OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20178/The_End_of_the_Linspire_Distribution Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:06:39 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Good riddance! http://osnews.com/thread?326633 http://osnews.com/thread?326633 Buh-bye Linspire! I hope the patents deal with Microsoft will haunt you in Hell! Don't forget to take Xandros, Suse, Turbolinux and other whores with you.

PS: Guys, don't forget to hit that thumb down button.Edited 2008-08-13 00:27 UTC Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments That took longer than I thought http://osnews.com/thread?326635 http://osnews.com/thread?326635 I remember when I first heard about "Lindows", the moment I heard the name "Michael Robertson" and MP3.com I knew it was going to be a failure.

Nothing that guy made was worth anything. This doesn't surprise me, I am just wondering what took so long.

If anyone should come up as "Miserable Failure" on Google, it's this guy.Edited 2008-08-13 00:54 UTC Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tuaris) Comments I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326644 http://osnews.com/thread?326644 Once Linspire started basing themselves on Ubuntu, I knew it was over.

I bought Xandros, but it hasn't been updated in years. Not unlike Linspire and Freespire.

I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux... Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE: Good riddance! http://osnews.com/thread?326646 http://osnews.com/thread?326646
PS: Guys, don't forget to hit that thumb down button.


Done, with compliments. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments RE: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326653 http://osnews.com/thread?326653


I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux...



well in that case let me recommend Gentoo linux.:)

www.gentoo.org Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (happycamper) Comments RE[2]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326658 http://osnews.com/thread?326658
"

I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux...



well in that case let me recommend Gentoo linux.:)

www.gentoo.org "
LOL from Linspire to Gentoo... Hrmmm he'll probably grow old or go back to ms trying to figure things out!! Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (daedalus8) Comments RE: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326659 http://osnews.com/thread?326659

I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux...



You might consider one of the BSDs instead. Both DestopBSD and PC-BSD have a lot to offer. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (protagonist) Comments RE[2]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326664 http://osnews.com/thread?326664 Gentoo is great for advanced users, but this guy is probably more better off with a user-friendly distro such as Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, Centos or PCLOS. With Gentoo, if he doesn't have much time and motivation, he can get frustrated at one point, especially if he doesn't need much flexibility. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Liquidator) Comments RE[2]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326665 http://osnews.com/thread?326665 Linux has the advantage to provide native commercial application such as some free Adobe products (Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player), while you need a compatibility layer with *BSD. Although this may not be a problem for some people. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Liquidator) Comments RE: That took longer than I thought http://osnews.com/thread?326669 http://osnews.com/thread?326669 How is this so? He has stacks of cash. I am sure he does not care that now its being canned. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hadyn) Comments appropriate replacement http://osnews.com/thread?326680 http://osnews.com/thread?326680 Instead of Ubuntu, Mint Linux would be a better fit because it comes with the codecs we all use (even if we don't admit it). PCLOS is another good choice. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bolomkxxviii) Comments Comment by satan666 http://osnews.com/thread?326697 http://osnews.com/thread?326697 Well, any Linux distribution is good as long as it is not recommended by Microsoft. More at www.boycottnovell.com Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments Don't forget the many accomplishments http://osnews.com/thread?326698 http://osnews.com/thread?326698 Of the Lindows Team. Even though the project received many critical reviews, In it's younger days, this OS was cutting edge. Click and Run was a masterpiece for ease of install for a Windows convert. Having a Windows Feel with the KDE environment "Though not Perfect" was more of a Godsend for many other distributions trying to attempt the same thing. Let's not forget the lightening fast install.

For many power users of Linux and Advanced Users, this distro was almost akin to selling out.

But with Michael Robertson at the healm, I believe the project had a clear focus and Usability was a main factor.

