Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: H_TeXMeX_H on 11 April 2006, 23:24
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Long ago I recommended DSL to a newbie, maybe this was not such a good idea. But the problem is I don't know what might be too difficult a Linux distro for newbie. So, I'd like a short list of distros that would be optimal for newbie, ones that aren't likely to scare people off or leave the with the wrong impression, you know.
So instead or DSL, feather linux seems to be a lot better live CD for newbie. Try to put ones that you have used, rather than just heard about. You can also put ones you have tried but did not like or that are not for newbie, along with the reason.
This is now a dynamic list ... I'll add to it as suggestions come in ... assuming that's ok with everyone.
Worth a try
live CD only
Feather (http://featherlinux.berlios.de/)
Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org/)
Accelerated Knoppix (http://www.alpha.co.jp/biz/rdg/ac-knoppix/index_en.html#download)
live CD + possible HDD install
Mandriva One (http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone)
Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/)
PCLinuxOS (http://www.pclinuxos.com/) (never heard of it, but looks decent ... right ?)
Mepis (http://www.mepis.org/)
HDD only
Fedora (http://fedora.redhat.com/) (in case Debian won't recognize your HDD)
Don't try these
live CD
Linspire (it's complete bullshit, no modem detection, slow, annoying startup music like Window$)
You can try these, but you may encounter problems
live CD
Move (Mandriva live CD, it failed to boot)
Gnoppix (slower than a turtle in a tar pit + annoying startup music like Window$)
HDD only
Suse (failed to detect HDD)
Honorable mention, but not for newbies
DSL (Damn Small and Fast Linux)
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Out of the ones you've suggested I've only tried Knoppix which was great and Fedora which was bloated and slow.
Can you easilly install Knoppix and Feather to your hard disk?
What would be nice is to have a Live CD with an install feature and a good non-fuckupable package system with a large repository.
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Ok, I'm looking for a new distro for myself ... it seems FC just won't cooperate with me :( ... it really does suck after all.
Trying Debian ... hope it's good.
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Mandriva.
I got a completely-free version of Mandrive One on a DVD free with "Linux Magazine" a few days ago (the magazine probably wasn't allowd distribute the non-free parts).
It's a livecd, with a program to install it to your harddrive. Boots to KDE after a few questions. Made me feel a bit nostalgic (Mandrake Move was the first GNU/Linux distribution I ever used, and it kicked ass (even though it ran from CD)).
Seems very cool. Everything I expected to work, worked without my input. It was slow as fuck though, running from DVD. I was tempted to install it, but finding it a partition for it would be problematic.
It and Ubuntu seem pretty easy to me.
The Mandriva Control Center is very fucking cool.
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Ubuntu.
They even have a modified Synaptic that will let you choose applications really easy. And the fact that my Logitech gamepad was detected properly (which I had to do manually on some other distributions) was impressive as well.
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I would add PCLinuxOS to this. The latest version. Though the Ubuntu that is due this June should be more feature rich.
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Out of the ones you've suggested I've only tried Knoppix which was great and Fedora which was bloated and slow.
Can you easilly install Knoppix and Feather to your hard disk?
What would be nice is to have a Live CD with an install feature and a good non-fuckupable package system with a large repository.
Feel free to suggest ones you have tried and liked, and are very user friendly (for n00bs).
I don't think Knoppix can be easily installed to HDD ... never tried though so I don't really know. Same with Feather. But, I know you can easily install DSL to HDD ... I've done it ... unfortunately, it may not be as easy for n00bs to use. I personally don't think it's that difficult, but it's hard to think like a n00b, do you think DSL is too hard for n00bs ?
Is the word n00b insulting anyone ... ? I dunno what else to call people new to Linux ... who need very user friendly interfaces or they'll run away back to M$.
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Uh oh ... Debian and all Debian-based distros fail to recognize my HDD !!! :eek: How insane ! Looks like I'm stuck with FC.
Any ideas ?
My HDD is a HITACHI_DK23EA-60
according to hwbrowser
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I don't think Knoppix can be easily installed to HDD ... never tried though so I don't really know. Same with Feather. But, I know you can easily install DSL to HDD ... I've done it ... unfortunately, it may not be as easy for n00bs to use. I personally don't think it's that difficult, but it's hard to think like a n00b, do you think DSL is too hard for n00bs ?
Is the word n00b insulting anyone ... ? I dunno what else to call people new to Linux ... who need very user friendly interfaces or they'll run away back to M$.
