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Freespire Lives, Goes Back To Debian
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."
We wouldn't have Ubuntu if people followed that advice a few years ago.
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.
It was going to the grave, but changed direction. Now they are going to their roots.
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
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.