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Use Freespire Linux. It is not suffering from the "everything in this distro must be open source" mental illness.

Freespire, anyone? You can purchase legal DVD playback with Freespire.

Freespire, anyone? You can purchase legal DVD playback with Freespire.

Why no ment6ion of freespire? http://www.freespire.org/

Linspire is neither free nor open source, which kind of defeats the point.

When you pay for Linspire you pay for support and for some of the codecs and other software. While Linspire does include some commercial software there's also Freespire.

As a guy who knows what he's doing, I like taking a vanilla Kubuntu, stripping out the parts I don't like, adding the stuff I know is good (Medibuntu, nvidia-glx-new, the WineHQ repositories), and ending up with my own system.

At first I was thinking of installing Ubuntu once I got my Macbook Pro, however now that I have it I'm wonder what good installing it would serve. I installed X11 as well as Fink so I can download, install, and run X software. Other than learning Ubuntu, I know of nothing I could do with Ubuntu I can't do currently on my MBP. I can use the terminal to learn at least some basic commands. And while I can install either or both WINE and CrossOver, I don't know of any Windows software I know I want to use. Maybe XMLSpy which I've used and like on Windows however I first want to tryout <oXygen> XML Editor

Well, a lot of the issues discussed here have been resolved in a distribution called Freespire

Freespire is the closest you're likely to find I think.

I've never used it because I've read reviews that mention it being stripped to become user-friendly, removing functionality in the process. Now they have signed a patent deal with M$ also, and I'm not sure if I like that. However, it legally contains a lot of proprietary codecs and drivers, and is working with the other patent-deal distros and Microsoft to create an open source odf-ooxml converter.

Freespire is the closest you're likely to find I think.

I've never used it because I've read reviews that mention it being stripped to become user-friendly, removing functionality in the process. Now they have signed a patent deal with M$ also, and I'm not sure if I like that. However, it legally contains a lot of proprietary codecs and drivers, and is working with the other patent-deal distros and Microsoft to create an open source odf-ooxml converter.

As a matter of fact it's not necessary to wait for a public comment from ESR to know his views. If anything, these events can only reinforce his views that he wants "to see Microsoft broken on the wheel not by government fiat but by enlightened consumer choice". (Source: Halloween Documents FAQ

Isn't he on the linspire board or something?

According to this post apparantly by Linspire's CEO Eric is (or at least still was on Feb 23, 2007) "one of many un-paid volunteers of the Freespire Leadership Board". I wouldn't be surprised if Eric reconsiders his involvement in that project in reaction to Linspire's agreement with Microsoft, but it's his choice of course.

I would recommend trying Kubuntu, OpenSUSE (or SUSE even, although that would involve supporting that damn Microsoft-Novell patent deal), Mandriva, or Linspire/Freespire. These distributions use KDE (K Desktop Environment), which in my opinion (and even Linus himself along with many, many others) is far more usable, customisable, and useful than GNOME, the default desktop environment for many other distributions such as Ubuntu. Although GNOME tends to look cleaner than KDE, its usability is quite, well, limited. I don't understand the circle jerk going on between most distributions and their need to use GNOME by default, but I do know that a lot of people's complaints in regards to the GUI on Linux are GNOME-specific and are not a problem with KDE.

If you want to buy a computer with Linux preloaded, you can go to Groovix, System 76, or Koobox. If you don't want to buy a new computer, I recommend Linux Mint or Freespire. Both of them are more user friendly to Windows converters and come things like flash and mp3 playback already installed.

As for Dell, they've had shitastic Windows support for years, so they'd be much better off just sending people to Canonical's or Red Hat's or whoever's tech support.

In addition to the free service and products, users may also use CNR to access commercial products and services as well as proprietary drivers, but it's entirely up to them.

My suggestion is a live CD of a distribution that is tailor-made for Linux newcomers. I would suggest Freespire. It comes in a LiveCD, is very easy and intuitive, installs proprietary drivers for video cards, works with virtually all hardware, and installing/deinstalling applications is super easy.

sudo with no password needed for the default user.

