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Linspire Five-0 First Look

Posted by Hemos on from the making-it-eas(ier)-to-use dept.

Eugenia writes "OSNews posted an exclusive first look for the upcoming Linspire 5.0: 'Linspire Five-0 is definitely a good base from which to build. The lack of well rounded applications when compared to other OSes in its class leave me wanting more, however, a slick look, some powerful Linspire specific apps, and a non-crippled undercarriage remain appealing' says the author." The bigger question will be how it stacks up against other commericial offerings in the long run. (ITMJ is also owned by OSTG).

9 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. mimicking windows again by stygianguest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't really see why distributions should mimic windows. Those who bother to install any os install like windows or some linuxes can probably adept to gnome or kde easily. And the windows interface definately aint the best around. The real problem is microsoft's hold of the big OEMs. To me that's the clearest abuse of their monopoly, yet they aren't really attacked for it...

    1. Re:mimicking windows again by BlueCodeWarrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Different strokes for different folks. I guess you aren't in Linspire's 'target market.'

  2. cnr by Mr_Silver · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Of course, once you have resorted to using raw apt-get, what's the point of Click-N-Run?

    Nothing.

    Unless, of course, you are in that 90% of the population that would rather gouge their eyes out with spoons than use the command line :)

    Don't forget the target audience for CNR is probably not the sort of people who hang around here or OSNews. For that, it does what it does pretty well.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  3. dropshadowing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    from the article:
    "Dropshadowing in Linux is still pretty rare, and is not always very effective."
    pretty rare?
    I thought that anybody who used KDE,
    and had a fast computer, would have those turned on by default, (that kde wizard that makes thing look shinnnyyy...)
    or through the control panel.
    drop shadowing (IMHO) has been around since 3.1

  4. This post is wonderful by strider44 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder with Linspire the same thing I wonder about Paint Shop Pro. If they actually increased the price of Linspire to something only just lower (about five dollars) than Windows XP Home Ed., bundling the extras in, putting it in a pretty box in as many stores as they can (department stores, gaming stores, supermarkets even if they can), and releasing a discounted OEM version, then it might be even more successful. Right now it looks like a cheap Windows knockoff (cause basically that's what it is). If they started to project the same or similar image as Windows, projecting an image of superiority at a better price then people may consider it side by side with Windows very seriously indeed.

    People automatically assume you get what you pay for, even when a lot of the time that's completely false. An OS is a big important tool, and people are probably going to be careful. If they raise the price, I think people would take it more seriously, Linspire will make huge amounts of money and hopefully give back to linux, and linux would gain popularity as a result.

    Just me wondering...

  5. Create partition ahead of time? by Drencrom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like in Linspire 4.0, you have to prep a partition ahead of time or take over the entire disk at install

    Is it only me or this should not happen in a new distro installer?
    More so considering it is oriented to windows users.

  6. Tutorial for newbie slashdotters by strider44 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is how you get cheap mod points: Google for something like this, see exactly the same post +5 in another slashdot blog and copy the comment in reply that got +5. Since it's only a few days ago you may assume it's still relevant. The other person, of course, will be more funny than you will ever be.

    What about the VMS fanboy, we wear cardigans, hush puppies, tweed hats and smoke pipes. We don't normally "shop" but when the leather elbow patches can no longer hang on or the felt is just too floppy, we vist the church op-shop. We always have a pencil and pad in our pocket and a small cylindrical slide rule for a quick estimate. Tuesday trivia night is our social highlight of week and the hot chocolate and lamingtons are wonderfull. We have wives but have grown to realise sex is really just another sports activity and would much rather play with the train set in the shed.


    Creds go to TapeCutter. Soon you shall actually find out who or what VMS is...
  7. Re:Which fanboy are you? by geordie_loz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Surely if you were proud you wouldn't post anonymously...

  8. Linspire= future of desktop linux by acomj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Linspire although often put down by geeks as unsophisticated compared to its debian/geentoo/redhat/ madrake.

    Note that if you poke around the homepage, no mention of if KDE/Gnome is the desktop of choice. The users he's targeting don't care, they just want a machine that works, without popups and spyware.. They "click and run" subscription seems like apt-get but for money and easier.

    Linspire however represents linux's best attempt to make a Linux OS that anyone including your grandmother can use. Its not great yet, but its pretty ok. And comming pre-installed on machines from walmart\ and microcenter and it seems pretty affordable, so it seems to have some traction.

    They want to be the mac os-x of linux world. Just look at their homepage . Look like this? Its not coincidence.

    Heck they even have a itunes "clone" they sell. called lsongs. (l for linux/ songs = tunes, get it ).

    Software is a funny business. Volume means alot.
    So if linspire is making money, expect it to improve. Hopefully all improvements they make come back and make all linux's better.