This past week, Linspire showed the first public demo of Linspire Five-0. I was lucky enough to play with it for the last week, and within, you’ll find a detailed walkthrough of what’s new with Linspire.
I’ve had the chance to use each version of Linspire (which, until recently, was known as LindowsOS) since version 2. My reviews of each version have been published here on osnews.com, and with each one, I pointed out the strengths and weaknesses I saw. Before I go into detail, I like to point out that the version we were provided for review was Beta IV, and therefore may contain some bugs that will be ironed out before general release.
Linspire Five-0 boots to a simple prompt that asks if you want to install to the hard drive or run “Linspire Live!” from CD. The installation is extremely straightforward, and I’m happy to say that this time around, Linspire offers advanced disk configuration options. Like in Linspire 4.0, you have to prep a partition ahead of time or take over the entire disk at install. I experienced a problem here – the Linspire installer didn’t see the undefined space in the extended partition on my primary hard drive, and consequently, I ended up nuking one of my valid Windows partitions. While this was clearly my oversight and my fault, I do want to point out that after selecting the partition in the install, the installer never once confirmed which partition I had selected. Since this is not the place one should be messing around, I’d recommend the Linspire developers make the confirmations a little more verbose.
Let’s dig right into it, shall we? These days, many people have “distribution fever,” constantly upgrading and trying new distros every month or week. In time, the experiences begin to bleed together – they all have similar look and feel, and other than a signature application or a custom wallpaper, too many are identified by their window manager, theme, and package manager. Linspire Five-0 throws a fork into that notion.
Linspire Five-0 comes with a new custom theme, Linspire Clear, designed with the assistance of Everaldo Coehlo of Crystal fame. Upon first use, you’re greeted with a Flash tutorial that helps guide you through general Linspire use. Unfortunately, at least in this beta version, most of the Flash tutorials refer to the OS as LindowsOS and show the LindowsOS 4 desktop. Linspire’s desktop is based on KDE 3.3.2 on Xorg 6.8.1, several GTK+ apps, and Mozilla. The desktop, while fairly cluttered, is very nice looking and immediately, you’ll see that the “L” button has been replaced with an attractive, clickable Launch button.
I was upset to see that not only did sound not work on either of my test systems, my home system’s Nvidia Quaddro 4 was not properly detected, and therefore, I was stuck at 1024×768 on my 17″ flat panel. All other hardware appeared to work. The two systems I tested Linspire Five-0 on were: PIII 600, 256MB SD RAM, Riva TNT2 16MB video, Soundblaster Live Value; and Dell Precision, Dual PIII 1.8Ghz Xeons, 1GB DDR SDRAM, Nvidia Quaddro 4 video, Soundblaster Live! sound.
One notices, after just a minute or two of clicking around, that not only are menus semi-transparent, but they all cast dropshadows for a very cool effect. One strange behavior I found with menu transparency is that sometimes, in some applications, moving from menu to menu leaves a residual effect from the previous menu as illustrated. I hope this behavior is ultimately remedied, understanding that pulling off this effect is likely the work of several programs between Linspire, KDE, Xorg, and more. Dropshadowing in Linux is still pretty rare, and is not always very effective. Here, the shadows under windows temporarily disappear as the window is dragged and are instantly replaced when the windows is dropped or docked for a fairly convincing effort. I was impressed, as this is the first distro I’ve used to pull off dropshadowing believably.
Aside from the custom theme, Linspire is packed with new applications, chief among them, Lphoto, Lsongs, Nvu, and Ltorrent. Lsongs, put bluntly, is an iTunes-like music manager for Linux. While some apps already exist to pull this function off, Ltunes is a fairly familiar-seeming interface. After importing my music into my “Media Library,” I was able to skim through my music with great ease. There are still some tripping points. For example, in true Linux fashion, it thought that “Alice in Chains” was a different band than “Alice In Chains” (note the capital I.) Overall, Lsongs is a very cool application that, with the rise of the iPod, is necessary for a true Linux desktop, however, clearly has a few kinks to work out.
Lphoto is a great application too. Lphoto feels almost exactly like Google’s recently released Picasa 2. Importing photos is dead simple, there are touch-up tools including a red eye remover. There’s a slideshow preview, an HTML generator, and an album organizer, all of which can be exported to a CD, but as far as I saw, not to DVD through Lphoto yet (note that K3b, which is included, can write DVDs.) Lphoto is really a nice looking application withh nearly all of the features I’d want from a photo management application.
Now, burning a DVD was fairly easy using K3b. While burning a DVD, however, the system was fairly slow. I’m told that there is a lot of extra debugger scripts running in the beta versions, and so much of the hit is in system speed. I’m hoping the slowness was the result of this.
