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Linspire Five-0 First Look
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).
Linspire Five-0?
Boot 'em, Danno.
I don't know, but the name Linspire just doesn't sound good to me. They should've called this operating system somethinig much more descriptive of what it does... The only thing that jumps out to me is Lindows. I wonder why they didn't think of that name?
I'm a big tall mofo.
The question is, do they still reccomend users to log in as root for everday use? The thing that put me off Linspire the most was that they have the full power of the Unix security model but they don't bother using it.
One good turn - gets all the covers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
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.
Above is a dupe comment, which strangely enough got modded +5 funny the first time around and is now considered a troll. Such a lovely perfect analysis tool, this mod-system.
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
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...
"How can this be that a commercial OS doesn't include DVD playback?"
Erm... I'd like to add another commercial OS that doesn't play DVD's right out of the box to this shocking list: Windows XP.
At least with WMP9 I get a "Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because a compatible DVD decoder is not installed on your computer".
I think click-and-run fits very well with plug-and-pray ...
The only person who is capable of killing my karma, is me, do not even try to help me.
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.
Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I mean here we have a desktop that requires more or less the same horsepower as Windows to run. Is slightly less functional than Windows to use strictly as a desktop and costs slightly less than windows to own? It doesn't seem like a wonderful bargain. Perhaps something like ELX or Vectorlinux which can be had for free and install on cheap hardware is the way to go instead of trying to reverse engineer the functionality of windows.
I think the Linux folks need to accept that Windows really is a better choice for some functions at least from a simple "I just need to do what I do PoV" and if you go the Linux route it's not to replicate Windows functionality but instead to do someother thing, introduce some other function. Of course in a corporate environment the support costs of maintaining a Linux desktop evironment appear less in light of fewer security problems and an inherent ability to push updates to desktops but that has to be weighed against the skills of the user base and the questions and problems they will have. On the other hand unless your own time is free and you don't like managing the innumerable security patches, personal firewall, AV update, spyware circus that is home LAN administration for Windows then why not get a bunch of Macs? It's BSD based, pretty tough, industrial strength Unix under the covers and the price point of a MiniMac or an iMac make it pretty attractive.
For the most part, that is. If you like bittwiddling and really want to build a something and that's your hobby then fine, have at it. But it really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to struggle with a Linux desktop that isn't designed specifically around ease of installation and ease of use AND lower cost. If you need the same brand new high powered PC hardware to run it AND installation is still problematic AND configuration is still a chore AND you still have to struggle with NTFS volume mounts, Wine and Windows applications then what have you solved?
Creds go to TapeCutter. Soon you shall actually find out who or what VMS is...
I'm not worried about Napoleon Dynamite. I was worried about the Windows-like look and feel. Everything seems to look the same and is named the same...
:P
More lawsuits? Only against the people who miss the joke here.
Surely if you were proud you wouldn't post anonymously...
Hmm, my previous post appears to have attracted one of the harmful mod-points you so gallantly were trying to lead away from the serious posts.
I had no idea my innocent observations had trolling-qualities hiding in them.
I must be underestimating the power of my words.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
/.ers. Unfortunately, Joe Users(TM) are still the great majority among computer users.
Emphasis on "those who bother". Linspire are aiming for Joe User. THE Joe User(TM), not even Joe Advanced User who might be able to do a format c: on his Windows PC every now and then or have the skills and curiosity to try out other apps than those which come with their OS.
Joe User(TM) can't do this. He's the kind of guy who can only write email by clicking 'reply' in Outlook Express and who gets lost immediately if the IE logo on his Windows desktop is replaced by, say, Firefox. Joe Users are extremely conservative when it comes to computers, apps and their GUIs. If anything is changed, they panic and think they have to start all over with learning even that little stuff they've managed to learn with their computerphobia.
This is the crowd Linspire are aiming for, and that's why they are making their Linux distro as redmondised as possible. They don't care about Joe Advanced Users or
In my opinion, Linspire are right in doing so. Many other Linux distros overwhelm the n00bie with their abudance of software. Only advanced users long for a wealth of apps to begin with.
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.
Linux for cops?
I agree... here is a great sentence:
Now, burning a DVD was fairly easy using K3b. While burning a DVD, however, the system was fairly slow.
Edited:
Burning a DVD was fairly easy using K3b, but the system was fairly slow.
These fairly elementary mistakes-- Someone really should rewrite this article.
You are SOOOO clueless!
