I came across this while browsing the Linspire Forums. It’s a link to MP3beamer, but you get a peek at the underlying OS, Linspire 5.0.
I came across this while browsing the Linspire Forums. It’s a link to MP3beamer, but you get a peek at the underlying OS, Linspire 5.0.
So its got a funky shaped ‘Launch’ button. Very novel shape…
Better then just an L. I think its a VERY good idea to make it larger and more obvious then the regular “quick launch” buttons on the taskbar. Thats one of the reasons I can’t stand stock KDE.
Xandros – and probably a few other distributions, too – has a “large” menubutton too. The shape reminds me of the Mandrake Galaxy theme.
Hey, i like big, well documented buttons like the next guy (that may be a reason why i prefer Gnome), but the shown configuration seems not to be very helpful in managing your desktop. Whatever…
That headline, for one screenshot that basically only reveals a modified KDE taskbar…
it seems there is some good innovations in multimedia for Linux on the desktop happening (groovy)…
kudos to mp3beamer, i wish them good luck :^)
What can it do what amaroK can not? Besides integrated music store?
amaroK IS true plain innovations in linux desktop multimedia.
P.S. Screenshots are nice but amaroK is cooler.
What’s the point of this article?
So it’s basically what everyone has been doing with their Squeezeboxes for years, and it happens to have an Amarok-like interface – except that Amarok is just plain better?
These Linspire guys need to get themselves into the open source world and find out just what’s possible. I find it funny that, like some other distributors, they just want to be their own little Microsoft but using open source software in their own little world. It obviously isn’t going to work.
Quoth David:
These Linspire guys need to get themselves into the open source world and find out just what’s possible. I find it funny that, like some other distributors, they just want to be their own little Microsoft but using open source software in their own little world. It obviously isn’t going to work.
While I am not a Linspire user (on account of the fact I stick to GNOME community based distros like Fedora and Ubuntu), I can’t understand why you would accuse Linspire of not being a good member of the open source community. The actually contribute quite a bit! Check out NVu as one example. They sponsor a Linux Desktop Summit every year, and they also contribute back to the community in the form of code.
Lsongs was the first open-source player that could rip CDs, create playlists, burn CDs and fill portable players all from one single interface, just like iTunes. You prefer amaroK, so what?
Some people like Rhythmbox, but no one says Muine should be canceled or something. I don’t understand why Linspire has this bad reputation in the community. They try to make a distribution that non-experts can use and in my opinion, they have are more successful in doing this than any other Linux distribution and everything they develop is open-source, including Lsongs, Lphoto, NVU.
MP3beamer is NOT free, but it’s not developed by Linspire – it’s developed by mp3tunes.com and mp3tunes.com just chose Linspire as the OS they preinstall on their computers.
Actually, mp3tunes.com was started by Michael Robertson. So I think that the fact that they just happened to choose Linspire is no surprise.
I’m very happy for you Ashley. Its been a long time that I’ve been excited enough about an up comming product that I’d be on the look out for even just cameo appearances of it in random screenshots. In fact I’d have to say the last time for me was back with when Mega Man X was first comming out. Its nice feeling to have – I hope you enjoy it and that Linspire, when comes out is everything you want it to be.
As for those who seem be unable to find a point to this article, I guess you’re just cold.
I wonder is there is any linux distro without the UGLY fonts? Seriously, not trolling.
http://www.mp3beamer.com/ss-from-MP3tunes.gif
Isn’t it terrible? None of the linux screenshots i used to view was pleasantly to see /from the point of view of Win2K/XP user/ because of dirty looking fonts.
I need to reread my posts! The reason that it is no surprise that mp3tunes chose Linspire is because Michael Robertson founded both linspire and now mp3tunes. Sorry the first post wasn’t so clear.
>>I wonder is there is any linux distro without the UGLY fonts? Seriously, not trolling.
Well Linspire actually has a gigantic assortment of fonts available through click n run that make it the best looking ‘nix distro I’ve ever seen matched only by ripping your windows fonts out and doing all the tweaks by hand to use them.
