Slashdot Mirror
Linspire 5.0 Free For Limited Time
drunkennewfiemidget writes "The people at Linspire are giving Linspire 5.0 away for free (digital download only) until September 6th. Simply go to purchase the $49.95 digital edition, and then enter coupon code 'freespire' to receive a $49.95 discount." From the site: "'Freespire' was the term Andrew Betts gave to a private project he had been working on. The project comprised various open source components, taken from the freely available source repository for the Linspire operating system...Linspire has no problem with anyone using the open source code from our operating system - in fact we applaud such projects. The name Freespire, however, did create some confusion in the short time it was used...We thought it would be fun, for all of those who were looking at this project to experience a true 'Freespire', to give away a free digital copy of Linspire for a few days!"
because everyone is busy downloading the software? They've already posted warnings that the site is getting "slammed" and that the coupon processing doesn't always work. And the download is a separate step via BitTorrent, so it should be great-- the more downloaders the better. They recommend trying between 11:00pm and 5:00am Eastern Time.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
I think that you answered this yourself; you may sell it, but those to whom you do sell it are entitled to the source as well. Linspire, however, has a good bit of proprietary stuff in it to which the source it not available (and it is not GPLed).
Linspire does make the source available to GPL code. However, their distro includes Sun's JVM, Macromedia's Flash plug-in, Acroread, Real Player and several other non-free bits and pieces.
They also have a legally-licensed DVD player (plug-in to Xine) and MP3 codec that are available cheaply ($5 ?) to subscribers.
So, the entire PACKAGE isn't available for give away - normally.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
nope, just redeem the "coupon" (freespire) and check out, you can register if you want support (my.linspire) but AFAICS thats it !
its slashdotted now , and probably will be for a while (Opera had the same problem with their download giveaway) maybe this is a trend ? nahh
be nice if other companies could do the same, but gree^^^^ is more important, gotta get that new boat !
There was previously an operating systems project named "Freedows".
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedows/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedows_OS
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
But then it would be just like Ubuntu, MEPIS, and others. Yaawwwnnnn
Linspire is unique in that it has legally licensed things like MP3, Java, Flash, Windows Media, Quick Time, Real, Nvidia drivers, music files, etc. If you take all that away, you don't have Linspire, you have Ubuntu and have to be a friggin' genius and figure out how to get all that on your own. But of course, for this crowd (slashdot) it's not a big deal, but for 98% of the rest of the world, it's very important.
No.
In fact, this isn't so much a publicity stunt as a way to get more users dependant on their subscription download services, Click-N-Run (CNR). Links to that service are imbedded into practically every single menu you can find on the desktop, with no way to take them out. They are EVERYWHERE, within every sub-menu, on the taskbar, imbedded within web browsers and other programs, etc.
Of course it's INCREDIBLY useful for people who DO end up subscribing, since this is probably the easiest, most user-friendly way to install without any effort a MASSIVE library of software. However, if you would prefer to get your software packages on your own (through apt-get or whatever) and have no use for CNR, you're just gonna be stuck with a desktop operating system whose main purpose is to get CNR subscribers.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
Since the servers are pretty much crawling already, here's a link to the torrent
The apt-get sources is still commented out in 5.0, but points to the standard Debian repositories. Two seconds in vi (ten in emacs) and you're in business if you can't find twenty bucks.
I have a subscription, and I've tried 5.0. I quickly moved to Fedora and Ubuntu, though. I suppose if you like KDE and the KDE way of doing things, you might be happy with it. I was very impressed at its installation, and the fact that it configured absolutely everything (including ndiswrapper and Windows Broadcom drivers!) properly the first time.
- 0.0.0.50.linspire0.3.0.4.m10.1.deb... what?? Those who like the simple and elegant would perhaps enjoy Fedora or Ubuntu more.
But it's an extremely inelegant system... you've got package names like nvidia-driver-modules-2.6.10_1.0.6629.is.1.0.6111
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Links to that service are imbedded into practically every single menu you can find on the desktop, with no way to take them out.
Actually, it's pretty easy to take them out:
Start the CNR app (you don't need to subscribe), "Settings" menu, "Configure CNR", choose "CNR Warehouse" in the left pane, then uncheck "Add CNR More... options to the Launch Menu".
Click OK and you're done.
If you want to avoid CNR altogether, just right-click the "Launch" menu and choose "Menu Editor". Take the entries out that way, through the GUI.
Either way, it isn't that hard to do.