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An Early Look at Freespire Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lime-in-the-coconut dept.

An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com takes an early look at Freespire Linux in a recent article. Linspire will be releasing their first version of Freespire, the first community Linux distribution to include many third-party proprietary codecs, drivers, and software. From the article: 'While I still have my doubts about the long-term wisdom of using proprietary software and drivers with Linux, I must say that if you feel you need to use such programs, Freespire makes it much easier than any other Linux distribution. And, when is all said and done, that's really what Freespire is all about -- making Linux as easy as possible for users.'"

10 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. It's about time... by Geldon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linspire has had some pretty good ideas when it comes to making Linux easy for the Windows user. But since it has not been free, I have been reluctent to recommend it to friends. I would like to see how this turns out...

  2. More Bubbly by neonprimetime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it just me, or do Linux Desktops seem to be following the Windows trend? They seem to be getting more bubbly. Take me back to the days of BlackBox

    1. Re:More Bubbly by BecomingLumberg · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I agree Linux is going that way, but familiarity and 'good' looks are the only way to start converting the non-geeks. And there are plenty of nuts and bolts distros.

      Eye candy is very appealing to the mainstream user, and will help A LOT to increase Linux's usage and familiarity.

      --
      If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
    2. Re:More Bubbly by Divide+By+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's easier for an expert to kill X than it is for a n00b to start it. It's not like XP where the CLI is an afterthought. It's there, just like back in the olden days of Windows, running under the GUI.

      If you don't like it, don't use it. For me, I'm looking for a linux system that works BEFORE I start working on it. Give me a working system, then let me customize it. I don't have the chops to build a linux box from the ground up, and while that puts me in the minority here, I'm very firmly in the majority over the general population on this one.

      I'm hoping this gives the linux movement a bit more momentum, even if it does do so at the expense of tarnishing the OSS camps' dreams just a bit.

      --
      Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
    3. Re:More Bubbly by B11 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know about you, but it's nice to have a system that isn't ugly. Of course, the first thing I did when I installed ubuntu was change the theme and get rid of the brown. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? Of course now, it's sort of their claim to fame, and they can't change it now, but I wonder how many "regular" users are put off by unbuntu altogether, right off the bat?

      --
      insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
  3. Kickstart by also-rr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Proprietary software, as long as it doesn't make the system less free, is not necessarily bad.

    For example a proprietary document system that uses open formats and has open APIs does very little to harm the user and potentially fills a niche that cannot be served by free software very well (eg handles certain legal compliance issues, which requires expensive insurance and research).

    As long as you *could* write your own software to replace bits of the system, or interoperate with the system, then you dont necessarily have to for the benefit to be very real indeed.

    A lot (although not all) of the stuff that comes with Linspire falls into this category.

    --
    Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
  4. Actually.. by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Funny
    And, when is all said and done, that's really what Freespire is all about -- making Linux as easy as possible for users.'"

    Usually, when all is said and done, more is said than done.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  5. Re:non-GPL Kernel modules by ardor · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is illegal to distribute non-GPL binary kernel modules (ask any kernel developer), and Freespire should respect the GPL since they are a Linux company.

    Well, the actual nVidia/ATI kernel module IS GPLed. It acts as layer between the kernel and the binary blob. This layer has an open API, which is used by the blob. Thus, the blob uses the kernel, it does not extend it. The extension comes from the GPLed layer.

    The real issue is that nVidia & ATI use GPL code from other parts of the kernel in their drivers. This is the only issue, because the way I described above makes binary blobs perfectly legal.

    --
    This sig does not contain any SCO code.
  6. low-quality drivers by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What sometimes gets left out of this kind of discussion is that closed-source drivers are often of very low quality. Recently, I've been scanning in an old 400-page book on an HP scanner, using HP's closed-source MacOS 9 driver and scanning software. The MacOS X driver wasn't released until a couple of years after we bought the scanner, although they claimed it would be coming "real soon now." When the MacOS X driver finally was released, I found that it crashed so often as to make it useless. So here I am, in the year 2006, booting into MacOS 9 whenever I want to use the scanner. IIRC a driver is available for SANE, but I think I had dependency problems getting it to instal on my Linux box.

    I scanned the first 100 pages or so, transferred them to the Linux box, and made sure I could read them. No problem. I finished scanning the book, transferred the rest of the pages to the Linux box. Oops --- can't read anything after page 250. Why? It turns out all those files are empty --- zero bytes in size. Why? Oh, the Mac's hard disk had apparently filled up, and the software didn't check for an I/O error when it wrote the files.

    I'm not saying that OSS is always perfect and bug-free, but I doubt that this kind of low-quality code would ever have become widely used if it was open source.

    I don't really want closed-source drivers for Linux. All I want is two things:

    1. I want to be able to find clear, accurate, up-to-date information on what devices have OSS drivers available, so I can buy hardware that's well supported.
    2. I want to be able to install the OSS drivers without a lot of hassles.
    Really, #1 seems to be pretty well covered by the SANE folks (although the situation seems to be worse for wireless cards, where there's a ton of out-of-date info on the web, and I didn't find any canonical, well-maintained site that had all the info). #2 is probably slowly getting better too, as Ubuntu becomes more and more mature. I suspect that by the time I upgrade to the next Ubuntu, the scanner driver I need will already be included in SANE by default, and the dependency problems will be fixed.
    --
    Find free books.
  7. Re:nice quip by aixou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nice quip, served you well.

    You appear to be misinformed however. Freespire will be released in two distinct versions:

    One containing entirely free software, and one containing proprietary codecs (paid for and licensed by Linspire).
    The user gets to choose which he uses.

    Hence the "Free" -- freedom of choice to opt into one of two free (as in beer) choices: a completely free (as in speech and beer) version, and a free (just as in beer) version.
    Seems pretty free to me.

    Any questions?