Linspire is 100% open source WITH TWO EXCEPTIONS:
1. Their CNR (click n run) which is actually more a service anyway, not software. This is how they make their money.
2. They DO include licensed 3rd party codecs, such as Flash, Java, Quick Time, Windows Media, MP3, DVD Playback, etc. This, however, is exactly what I like about Linspire. Sure, they work with Ogg, and open formats just like any distro, but the world is full of flash, java, quick time, etc. as well, so I'm glad they play these formats. What good is a web browser if you can't use half the web sites???
Linspire has done A LOT for open source and GIVEN ALL THE CODE BACK. Lsongs, Nvu, Lphoto, Mozilla, etc.
http://linspire.com/opensource
Your comments only show your ignorance.
I've learned to ONLY post on Slashdot when I know of something FIRST HAND. Others here just have to chime in on EVERY topic, even if they don't have any first-hand knowledge or insight into the topic.
Hans
Not that I would wish more lawsuits on the world, but this strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that trademark law was designed to protect against. LPhoto seems as close to iPhoto as say...Lindows seems to Windows.
Perhaps if apple wished to be protected by trademark law they should come up with a name that's a little more unique. Trademarks are intended to differentiate your business from other businesses, not to allow you to buy common words that describe your product so competitors can't use them.
Shameless Plug: I have a new product on the market. It's called aProgram. I'm the only supplier, so if you see anyone else out there describing their products as aProgram, do let me know so I can sue them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
That's certainly true from a security perspective but people don't really think that way otherwise they'd install functional software on the windows boxes they have and take at least rudimentary steps. Most commercial Windows boxes are loaded down with tons of security software now, McAfee, Symantec and others preload their stuff on and all you have to do is pay for a real licence after the 60 day trial period is up. But nearly no one does that nor do they bother to look for or download a free product nor would they understand how to do that or how to install it. Hell my kids alternatively ignore or click w/o thinking ZA popups all the time. They regularly manage to have all sorts of crap autoinstall that they claim they didn't know how it got there. My family doesn't actually understand the difference between a)the browser b) the computer c) the internet. Seriously, it's all the same thing.
So here's the point. If people cared about security they'd do something. So giving them a Linux box and telling them it's more secure has almost no value. Telling them they'll have to babysit it less has no value because they don't do that now. You do. The only thing you can sell them on is a) popups (which you can do with Firefox/Netscape on Windows and b) some kind of spin on identity theft as in not letting strangers into your box to steal something. What might work is if you can sell them on the idea for getting as good or better 'security' for far less money. If you let them buy a maching for their kids it's going to have to serve a very schizophrenic set of requirements. It will have to play games and it will have to protect the wittle kiddies from pictures of penises and vaginas. And it will have to run all of the file formats they use in school and it will have to burn CDs with zero effort and, and this is little noted, it will have to boot in under 2 minutes. More than that and you will hear an endless littany of "The computer's broken again..." You also need to build the system that will be able to restart from an abrupt shutdown very quickly and it can't ask the user any questions like 'do you want to fsck?'
I've seen people throw away new computers after they were massively infected with viruses and spyware, have highly fragmented drives or suffered a minor object corruption in an office suite rendering it buggy or inoperable even though they had the installation media. I don't mean have someone tear it down and rebuild the software from scratch I mean unplug it and move it to the basement will all of Dad's other toys in the Museum of Bad Ideas. And go out and but a new one only to have the same thing happen in a year or less. They are left with the conclusion that all computers are shitty little toys that no one should ever bother to learn how to use.
I think this is the sweetspot that Apple is shooting for. It's one that's probably out of MS grasp forever having surrendered reliability on the altar of whatever the hell is good for MS's bottom line. Linux needs to shoot for that middle space between expensive mindless Mac reliability cheap useless high maintenance PCs. It has to look and feel like Windows or Apple and it has to run w/o any human intervention and it has to run without glitches or problems or delays or pages of boot up messages and it has to mask the filesystem from the user and instead use folders or Mac like containers. It has to recover quickly and gracefully and it has to report errors or problems in clear stupid partially informative messages that do more handholding than instruction.
See for yourself...
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't think it was possible to run MMC applications under Linux... and the fact that the WINDOWS LOGO is in the Start button kinda gives me the feeling that this is Windows. The Linspire folks wouldn't dare use that logo in an official release...
Also, notice:
Why would you put a Windows screenshot in a story about Linspire 5-0's first look? That's pretty deceptive.
I am scientifically inaccurate.