Knoppix can be installed to hard drive but it shouldn't as many problems are encountered (take a look at Knoppix's website for more information) mainly because it's not designed to run from HD.
And n00b can be taken more readily taken as an insult than newbie as thats what it was originally intended as.
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newbie it is then ... would an admin or moderator mind changing the name of the post to newbie rather than n00b ... to be politically correct, thanks.
P.S. BTW I never tried to install DSL on my laptop ... it was a friend's computer.
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If you're moving on from FC you may as well take a plunge and go for something more advanced like Debian or Slackware.
Debian not recognizing your harddrive? That I don't understand. What makes you think it doesn't recognize it?
You could consider Slackware. Or even something different like FreeBSD.
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Debian not recognizing your harddrive? That I don't understand. What makes you think it doesn't recognize it?
Well it freezes at the screen where it is "detecting ATA" or something like that. Suse won't either ... is it Debian-based ?
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Well it freezes at the screen where it is "detecting ATA" or something like that. Suse won't either ... is it Debian-based ?
Nope....... (IIRC it uses RPMs)
Maybe there's a problem with the harddrive (a problem that might explain why FC is fucking up).
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Uh oh ... Debian and all Debian-based distros fail to recognize my HDD !!! :eek: How insane ! Looks like I'm stuck with FC.
Any ideas ?
My HDD is a HITACHI_DK23EA-60
according to hwbrowser
Is that one of the Hitachi Deathstars?
SuSE actually managed to install itself on some dieing HD that I had that no other OS would load on it, it took around 3 hours to install on the HD and it took around 1 hour to boot:D. What is your system Aloone? Fedora ran pretty fast on my A64 and ran decently on my ancient Athlon
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Is that one of the Hitachi Deathstars?
I dunno, it might be ... it came with a $ony laptop ... I just checked the original documentation and there is no word on what kind of HDD it is ... just Hitachi.
What are the symptoms of a hard-drive problem ?
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It has nothing to do with the actual hard drive. It's the hard drive controller that it can't detect.
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Oh ... so is there a solution ?
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For newbies Mepis 6.0 IMHO wins hands down. It detects most hardware. Mepis runs great as a live cd or installed to hard drive. It is by far the easiest Linux distro to install, use, and update / upgrade.
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For newbies Mepis 6.0 IMHO wins hands down. It detects most hardware. Mepis runs great as a live cd or installed to hard drive. It is by far the easiest Linux distro to install, use, and update / upgrade.
su -c emerge -auv world
Did you say something? ;)
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you forgot the
compiling, please wait..................................
:)
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su -c emerge -auv world
Did you say something? ;)
It looks like you are a Gentoo android........
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you forgot the
compiling, please wait..................................
:)
No kidding........
It sould say, "just come back a day and a half later."
IF I am going to run a source distro, I would rather run Arch than Gentoo any day.
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No kidding........
It sould say, "just come back a day and a half later."
IF I am going to run a source distro, I would rather run Arch than Gentoo any day.
Hey now, you said "easy" so I said Gentoo. Whoever mentioned fast? :p
...because, in all honesty, if I wanted to compile specifically for my architecture in ANY kind of record time, I'd probably say Arch too. ;)
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su -c emerge -auv world
correction ~]$ sudo
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Hey now, you said "easy" so I said Gentoo. Whoever mentioned fast? :p
...because, in all honesty, if I wanted to compile specifically for my architecture in ANY kind of record time, I'd probably say Arch too. ;)
I don't get it. Is it significantly faster if you compile everything for your architecture?
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I don't get it. Is it significantly faster if you compile everything for your architecture?
Well, it's not significantly faster per se, but don't forget that you're talking to the guy that uses Fluxbox because it loads in two seconds rather than two MINUTES. The more performance I can squeeze out of my hardware, the better.
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If you compile things are they faster ? Not really, at least for small programs with few graphics. Besides, most things are compiled for i386 (except Arch), so unless you have a really new processor it won't matter. The only time I've found it did matter noticibly was when compiling graphics intensive games.
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su -c emerge -auv world
Did you say something? ;)
You forgot something:
su -c 'emerge -auv world'
;)
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I think you forgot the 'The Best' section for ubuntu and maybe SuSE. Maybe not SuSE but you get the idea.