Nvu and Ltunes are both open source that Linspire has done and Ltunes actually runs very well in Xandros, I’m sure it can be made to work in other distros as well I’ve only tried Xandros outside of Linspire. So I don’t see any merit whatsoever to the accusation above about Linspire not helping open source community. If anything Linspire has HELPED it AND increased public awareness of Linux in general because they are actually marketing their product and getting oems to install it etc…
What I want to see in Linspire 5 however isn’t eye candy like screenshots but under the hood stuff. Like recognizing more than one hard drive without having to hack the os by hand! I’ve never before seen a distro that I’ve had to do that too to see more than one harddrive its blasted annoying. I’d also like to see it detect if your rig has multiprocessors and thus have SMP available; it is inexcusable to not have this feature in the day of HT and soon to be dual core cpu’s. The startup boot time also needs work, I had so many problems with that that sometimes one of my rigs would just hang forever locked up on the boot screen and that was a fairly common complaint by others as well on forums. In short, Linspire is an amazing distro but there is a LOT of things under the hood that need work from 4.5 version
I don’t even think those fonts are ugly, and I’m writing this from a Windows machine with cleartype on. The smaller fonts on the inner portion are a little icky, but so are some of the smaller fonts in Windows.
A quick Google ‘ “linspire 5” screenshots ‘found this:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=282541&mode=linearp…
Also if you go to the desktop summit site and download the Michael Roberson Keynote, you can see Linspire in action for a bit.
http://www.dungeon-maker.com/Lindows/FileManager.jpg
Whats with the massive file icons and small toolbar icons?
What is different than 4.5? http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=249&slide=1…
http://lnxg.ca/reviews/lapps_rant/
This is what I wanted for a long time. It’sa pain to connect external hard disks to my laptop just to listen to music.
But, LOL, they are using such a low resolution in the screenshot, it must be 1024×768 😮
“That headline, for one screenshot that basically only reveals a modified KDE taskbar…”
actually, the theme tehy are using is also unique and developed in house by Everaldo
“Actually, mp3tunes.com was started by Michael Robertson. So I think that the fact that they just happened to choose Linspire is no surprise.”
MR was in charge of QA for MP3Beamer, but he did this at a different company. So therefore he had the interests of MP3tunes, Linspire was the only viable choice.
Why, it looks just like iTunes!
“Whats with the massive file icons and small toolbar icons? ”
I tried 5.0 and the icons are not like that by default.
I agree with this. I’ve said it before here: ugly fonts on Linux are really the only thing keeping me on Windows XP, how much I would like to switch. That Bitstream font in this screenshot is just not as slick as Trebuchet and Tahoma. I know you can install the latter on whatever distro you prefer (and I have done that), but never do they look as crisp and small as on Windows or Mac, even after a lot of trouble with tweaking the bytecode interpreter. Or can somebody prove the opposite with a genuine screenshot?
More on topic: Linspire is an interesting development. I prefer Mepis and Mandrake but I guess keeping it really dumbed down is the best thing to do in order to attract the masses to Linux. The main positive thing about Linspire for me personally is them contributing to open source projects.
Does anyone know when will this be released?
it has a big start button, that’s nice. not sure how it gives us a glimpse of the underlying os though. should this have been a full article instead of something in the forum?
Qt 4 is supposed to have some font handling abalities of its own (instead of relying on x fonts or the x font server) so I’m hoping that fonts will be much improved in KDE 4. I know that in 3.4 bitstream vera ttf are default if avialable so that is a step in the right direction. The last few versions of KDE have improved cohesiveness and application quality, as well as stability. But change takes time so we will just have to wait and see where it goes in the future.
Well Linspire actually has a gigantic assortment of fonts available through click n run that make it the best looking ‘nix distro I’ve ever seen matched only by ripping your windows fonts out and doing all the tweaks by hand to use them.
Yea I agree, I have actually used instructons to make my fonts in Linux look exactly (literally) like the ones in XP. It’s almost incredible having fonts like that on Linux. But then again, part of the process also involves copying your MS fonts to the linux font directory.
To quote:
I agree with this. I’ve said it before here: ugly fonts on Linux are really the only thing keeping me on Windows XP, how much I would like to switch. That Bitstream font in this screenshot is just not as slick as Trebuchet and Tahoma. I know you can install the latter on whatever distro you prefer (and I have done that), but never do they look as crisp and small as on Windows or Mac, even after a lot of trouble with tweaking the bytecode interpreter. Or can somebody prove the opposite with a genuine screenshot?
Microsoft Core Web Fonts on Linux:
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
I am a big fan of MS Trebuchet as well, as my whole website uses it 😉
In all honesty however, Linux renders fonts very well these days, which was certainly not the case years ago. There are still some large deficiencies in the Linux desktop, but I really do not see fonts being one of them.