The fatal flaw in this deal was the same as in most for pay Linux Distros for the Desktop. The expense didn't justify what teh end user received. Why buy Lindows when, like most startups, Customer service Sucked? Even Novell's SLED has paltry CUstomer Service for an Enduser. When you have a Free Distro such as Ubuntu that was also easier to use and have a community backing? Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (drcoldfoot) Comments It's always sad when a distro dies http://osnews.com/thread?326703 http://osnews.com/thread?326703 While I was never a user, I drove past the Lindows (and later Linspire) building in La Jolla, CA many a time. It's always sad when a distribution dies, even when it's a commercial one. Linspire helped bring much needed commercial attention to Linux when companies were looking for an alternative to Windows 98 or even Windows 2000. But I knew it was over for them when Xandros stepped in and picked them up...distros buying distros always seem to be a death knell, one way or another. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vlad) Comments RE: It's always sad when a distro dies http://osnews.com/thread?326710 http://osnews.com/thread?326710
It's always sad when a distribution dies, even when it's a commercial one. Linspire helped bring much needed commercial attention to Linux when companies were looking for an alternative to Windows 98 or even Windows 2000. But I knew it was over for them when Xandros stepped in and picked them up...distros buying distros always seem to be a death knell, one way or another.

I think distros buying distros is a good thing. It consolidates the remaining distros. There are maybe 500 Linux distros out there. Don't you think they are too many? For most of them, apart from the wallpaper you can't tell one from another. Wouldn't it be much better if all those small distros pooled their resources together? A few strong distros have a better chance to get significant market share in my opinion. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments RE[2]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326720 http://osnews.com/thread?326720 I have Gentoo, but it's not meant for the casual Linux User. Linux itself is still not polished enough for the casual user.

Apple did it with MacOS X. I just wish Linux programmers would stop thinking Geek, and start thinking the rest of us.

I like the idea of Gentoo, which I think is that it recompiles itself to be as efficient as possible on the system you have.

I just wish it were easier to install. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE[3]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?326724 http://osnews.com/thread?326724 I've tried most of those. Ubuntu is too brown. I like blue. I know this sounds awful... But, one of the things I liked about Linspire was the user interface.

It was familiar and smooth.

I like DreamLinux, but the 3.1 version is not easy to install. Again, it's not intuitive like the previous version was.

I like Xandros Home a lot. But, it hasn't been updated in ages. And I'm not Linux-savvy enough to connect to other repositories and roll my own updates.

Linux needs to use a unified installer system like MacOS and Windows does, so you download an installer executable and it installs the app correctly. No worrying about dependencies or anything.

Which is why I think Xandros bought Linspire. For CNR.

But, Xandros hasn't shown a willingness to support their PAID users who bought Xandros Home. I get ZERO upgrades. Not of the OS, or of apps.

I could stick with Xandros as my daily driver except it's years old, and so are the apps on it. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE: appropriate replacement http://osnews.com/thread?326725 http://osnews.com/thread?326725 A lot of my friends are using Mint, and I'll have to check it out.

FrozenTech doesn't carry the CD's for it, so I'll have to download the latest and burn one for myself. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments BEWARE! Linux Mint Homepage delivers a trojan! http://osnews.com/thread?326733 http://osnews.com/thread?326733 Every time I hit the Linux Mint homepage, it attempts to deliver a trojan.

Someone has messed with the page. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments Can't See a Future for Xandros http://osnews.com/thread?326735 http://osnews.com/thread?326735 As things stand I can't see a future for Xandros either. They're just a distributor leeching off free software, contributing very little, if anything, back and trying to dump a whole load of proprietary tools and interfaces on top of it to make it look like Windows. They're not solving anything in the Linux world, and if anything, they're part of the problem. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments Try Mandriva? http://osnews.com/thread?326757 http://osnews.com/thread?326757 @Mage66: Have you tried out Mandriva? Get the Mandriva One KDE(or Gnome if you want), and it's pretty blue too ;) Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Extreme Coder) Comments RE: Good riddance! http://osnews.com/thread?326767 http://osnews.com/thread?326767 PS: Guys, don't forget to hit that thumb down button.