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As a linux newbie myself (dispite many years of trying to learn it), I am interested to find out what your recommendations would be for a good distro to use. Unfortunately, as a PC gamer, I'm stuck using windows, except for a few games that come out for linux, and I'm not planning on bying a Mac anytime soo. Personally, as I want to be using it somewhat regularly, I am only interested in installable distros and not live CDs, though they have their uses (I almost exclusively use linux fdisk when I have to muck around with HD partitions now). One major concern I have is while graphical tools are all well and good, I want to be able to really learn the ins and outs of linux, editing confs and rcs by hand and whatnot. So if you experts have any recommendations where I could go to start learning this, that would be great.
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i just thought i would mention that i thought mepis stank, not trying to pick a fight but somebody said it was great for a newbie, i think that's entirely incorrect. all i am saying is that taking recommendations is fine, but you will want to try some out before you make any serious decision, because it really is all a matter of opinion. if there isn't an answer now to "what's the best distro" then there never will be.
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As a linux newbie myself (dispite many years of trying to learn it), I am interested to find out what your recommendations would be for a good distro to use. Unfortunately, as a PC gamer, I'm stuck using windows, except for a few games that come out for linux, and I'm not planning on bying a Mac anytime soo. Personally, as I want to be using it somewhat regularly, I am only interested in installable distros and not live CDs, though they have their uses (I almost exclusively use linux fdisk when I have to muck around with HD partitions now). One major concern I have is while graphical tools are all well and good, I want to be able to really learn the ins and outs of linux, editing confs and rcs by hand and whatnot. So if you experts have any recommendations where I could go to start learning this, that would be great.
I suppose you could try slackware, I wouldn't say it's for newbies ... but it's not that hard if you read the manuals
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actually it's not a good distro for a windoid, but that's not the same thing as a newbie, though nowadays it is harder and harder to find a linux newbie who isn't a windows veteran, impatient for a system that does everything windows should but without any of the bugs, hassle or expense (and then they complain when they don't get exactly what they want, but that's another story).
what i'm saying is that slackware is actually one of the easiest linuces to use (and administer) so long as you don't come at it from a windows perspective.
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Well, if you want to learn how to use something you might as well pick something easy to install and difficult to use when you've used windows for a long time - that was the only way I could learn and appreciate *nix. FreeBSD will give you quite a taste of setting up UNIX, using the command line, and vi. Just print off the docs or have a spare windows machine handy with the online documentation on it so you know what you're doing. Then, when you've setup the system with a graphical environment, you can use Wine to run many of your PC games. I think they got things like WoW and Half-Life running on it. Check out the Wine app database to see what people have tested to run properly.
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that's good advice for somebody who has the patience, but most people don't. it's really whether we are talking about a "most people" newbie or an enthusiastic newbie that's at issue here.
one of my friends quoted to me once (i don't know the original author): "linux is only free if your time is worthless", and there's a lot of truth in that, but my response of course (after careful consideration) is: "windows isn't free, even if your time is worthless".
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you should have said windows is expensive, especially when your time is.
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Whatever man, some Linux distros are actually much easier to administer than any Window$ piece of shit.
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Exactly.
There's this whole myth thing going on that Linux takes a lot of time to use. The only time it takes a lot of time is when I need to compile some oddball program that has a bucketload of dependencies and I have to compile all the dependencies. You know what? I don't find that to be an issue anymore.
With yum, I can get almost any package I want pre-compiled, and it pulls the dependencies for me automatically. If there's a program I want to compile that isn't pre-packaged, like workrave (http://www.workrave.org), suprise, I found all the dependency libraries already built for me and ready to download with yum.
Windows, however, wastes a lot of time. Crashes, endless reboots, patching all the damn time, system instabilities, frustrations, hitting ctrl-alt-delete all the time.
Then there's other stupid shit. Yeah... I like waiting 5-10 minutes for a 2 GHz machine running windows XP to shut down/reboot when a linux box on a 450 MHz Celeron will shut down in a fraction of the time.
And that's just the intrinsic suckitude of the OS. Put on antivirus/antispyware software and watch your cpu power get sucked away to maintain this POS OS. Get a virus or spyware infection anyway and your PC slows to a crawl.
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Hmmm, I have spent hours and hours learning linux .. well gnu really...
but people don't realize how many hours it took to learn windows and expect a instant transition. And then they try do things that they don't do on windows...get wifi/Ati gfx working when the manufacturer doesn't support the OS.
I prefer linux for administration (well ubuntu at least so far)
I don't have Crashes, reboots, patching, instability, or frustrations on windows XP btw (except when the belkin driver was crashing).