Read some of the comments posted in that thread. Seems like running as root is No Big Deal, almost a badge of honor. These dipshits deserve whatever they get. And they will get it.

For those interested in this, the community-driven Freespire project will likely be of interest. From their web site:

Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you.

I'd call it Lindows if that hadn't already been tried. FreeDows?

Freespire does not default to root login (and neither will Linspire in the next version).

From the FAQ
But won't Freespire hurt the momentum of open source by offering the option of proprietary codecs, drivers and applications?

No, quite the opposite. To influence the future of computing to become more open, Linux must first expand its circle of influence by gaining a much larger user base. A big portion of the world is turned off by Linux, because it doesn't legally support things like MP3, DVD, Java, Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime, etc., out of the box. Asking millions of people to throw away their iPods (or other favorite MP3 player) or to not legally watch DVDs on their computer, is just too much to ask for most users. The Freespire project believes in providing a free marketplace where the user can decide what software to install and use.

I like the approach. To me, Linux is stuck in a rut where techies are addicted, but users are afraid. This could help bridget the gap.

On an offtopic note: How frickin' long is that Mario Bros poll gonna be up on /. ???? It's so old, you can't even reply to it anymore.

No, you have no redistribution rights whatsoever for the proprietary components. See
http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Summary_of_Pro prietary_Components. There's an "OSS" version that contains none of the proprietary items and is, presumably, redistributable.

I'm really puzzled by all of this. First, why would Microsoft license its WMV technologies to a Linux distribution? I can understand someone like Sun licensing Java, or ATI/nVidia licensing their drivers, but Microsoft? Why would they want to make it easier for a Linux distribution to compete with Windows, especially in an area where Microsoft has the advantage, namely bundling proprietary software?

Second, who is paying the licensing fees here? I presume that Linspire has to pay royalties for each download of Freespire. Where is the money coming from? On the wiki site, Linspire says it's paying for things like server space, etc., but doesn't really talk about the licensing fees. Are they really making so much money that they can afford to pay royalties but not be compensated by end-users in return?

From their website, they seem to have a GPL compliant version and a free (as in beer) proprietary version, much like OpenSuse 10.0 was.

Here's a list of the licensed proprietary compenents. Under nearly every one it says explicitly that you are not granted redistobution rights.

Basically, I guess if you want to legally redistribute it you'd need get this one. Since it doesn't have the proprietary codecs, though, I think you'd be better off with Ubuntu.

Yes. This has changed in Freespire. The user no longer runs as root by default.

You can check out the FAQ here:
http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/FAQ_Category:_ About_Freespire_and_The_Freespire_Project

No. They'll probably hand out copies of Linspire or Freespire. If they can make the computer even $50 cheaper by not using Windows, people will buy it. That's Wal-Mart's whole business model. Make everything as cheap as possible, while maintaining the bare minimum of expected functionality/durability.
And that applies to their employees, too. Medicare is cheaper than providing real health insurance.

The indications are that they have thought this through quite thoroughly. The initial announcement and the web site are quite well done, I think. Considering it is still four months until the first beta, they have a good FAQ (here) which is worth a read. I intend to at least give it a try when the time comes.

Looks like Linspire is planning on giving away the razor and trying to sell the blades for $20 a year.

On the other hand, at least the "creating a user account so you don't run everyhing as root" step isn't optional in Freespire. This "new" distribution is something that might be a good first step for newbie Linux users that want certain features (DVD/MP3 playback) immediately after install.

Looks like Linspire is planning on giving away the razor and trying to sell the blades for $20 a year.

On the other hand, at least the "creating a user account so you don't run everyhing as root" step isn't optional in Freespire. This "new" distribution is something that might be a good first step for newbie Linux users that want certain features (DVD/MP3 playback) immediately after install.

From what I understand, the confusion between Lindows and Windows was hypothetical. Microsoft took them to court over the possibility that it would confuse the user.

In this case, it was actually confusing users. If you read the old Freespire site, the author explains the confusions that were going on and why he decided to change the name. There was no force from Linspire to change the name.