You got it! Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TaterSalad) Comments There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326779 http://osnews.com/thread?326779 ... why distributions such as Slackware and Debian are still around. And why Linspire and such are doomed to fail. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deb2006) Comments RE: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326784 http://osnews.com/thread?326784 "... why distributions such as Slackware and Debian are still around. And why Linspire and such are doomed to fail."

And what pray tell might that reason be? Please share your enlightenment. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DrillSgt) Comments RE[2]: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326790 http://osnews.com/thread?326790
And what pray tell might that reason be? Please share your enlightenment.

Let's see:
Xandros and Linspire:
1. Offer very few applications packaged.
2. The applications are badly outdated.
3. You pay for them.
Debian and Slackware:
1. Huge software repositories
2. The latest versions available.
3. They are free.
A first grade kid should be able to give the right answer. Are you? Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments RE[2]: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326791 http://osnews.com/thread?326791
"... why distributions such as Slackware and Debian are still around. And why Linspire and such are doomed to fail." And what pray tell might that reason be? Please share your enlightenment.


IMHO, Debian is still around because it embodies the spirit of community development. The names change, but Debian lives on forever. The have such a great, open, enduring process.

Meanwhile, Patrick V. is just one very determined, downright stubborn dude who refuses to go away in this age of mega-distros like Suse, Redhat/Fedora and Ubuntu.

2 very different reasons, but they both share one thing - very strong vision.

My fiftieth of a $ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments ...... http://osnews.com/thread?326798 http://osnews.com/thread?326798 There's like at least 100 active linux distros @ Distrowatch.

Linspire will be sadly missed *sniff *sniff ... right!! I dont think so.

Guess when you deep in a hole you just grab who closest to crawl over their back then rid the dead weight as soon you see daybreak. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (islander) Comments RE: BEWARE! Linux Mint Homepage delivers a trojan! http://osnews.com/thread?326807 http://osnews.com/thread?326807 You must be using Windows and IE... Wont work on Linux. hahahaha. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kurtlinux) Comments RE[3]: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326809 http://osnews.com/thread?326809 "Debian and Slackware:
1. Huge software repositories
2. The latest versions available.
3. They are free.
A first grade kid should be able to give the right answer. Are you? "

Well beyond first grade actually. I agree that Xandros and Linspire have outdated packages. So does the stable version of Debian. Has been a long time since I tried Slackware. Gentoo has more recent packages.

You might not be so bad if you could get beyond the playground antics ;) Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DrillSgt) Comments RE: I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux... http://osnews.com/thread?326828 http://osnews.com/thread?326828 You might find Sabayon Linux, Mandriva or MEPIS not only useful but interesting as well. If you have a 64 bit CPU I recommend Studio 64.

Alternatively, Solaris and the BSDs have much to recommend them in terms of available software and stability/security. You will just need to see if they are a good fit for you and what you do. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (glarepate) Comments RE: Try Mandriva? http://osnews.com/thread?326829 http://osnews.com/thread?326829 I have the latest Mandriva here (I think). I haven't tried it yet.

I just installed Linux Mint on an old Celeron 2.9 box, and figured out how to install DreamLinux on a P4 2.4 box. In fact, I'm posting this on the DL box now.

I like DL better than LM. It feels more like MacOS X, which I use on my old Pismo Powerbook and an Intel Mac Mini.

I'm getting sick of Windows and hoping that ReactOS goes beta in my lifetime, and Haiku gets to a 1.0 release soon. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE[2]: BEWARE! Linux Mint Homepage delivers a trojan! http://osnews.com/thread?326830 http://osnews.com/thread?326830
You must be using Windows and IE... Wont work on Linux. hahahaha.


That was a "troll-like" reply. Using Windows and IE to access a website is no excuse to deliver a trojan payload to users.

How can one switch from Windows to a Linux Distro if the website of the distro is unfriendly and actively hostile.

Grow up guy!

Windows owns the PC world. You might not like it, but being a butthead about it, doesn't change anything. And it especially doesn't make you appear to be very bright. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE[3]: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326831 http://osnews.com/thread?326831 Um, have you looked at CNR?

Lots of packages there. Just not every single program available for linux.

