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Freespire Lives, Goes Back To Debian

Posted by timothy on from the olde-school dept.

nerdyH writes "Following Xandros's acquisition of Linspire, some feared for the future of Freespire, the free version of Linspire. However, Xandros today announced a new version of Freespire that will return the popular free Linux distro to its Debian-based roots."

13 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Xandros and Linspire by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Neither of these are particularly great distros. Xandros signed an evil patent-deal, and neither distro jumps out at me with any real advantages to use them.

    Can someone please explain what these guys have to offer?

    I'd certainly like to see fewer distros. I sincerely believe we'd see higher quality if people focused their efforts to improving a few major distros rather than forking them every few seconds.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Xandros and Linspire by HeavensBlade23 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We wouldn't have Ubuntu if people followed that advice a few years ago.

    2. Re:Xandros and Linspire by teh+moges · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the problem is not 'too many distros', rather that not everything that runs on distroX runs on distroY. If a standard base could be setup that still allows for distros to be unique, but also allows for them to work together a lot better, then we will see an increase in applications made for linux, both open and closed source.

      As it stands, if you want to make something non-trivial that runs on a linux distro, you either need to pick your distro (at least decide between RHEL, Debian or another base), and just hope that it runs on the others.

    3. Re:Xandros and Linspire by Drantin · · Score: 4, Funny

      A "standard base"... I think you may be on to something there.

      --
      Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
    4. Re:Xandros and Linspire by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well,as some who uses Xandros Business 4 on my laptop I can tell you why I use it,and that is because it works flawlessly for me when dealing with AD and Exchange,and was the only distro that worked with my evil Broadcom wireless. The built in Crossover Office was nice,as it allows me to have MS Office 2K for the occasionally funky formatted .doc or .ppt,and finally for me it just works. No CLI hoops,no "it works kinda sorta",it just all works perfectly for me out of the box. And the Xandros File Manager is nice and the layout of the UI is close enough to XP that when I'm out on a repair job and the boss asks me to lend one of his employees my laptop so they can work while I repair their machine I don't have to explain anything,they can just start to work. So those are the reasons why I use Xandros..

      And finally about the MSFT deal.Please remember that at the time there was no EU forcing MSFT to open up their server protocols and Xandros was trying to integrate Xandros Server with Scalix into a windows AD forest and have it work as either a member or a domain controller. So basically MSFT had their balls in a sling because without those server protocols they couldn't integrate. And the one thing that Xandros really does well is play nice with Windows networks,which is why I use it when I go out to work on SMBs. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

      --
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    5. Re:Xandros and Linspire by BlackCreek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I still haven't u what we need Ubuntu for. We have Debian. Granted, not that trendy but it works.

      Except that

      • stable releases took 2 / 3 years to happen
      • that manners were often lacking at Debian mailing lists.
      • Debian didn't really strive to simply "work out of the box".

        On the topic of working out of the box:

        1. the installation process was NOT newbie friendly, and stopped short of setting many useful stuff by default (this was a long time ago but -- why couldn't it simply detect which device was handling the mouse?)
        2. everyone (with experience) knew that the boot time would get much faster by using ash/dash, but that never became a default...
        3. the mentality when reaching a difficult point was often to let it, in the name of security, unconfigured by default (user belonging to audio groups -- but how many users would actually solve that right? (Mandrake had gotten that right *years* before...))
        4. did you ever read that scary 'charset for the "less" pager' configuration question during installation? I had years as a SysAdmin when I faced that for the first time, and had no clue of what exactly was being asked. For a novice, it would be the confirmation of everything they feared about Linux.
        5. often the cause of the lack of a setting was not even

      They often avoided a difficult (political or technical) decision and left it to the user. Who was supposed to "know better what to do", or to read and study in order to take any decision. Increasing the dedication necessary to run the system.

      In short, Debian //never// went own to produce a system for someone who wasn't, at least, a hobbyist UNIX sysadmin.

      Sure, many of these points are probably much better now, but this was surely the context that made Ubuntu a welcomed offering.

