a company with employees. How the heck are they supposed to make money off of a product if they are not supposed to charge for it? You cannot go to retail outlets in the hope that they will carry your “free” product. Stores will not sell a product if it does not have anything in it for them. At Fry’s I saw Red Hat, Xandros, SUSE 9.3, and Linspire – I didn’t see MEPIS or Debian on the shelf. So how do companies make money? Oh thats right – out of the generosity of the wonderful open source community. Ask Mandriva and the court that helped them out of bankruptcy how that works.
Usually it takes a while to actually build up to a point where you are turning a profit. That is why such a high perecentage of businesses fail. People don’t have the initial cash it takes to get through that period of building their company.
How long was Red Hat in the game before they made a profit? I would guess that within the next 2 years Linspire will get to the point where they break even and start to make a profit.
well redhat started YEARS ago before linux had any following really.. But I have never checked to see if and when they were profitable but you cannot compare them to linspire
lindows/spire has been in business for years already and has been here for the glory years but still cannot developa solid user base….
wanna make a bet, i predict one more year two at the most and boom they are gone or severly changed….
“well redhat started YEARS ago before linux had any following really.. But I have never checked to see if and when they were profitable but you cannot compare them to linspire
lindows/spire has been in business for years already and has been here for the glory years but still cannot developa solid user base….
wanna make a bet, i predict one more year two at the most and boom they are gone or severly changed….”
As a platform – Redhat is more geared toward the Server and Corporations, so in that sense you cannot compare them. Both are for profit companies. Redhat only became profitable in the last couple of years.
Linsprie has only been around since 2002. Three years. That is not very long. From what I hear, they are developing a very solid user-base and increasing it all the time.
With the settlement from Microsoft, I don’t expect to see them going anywhere in the next couple years. They are perfectly funded for at least two more years. Plenty of time to keep on building a user-base.
A quote from the latest Linspire Letter:
“CNR by the Numbers
Recently we sped past 5 million successful software downloads through CNR, which is an amazing number to me. I remember when we crossed the 1 million mark not all that long ago! What is more astonishing is that CNR is delivering a better than 97% success rate in download/installations worldwide. Given issues with dial-up networks, potential software “packaging” problems and plain bad luck, this is an incredible stat – early versions of CNR a few years ago started off with just over a 50% success rate! It really validates the hard work our engineering team has put in over the past few years to design the CNR system to minimize risk at all levels.
Here are some more numbers that I think are astounding, considering we launched CNR just three years ago:
*
CNR is used in over 120 countries
*
5,099,330 successful downloads since June 3, 2002
*
Achieved 97.2% success rate in July, 2005
I firmly believe that one day all software will be delivered digitally just as CNR does today. Linspire customers should be proud to know that they were the early pioneers.”
“Linsprie has only been around since 2002. Three years. That is not very long. From what I hear, they are developing a very solid user-base and increasing it all the time. ”
WRONG! research a little before you post PLEASE! I remember ver4 coming out in 2001 I THINK it was….
“With the settlement from Microsoft, I don’t expect to see them going anywhere in the next couple years. They are perfectly funded for at least two more years. Plenty of time to keep on building a user-base. ”
20 million i think it was
How much do you think they spent on legal fees? So you think 20million will keep them going for two more years….please I would guess that is about 6months opertion or at the most 12 months…
yea we should all believe the linspire letter, and the microsoft manifesto, and every other advertisement we see…. geez they managed to take debian and create a system that you can install packages on and have it work correctly 97% of the time.. WOW what a improvement considering I can take sarge and hit the 97% mark…
speaking of doing your research before you post, i joined the insiders program of lindows (not linspire) on june 15, 2002…before V1 was available. this is far different from your suggested date of V4 in 2001. how do i know this ? i am looking at my order history with linspire right now.
maybe i should
actually that was supppose to say 2003… I thought that was a obvious typo!
But to say that linspire has only been around since 2002? And you say ver1 wasnt even available until 2002?
Something isnt right….