Linspire's "Click 'N Run" service now free [LWN.net]

Linspire's "Click 'N Run" service now free

Posted Aug 30, 2006 23:12 UTC (Wed) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

I read the announcement, and then spent considerable time on their website (being unemployed is a good ~~excuse~~ reason to catch-up on many of the different Linux desktop and server distributions. I'm impressed.

I'm impressed that they took Linspire into the realm of FLOSS, creating Freespire -- and not just a single version of it, but two versions: one containing proprietary codecs, binaries, etc., and one "pure". They didn't have to offer us Freespire OSS; they could have left in the proprietary stuff, and been just like many other distributions. I think their doing so gives them a place to stand on that limited turf known as the "moral high-ground".

I'm impressed with their Wiki and Forums; with the documentation, both written and WIP; and I'm most impressed with their continuing push (and success) in making Linspire/Freespire a desktop Linux OS that is useful for both newbies and veterans, alike.

Yes, I downloaded the Freespire/1.0.13 ISO image, and plan to install it on my Toshiba Tecra 8100, replacing the current Fedora Core 5 installation (which a recent posting to LWN regarding the "2006 Linux Desktop Survey" referred-to as requiring "forklift upgrades").

"Click 'n Run" certainly bears looking into.

Linspire's "Click 'N Run" service now free

Posted Aug 31, 2006 22:36 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

I'm a man of my word, and earlier this afternoon I installed Freespire/1.0.13 on my Toshiba Tecra 8100 (Pentium-III/700MHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB drive).

My reactions:

Installation: flawless; it found all the installed hardware, identified the hard drive's partitions, prompted me to select a partition (or the entire drive) for the base system, and (as advertised) took all of ten minutes to complete.
Look 'n Feel: flawless; although I didn't care for Freespire's default theme, KDE gave me the opportunity to turn the GUI into a Windows XP clone (or close facsimile).
Network Configuration: flawless; with my Netgear/FA511 present in the PCMCIA slot at the time of installation, it was automatically configured as the default profile, and worked perfectly. However, when I disabled that card, and replaced it with my AirLink/AWLC4030-II wireless card, Freespire couldn't/wouldn't/didn't detect it.
CNR: Flawless; great look 'n feel, and I felt like I was in the supermarket.

Overall, I didn't like it. I find KDE (and the other window managers) to be heavy and ponderous, and the plethora of configuration options (which seem to pop-up without my wanting them to) were overwhelming. I once worked as a Unix sysadmin in Silicon Valley, and when I started, I asked my manager (the CEO/CTO) for guidelines vis-a-vis end-user support. His reply was "Don't spend time helping them turn desktop icons on their sides." I think KDE (and the others) encourage end-users to do just that, with their (almost) infinitely configurable GUIs.

Now I'll see about installing Ubuntu "alternate" over it!

Linspire's "Click 'N Run" service now free

Posted Sep 1, 2006 1:44 UTC (Fri) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

While installing Ubuntu, replacing Freespire, I discovered that Freespire's installation program had -- without asking my permission -- changed the type of /dev/hda1 from ext3 to reiserfs. This is a big "no-no", totally unacceptable in my book. It smacks of M$oft's paternalistic attitude, and I resent it.

Linspire's "Click 'N Run" service now free

Posted Sep 8, 2006 12:24 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

If /dev/hda1 was the place Freespire was installed and it overwrote the
previous content of the partition anyway, I see nothing wrong with
changing to reiserfs for its own installation. That would appear to be
their default, and if the installation is simple enough not to offer
another choice (that's where the choice you were just disparaging comes
in, yes, I'm a KDE user, /because/ of the choice it offers) or if it does
but you didn't change it...

OTOH, if /dev/hda1 was not where Freespire was installed and it wasn't
told to overwrite the partition, that's a bad thing indeed. However,
it's /such/ a bad thing, I can't imagine it getting past QA, short of you
actually saying that's what happened.

As for Freespire in general, as with SuSE before they opened up YaST and
the like, there was absolutely no chance of me using them in whatever form
before. I'm personally a power user and as such find Gentoo fits my own
needs very well, but Gentoo's the wrong thing to be installing for
(software) Free World OS newbies, as well as for "power challenged"
or "legacy" machines. Freespire now appears near the top of my list for
installation on the stereotypical "grandma's" machine. From what I've
read, their forums are extremely newbie friendly as well, lacking
the "RTFM" mentality of the support fora (generically used) of some
distributions (generically used as well, thus including the *BSDs and
potentially other choices in the Free World). For the
stereotypical "grandma" choice, that's perfect.

Of course, I'd actually install a copy of it here as well, and run it a
bit anyway, as well as checking the forums and etc myself, before turning
it loose on any other system I might install.

Duncan