That 5-10 minutes to shutdown
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Exactly, it took me what 1 month to learn most of the Linux basics, but it took me several years to learn how to keep Window$ alive for max 2 years, after which you gotta reinstall ... cuz it FUCKS ITSELF OVER !!! And it gives you a headache all the while.
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Maybe the meaning wasn't as clear as I thought...
you should have said windows is expensive, especially when your time is.
Windows is expensive - In money and time, it takes a lot of it
especially when your time, thus making it all the more so expensive.
Hence, the quote....
If you rely on GP for your product distribution, and you use windows, to maintain the profit margin, you need a higher GP to maintain the distribution system.
If Linux is your method, the GP can be lower to maintain a similar level of profit margin.
There's a basic business principle involved there, less for more where possible.
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Well, it's not significantly faster per se, but don't forget that you're talking to the guy that uses Fluxbox because it loads in two seconds rather than two MINUTES. The more performance I can squeeze out of my hardware, the better.
My P3 system can boot XFCE in under one minute, and fluxbox is supposed to be ultralightweight, even more so than xfce.
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Unless you're one of those Gentoo junkies...
HAHAHAHALOL!!!!!!111!!!111 My syst3m 1s .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000018 s3ks faster cuz 1 d0z t2h gentooz!!!!LOL!O!!!O!l!O!L!O
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I think fluxbox is better than XFCE, and faster (for me at least).
BTW, did you know that KDE uses up about 50 MB of RAM on startup ... fluxbox uses only about 3 MB.
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i'm a reformed winaholic i just switched to freespire and i'll not switch back if my life depends on it. ps.i've been reading posts here a long time
superken76
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i just thought i would mention that i thought mepis stank, not trying to pick a fight but somebody said it was great for a newbie, i think that's entirely incorrect. all i am saying is that taking recommendations is fine, but you will want to try some out before you make any serious decision, because it really is all a matter of opinion. if there isn't an answer now to "what's the best distro" then there never will be.
i second,third and throw my mepis discs out the window that statement
Whatever man, some Linux distros are actually much easier to administer than any Window$ piece of shit.
they all are, thats where windows is the opposite of "paperclip-easy" its "completely fucking-piece-of-shit hard to administrate" given the os is a complete fucking piece of shit, i must admit, it fits
Unless you're one of those Gentoo junkies...
HAHAHAHALOL!!!!!!111!!!111 My syst3m 1s .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000018 s3ks faster cuz 1 d0z t2h gentooz!!!!LOL!O!!!O!l!O!L!O
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i'm a reformed winaholic i just switched to freespire and i'll not switch back if my life depends on it. ps.i've been reading posts here a long time
Cool. Good to see OSes like Freespire which only seem to get critism around here making people happy, heh.
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I've never heard of it. I've heard of Linspire though which does recieve a lot of criticism around here; is Freespire a community driven fork of it?
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i dont know all the tech talk ,it is my understanding it is built off linspire with the additation of CNR wich helps newbies like myself in the loading process allthough in the future i would like to learn how to load programs correctly as i feel i'm missing out on alot of software . thanks again for these boards . I've been clean for 4 days
Superken76
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in the future i would like to learn how to load programs correctly as i feel i'm missing out on alot of software
I concur, isntalling software on Linux isn't the most user friendly process.
What software would you like to install/update and we might be able to help you?
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Well i figured pain out ok as far as resizeing an image.it feels good to have a face to go with my name
Superken76
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hey! welcome to the dark side! i'd be interested in whatever you think about freespire, since it's not so common a choice of linux distro, so keep posting here, superken. You might like to ask at voidmain.is-a-geek.net/forums and maybe even linuxquestions.org as well, if you have administration questions about linux. both sites are good, in my experience.
by the way, interesting choice of avatar, it wouldn't be my favourite morpheus drawing though. which issue is it from/what artist?
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im posting this from linux mint, its GREAT!!!! better than ubuntu!!!!
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blacklist lg3d while youre at it
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Wait a sec, isn't linux mint actually ubuntu (with non-free stuff et al)? I should give freespire a try sometime, thanks for the mention.
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While we're balcklisting distros, may I please add SUSE to the list for obvious reasons.
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While we're balcklisting distros, may I please add SUSE to the list for obvious reasons.
here i thought we were blacklisting them!
add debian to the good list too!
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add debian to the good list too!
Did you just blacklist Debian?! :mad:
/me summons a minigun and points it at yahurd
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Did you just blacklist Debian?! :mad:
/me summons a minigun and points it at yahurd
Easy, easy... I'm sure he meant the whitelist...