      The greatest plague of modern computing is complexity. Debian tackles a whole world of it through its dependency work, testing, and dpkg/APT. But they still (leave?) left way too much unnecessary complexity into the system.

    6. Re:Xandros and Linspire by jlarocco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they added their new features to the stock Debian, all Debian users benefit.

      As far as I can tell, Ubuntu is nothing but a dumbed down version of Debian. If they had hijacked Debian I would have switch to something else. Some of us don't want to be treated like idiots by our computer.

      The other point is that while a few people make major forks and make major new features, it seems we have tons and tons of distros with nothing really unique to offer. So why pull away all those package maintainers, devs, support people, etc. away from other distros?

      The entire point of "Free Software" is that anybody with an itch to scratch can grab a copy of the code and make their own version. That's the benefit over proprietary software. If you take that away, what's the point?

      The people working on obscure distros are working on those distros because they want to. If you told them, "Your needs and interests aren't important, get working on Ubuntu," they would probably laugh at you.

      --
      Maybe not
    7. Re:Xandros and Linspire by tinkertim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My point still stands. The Ubuntu devs could have focused their efforts on Debian. Their distro today still is binary compatible with Debian.

      Actually, they have focused their attention on Debian. You would have to examine Ubuntu and Debian source packages to really see just how much effort Ubuntu is putting into Debian.

      In every distro there is a list of stuff that nobody wants to do. For instance, getting 'bashisms' out of init and other shell scripts so that a fully POSIX compatible shell (such as dash) can parse them correctly. Ubuntu tackled a lot of that list.

      If you look at the Ubuntu source packages, you will see a ton of patches in debian/ , Ubuntu has structured their patches so that Debian can cherry pick from their improvements easily. Debian has and will continue to do this. For instance, if Debian just wants the patch that takes bashisms out of a given script, they can just take that and leave the rest.

      Similarly, Debian security updates and other things are easily cherry picked by Ubuntu. Managing patches like this is very time consuming, Ubuntu could have said 'screw that' but they didn't.

      Its a rather interesting symbiosis. While the projects are going in separate directions, devs from both camps continue to ensure that improvements remain isolated and rather portable.

      My desktop is a mix of Ubuntu and Debian packages, for instance. Most things I use begin with Debian source packages, then I grab the Ubuntu source packages and get the patches that I want ... then make my own thing. Granted, this isn't typical use but it illustrates the benefits of a larger cooperative effort.

  2. Popular? by Zaurus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just how popular is it? I've personally used and seen a lot of people use a lot of distros (over a dozen), but I've never used or seen anyone use Linspire or Freespire.

  3. Everyone in unison now.. by Anrego · · Score: 4, Funny

    WHO CARES!

    My first troll :) .. but seriously.. meh

    Evil distro 1 acquires lame distro 2 and proceeds to make it more like evil distro 3 (which it is based upon itself)

  4. Press Release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We, Open Blue Enterprises Inc., the makers of Blue Cat Enterprise Linux (recently merged with "Advanced Carrier Grade Enterprise Linux Business Solutions") announce that our next release will be based on Debian Lenny.

    Debian will provide a robust base for our leading Linux enterprise distribution and allow us to concentrate on what we know best: wallpapers with cats providing a unique desktop experience.

  5. Underground distro by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was going to the grave, but changed direction. Now they are going to their roots.

  6. Why did Linspire's CNR fail? by ricegf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm honestly not sure why CNR hasn't done better (which is to say, generate any noticeable use). It's free-as-in-beer, supports several major distros in a central location, offers social features such as reviews and ratings, allows grouping of apps into "aisles" for easy one-click installation and sharing, handles commercial software sales as well as free software installation compatibly and rather efficiently, and generally provides a rather nice experience.

    Why has it wilted like a Friendster? Because it's not free-as-in-speech? Is Applications -> Add / Remove or Synaptic simply "good enough"? Do enough Linux users really object to their Microsoft deal and abstain on moral grounds?

    Of course, I don't use it personally. And I'm not sure why. Would a FOSS version by a more credible member of the community generate more interest and enjoy some success?