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Linspire CEO dispels Linspire Linux Myths
An anonymous reader writes "Chances are that you think Linspire lets you run Windows applications, that you have to run it as root, and that it's really not quite a proper Linux. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. At LinuxWorld in Boston this week, CEO Kevin Carmony explained what Linspire Linux is, and isn't all about. Carmony said that people are still getting these things wrong. Yes, in the beginning, Linspire had the goal of letting Linux users run Windows applications with WINE, but it dropped that theme years ago. As for requiring you to run as root, that was, Carmony said, only the case with an early alpha release that was never put in the public's hands. As for not being a real Linux, that's nonsense, too."
...By default. When you install Linspire, it sets you up as root by default. I know this because I supported it from Lindows 4 to Linspire Five-Oh. You have to go and manually add a user account, should you want one. That said, it is actually a lot more secure than people make out. There _is_ a lot of FUD about Linspire. For grannies and people who can't be bothered with technical things (including me, sometimes - I just want things that work) it's great.
Already exists :D
Check www.gobolinux.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Incorporated
"Ultimately the assets of the corporation were bought by Palm, Inc. for US$11 million in 2001, at which point the company entered dissolution. The company then initiated litigation against Microsoft for anti-competitive business practices, specifically the prohibition of OEM's to allow dual-boot systems containing both Microsoft and non-Microsoft operating systems. The suit was settled in September 2003 with a US$23.25 million payout to Be, Inc."
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
In reality, no OS has achieved the status of so simple yet so useful that grandma/sister/computer-novice can use without assistance.
... sort of like dealing with Windows sometimes.
I have some experience being the family IT support guy and got so sick of cleaning our viruses, spyware and other junk from my sister's computer that I bough her a computer with Linspire 4 on it thinking that it was the easiest Linux for her to adapt to. In the end, I can't say that it was any better or worse than any other distro. The Click-N-Run concept is a good one but it is was very poorly executed. It certainly *did* encourage users to run as root and was a PITA to set up as a multi-user system.
However, when things went wrong (as they do with any OS/Distro/computerized thing), I found that Linspire did things differently enough that it was very difficult to troubleshoot the problem, find help online and you ended up fighting with a system that tried to second guess you with automated scripts
In the end I switched her to another distro (Ubuntu) and now have just as many problems but I don't have to pay a subscription fee and, if I don't know the answer myself, I can find answers online extremely quickly since it doesn't deviate too far from upstream.
So all the power to Linspire in achieving that "easy enough for a novice to use" status but since we're not there yet, I would stick with a more maintainable distro like Ubuntu or Fedora Core.