/me covertly draws his Uzi
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Well freespire has going well for me so far i thought it was a little slow,come to find out my son swipped ram from my machine ,its back up to par now and all is well. Use the force Luke
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Well i read where UBUNTU and LINSPIRE are going to merge and become 1 in debian they are going to build with CNR beta release sometime this month here is the url
http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php
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ummm yes i said the GOOD list, along with fedora core, ubuntu you get the idea
i only mentioned the blacklist because i was talking about the word balcklisting!
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Well i read where UBUNTU and LINSPIRE are going to merge and become 1 in debian they are going to build with CNR beta release sometime this month here is the url
http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php
This week, Linspire and Canonical, the lead sponsor of the popular Ubuntu operating system, announced a technology partnership that will integrate core competencies from each company into the other's open source Linux offerings.
They are not merging..
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^^ Ubuntu will most likely be negatively affected by this semantic non-merger.
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About 2 weeks ago, I installed Freespire as well because I had a laptop, and I had been donating my processor time to Malaria research through "Bionic", and low and behold, a frigging virus made it through it somehow, but my virus scanner caught it, and that was the last straw, and so within 10 minutes...yes, with 10 MINUTES I was up and running with Freespire!!! It was by far the easiest install I've ever done in my life!!! I figure that if I've suffered through installations, and re-installations of Windows, and litterally pulling my hair out for days trying to get the damn thing to work, then I'll be able to figure out Linux! Besides, with the support of the Linux Gods here at Microsuck, I'll be in great hands!!!
Freespire is the community based off-shoot of Linspire. Yes, they are teaming up with Ubuntu, but they will be separate entities, and they will be sharing Linspire's Click-N-Run technology, but as to what Linspire will be getting from Ubuntu, I don't know.
Anyway, Freespire is extremely easy to use, and I did toy with many different distros using the LiveCD's, and other than Xandros, Freespire was one of the only ones that actually worked right off the disk, so here I am running Linux on my newish Toshiba Satellite laptop!
As with every OS there are some issues, such as Icons disappearing when you reboot. Of course if you compare this to the flickering of the icons in Win XP, then it is bearable because they've acknowledged it, and they are going to be fixing it; unlike Microsoft knowing about, and doing nothing about it because they don't have to. With the new update to the OS, they will be fixing different bugs such as installation of Flash Version 9. Currently they have 7 on there, and one of the first sites I went to was Linkin Park (No Snickering!!!), and I was told to update to the latest version and I wasn't able to get into the site. Firefox will not allow me to use differnt fonts in Gmail, and once again this is acknowledged. One program that is made especially for Linspire, and Freespire is "Lsongs", and it loaded up, but there is absolutely no sound, and I couldn't find a fix for this issue. I was rather disappointed about this because I was looking forward to putting a whole hackey sack of music on there....I think Calum has some MP3's out there;-). I tried to install America's Army, through the CNR, and it never did install even though it did say it was. However, there are certainly tons, and I mean tons of other programs out there to download, and I have to say the installation happened exactly as they said it will "ONE CLICK!" No fuss, and no muss! Am I able to install other programs without CNR? Yes, although I haven't explored this option yet, but after seeing my Geek install Fedora Core 6, and using apt get...hey, how hard is that?
Overall, it's a new OS, and it is going to take some time for me to be comfortable with it, but comparing my negative experiences with Microsoft to what I've just experienced with Freespire, I don't think I'm going to have near as many problems with Linux.
a1mck
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I think i'm working on close to 4 weeks with freespire things are still going well, allthough i've been working alot i havent had much time to play around but i'll be takin a few days off soon so i'll have have some time to explore a little further. Thanks for the great site folks keep up the good work.
superken76
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HEY folks freespire junkie still here and lovin it , so far its doin everything i need it to do i do however seem to have an issue with my usb port either not workin or not loaded i tried to get it to see my phone and it was a no go i'll work on it more l8er
superken76
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HEY folks freespire junkie still here and lovin it , so far its doin everything i need it to do i do however seem to have an issue with my usb port either not workin or not loaded i tried to get it to see my phone and it was a no go i'll work on it more l8er
superken76
What is it about Freespire that you like? I have stayed away from that distro since it's inception, but I'm starting to hear some positive experiences from Linspire/Freespire users.
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Well for me its CNR. But i would say for any linux newbi it is very easy to use.This is first trip into linux since red hat about 5 years ago and so far i really like it ,still having some problems finding things but its well worth no virus or spyware.
superken76