The Launch/Start Button looks terrible, the windows look is nice.
Somebody requested a proof of good small looking fonts, Windows like?
http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=12463&file…
I don’t see anything wrong with those fonts. They’re nicely designed fonts, anti-aliased (in fact it looks like Vera with default freetype anti-aliasing, like most distros use these days). Some people see anti-aliased fonts as fuzzy, but then some people see non-AA fonts (which is the Windows default) as jaggy. You pays your money (or not), you takes your choice. If you want non-AA fonts on Linux, it’s a simple configuration change. If you want AA fonts on Windows, it’s an equally simple change – turn Cleartype on. Johnson’s screenshot is just Linux using Windows fonts with AA turned off, easy enough for anyone to do if that’s how you like your fonts. I prefer mine the way Linspire’s look, but whichever you like ’em you can have ’em.
Probably in April.
Well, Johnson, I have to admit: that looks impressive. That’s how I want my fonts but I never figured out how to get these Trebuchets like this in Linux. I know about the core fonts and all that, probably I need to play around more with anti-alias turned off. I’ll try again, and then I definitely switch to Linux if it works.
Sorry for bringing this up in this comment list, it’s just that the fonts in these Linspire screenshots are pretty terrible in my opinion. But then other people just like them, so each to his taste I suppose…
Does anyone know other Chinese Linux distributions besdies Hi-Weed and Red Flag?
The font used for the menus and buttons etc in the screenshot isn’t Bitstream Vera. It looks more like a narrow Helvetica (or something similar). I do agree that the anti-aliasing is a bit on the blurry side, but the shapes and kerning look nice to me.
The font in the HTML-part of the window is, OTOH, Vera Sans. IMO it looks great, except for the bold text, which is far too smudgy.
Anyway, fonts are mostly a question of personal preference. I think the unantialiased font in Johnson’s screenshot looks like a bunch of disconnected lines which makes the text hard to read, but that’s just my opinion.
Here are the instructions of how to make your fonts look *exactly* like in the screen shot I have posted above. I don’t take credit for these instructions, I actually got these from this very site osnews from the forums, there was an article or something and someone posted the instructions because someone else asked the same question as you. Unfortunately I don’t remember the poster’s name but his/her instructions seem to work. I have done it.
WARNING, USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. If your Linux system stuffs up, well, better know how to fix it or you will face re-installation hehe. Also, I have no idea if this works in Linspire. It works in Fedora and Yoper and Mandrake.
1)Login as root
2) Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freetype/freetype-2.1.9.tar.bz2?…
3)Unbzip and untar the file.
4) Uncommnet line 439 in freetype-2.1.9/include/freetype/config/ftoption.h
5) Go back to the freetype-2.1.9 directory
6) ./configure –prefix=/usr
7) make
8) rm -rf /usr/lib/*freetype* (be careful here!)
9) make install
10) Grab Microsoft’s core fonts and stick them in /usr/share/fonts
11) Start up KDE, go to the font preferences panel, and turn *off* anti-aliasing. Make sure to select the MS fonts for your programs
——————————————————-
Select Tahoma size 8 as your fonts for general font, menu font etc. Even web pages written for Windows/IE will look exactly the same as in IE (the fonts part) when rendered by Konqueror. You will just need to adjust minimum font size and medium fonts size in Konqueror and apply it.
you don’t have to build the source yourself on MDK. Just install the version of libfreetype6 from PLF. It has the bytecode interpreter enabled (which is what your instructions do). http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ to setup a PLF source. Much cleaner than nuking the MDK freetype. Note – in America, this may well be illegal, thank software patents for that. I don’t know if there’s pre-packaged bytecode-enabled freetypes for other distros, anyone want to enlighten us?
btw, interestingly, the fonts in the screenshots look worse on my Compaq S710 monitor at work than on my LG Flatron T710BH (yes, I have my monitor model number memorised, you can start worrying now) at home. It’s probably worth bearing in mind that AA rendering tends to look slightly different on different screens.
its trivial to change a font. personally, i find ms cleartype to be god-awful. i find linux anti-aliasing to be clearer, and the mac anti-aliasing rocks. to each his own i guess..
im a big vera fan, sans mono is my favorite coding font by a long shot (passes the il1 oO0 test better then anything else ive tried)