You sound like an anti-Mac zealot who says "there's no software for the Mac!"

What you need is the best from each kind of software, and CNR had a lot of that available.

Nobody needs 100's of media players. Just the top 3 or 4 are sufficient.

Remember, CNR wasn't about quantity, but quality.

Also, did you volunteer to package and maintain thousands of packages for CNR??? Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE[2]: I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux... http://osnews.com/thread?326832 http://osnews.com/thread?326832 I've used MEPIS, thanks. I donated for it several years ago.

It's a good, solid distro.

Maybe I should go back and look at it again. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments RE[4]: There is a reason ... http://osnews.com/thread?326878 http://osnews.com/thread?326878 CNR, ah well. I personally don't need anything else than apt-get install xxx. CNR is bloatware for me. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deb2006) Comments RE[2]: I guess I'm looking for a new Distro of Linux... http://osnews.com/thread?326958 http://osnews.com/thread?326958 Foresight Linux is another good, but underrated, choice. It's a rolling release that uses the conary package manager and has come a long way in ease of use from even a year ago. Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (giraffe) Comments so does this mean I get free copies of xandros now? http://osnews.com/thread?327049 http://osnews.com/thread?327049 considering that I had purchased a lifetime membership for linspire for $99 a few years back.

I never really messed with it much, as I preferred to use vanilla debian, or ubuntu but I always downloaded the new versions just to check in and see how they were doing.

I used to like the xandros OCE releases but it looks like they don't do those anymore.

I only bought one retail copy of xandros version 3.0 realized I had no need for crossover office so the OCE version worked fine for what I needed for it.

I thought they had quit releasing OCE versions so if I'm incorrect please forgive my ignorance. Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DREVILl30564) Comments RE: so does this mean I get free copies of xandros now? http://osnews.com/thread?327052 http://osnews.com/thread?327052 It means that you ought to stop paying loads of money to these crappy distros. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a free copy of Debian or Mandriva or Fedora or Ubuntu or basically anything else. And if you want to contribute money, donate something to the distro of your choice. Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments RE[2]: so does this mean I get free copies of xandros now? http://osnews.com/thread?327078 http://osnews.com/thread?327078 I didn't give linspire money to buy their product, the money they got from me was when they were fighting against microsoft over in europe back around 2004 or so.

Like I said I really didn't use their software, only donated to help fight "The man" Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DREVILl30564) Comments RE[3]: BEWARE! Linux Mint Homepage delivers a trojan! http://osnews.com/thread?327106 http://osnews.com/thread?327106 It's not like Mint decided to give a trojan to people who dared visit their site with IE. They had nothing to do with it (aside from their lax security measures): someone hacked the site.

"Our server was hacked and code was injected into it to make connections on our behalf to pinoc.org and download a trojan called JS/Tenia.d

For more information about this trojan: http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus...

If you visited linuxmint.com in the last two days we recommend you scan your computer to make sure this trojan isn’t present. As this attack exploited vulnerabilities within our PHP code we took the opportunity to clean it all and secure every single page against injections in the future. Linuxmint.com is now clean and secure but we experienced almost 20 hours of downtime and we lost almost 2 days of work into fixing this."

Obviously it's a bit of a black eye for them to have their site hacked, but it's not the same as maliciously delivering a trojan to Windows users. Grow up yourself. Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MamiyaOtaru) Comments RE[2]: I knew it too... http://osnews.com/thread?327197 http://osnews.com/thread?327197 or since he is going from Linspire

PC/OS http://www.pc-os.org Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (robertojdohnert) Comments RE[4]: BEWARE! Linux Mint Homepage delivers a trojan! http://osnews.com/thread?327217 http://osnews.com/thread?327217 No, it's not a black-eye for LinuxMINT at all.

What I think is great, is that they fixed it as soon as they found out, and sent out an apology email to everyone who reported it.

They also posted the issue on their blog.

That's honesty and transparency and I think that proves that the LinuxMINT folks are brave and truthful.

Good on ya! Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mage66) Comments