On the subject of DVDs, I could not find a way to play any DVDs on my Linspire system. I later discovered that in order to download the Linspire DVD Player, one must cough up another 4.95. This price goes up to 9.95 on previous versions of Linspire, and $39.95 for a standalone download (yes, apt-get works when configured and therefore, plenty of questionable codecs are available, but for the sake of review, there is no other way to play DVDs.) Now, loading your DVD into the drive, manually opening Konqueror, drilling into the VIDEO_TS folder, and double-clicking a .vob file (or dragging it into Kplayer), you’ll find it will play provided it’s not encrypted (most discs are). Of course, we can all agree that this is a ridiculous way for a DVD to work, and of course, it will only play the .vob file you click on. How can this be that a commercial OS doesn’t include DVD playback?
Nvu is the so-called rival of Microsoft’s Front Page and Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. While it may certainly be a groundbreaking application for Linux, its benefit is truly for those that are comfortable with Front Page. I am much more comfortable in Bluefish, which is geared towards more technical coders. While Bluefish, as well as the popular Quanta+, is understandably absent from Linspire, they are both available via Click-N-Run, as well as many other web authoring applications. Nvu is a huge step, however, towards user friendly applications that don’t presume that the user is technically proficient. While this is sure to offend some, I believe it to be a good thing for desktop Linux in general.
Ltorrent is a very cool new application for managing BitTorrent downloads. As far as I can tell, it’s based on the console only btqueue, and is currently a Linspire only application. With the rise of BitTorrent, it’s a nice inclusion. However, since there is no FTP client installed by default, I think it’s odd that this application is included. Seems strange to me that one would assume a Linspire user would need a torrent tracker but not an FTP client. This seems to be a poor choice. Since the app, which is a nice app, by the way, was developed in house, they bundled it. My feeling is that it doesn’t quite fit. Linspire suffers from an identity crisis here. They can choose to be slimmed down and provide an experience akin to that of Windows, or they can bundle some more advanced applications. However, they can’t bundle just a select few advanced applications and expect people not to complain that fairly standard Linux apps are missing.
On that front though, Linspire has improved over their previous versions. This version includes OpenOffice.org, the screenshot tool, the standard proprietary tools (Flash, MP3, Real Player) preinstalled, and gaim for IM’ing amongst others. However, again, and this has been a complaint for many versions now – Linspire is still light on software when compared to other Linux distributions. Although clearly the goal is to lure people away from Windows, Linspire is not established enough to not view projects/products like Fedora, Mandrake, and SUSE as competitors. In this sense, the value is simply not realized. It’s not fair to only consider, say, Xandros and Lycoris as viable desktop Linux alternatives. Here’s my proposed solution: If the goal for Linspire was to keep it slim to improve install time and disc weight, there should be an obvious portion of Click-N-Run that stores a number of free applications. There’s no room for another OS that doesn’t offer the basics. OS X comes with iLife now. To compete with Windows, you’ll need to offer not just more, but better and easier.
One thing that I found strange was the choice as Mozilla proper (Seamonkey) as the default web browser. It has been rebranded “Linspire Internet Suite.” While Firefox is available in the Click-N-Run store (along with Opera, Galeon, and others), I find it plain annoying that Mozilla is present as the default. Nearly everyone I know uses Firefox, even people on Windows, and I would think Windows users contemplating a switch to Linux would be more at home with Firefox, which they may well be running already, versus Mozilla, which, truth be told, feels like a mess. I haven’t actually used Mozilla since Firefox was still Phoenix, but going back makes me remember why I ditched it in the first place.
Of course, no Linspire review is complete without mention of Click-N-Run. These days, the CNR method, pioneered, or least least first delivered, by Linspire, is more common. Xandros Networks is pretty much the same concept. However, the way Linspire has chosen to split software into subcategories and organize the menus similarly into “aisles” is a pretty good idea. Though not new to Linspire Five-0, it is a good holdover concept that I think it great. The only problem I see is that there is no obvious way to uninstall software, which seems like something many users would one day want. In addition to there not being any visible menu editor, and the right-click disabled on the “Launch” menu, there’s no way to get unwanted programs out of the menu. If one were to go crazy one night in the Click-N-Run warehouse, they might find themselves stuck with a fairly bloated menu.
Continuing that thought though, it’s not very hard to turn Linspire into a fully functioning Debian Sid machine. By simply opening /etc/apt/sources.list in KWrite and uncommenting two lines, you unlock quite a bit of power. A few minutes later I had Firefox, gFTP, Bluefish, and Synaptic running with no effort and no subscription. Installing them via apt-get from the terminal, they showed up with no effort in the Launch menu. A simple apt-get remove xmms removed it from my system as expected and from the Launch menu. Of course, once you have resorted to using raw apt-get, what’s the point of Click-N-Run?
I’d like to note that while Linspire attempts to mount NTFS partitions, it did not properly mount my largest NTFS partition on a second hard drive, yet strangely, Linspire Live!, the fully functional if not slower live CD portion, did. Very frustrating, as a minute or two of tinkering with mount and umount still left me with an apparently “blank” drive.
One can’t use or review Linspire without a little knowledge of the company itself and what it does. There’s a strong community around Linspire, there are active forums, and there is even support line you can call (which I did and I reached a recording with several useful tips on the weekend). Linspire has contributed to Wineconf, and this just last week was a sponsor of the Linux Desktop Summit. Linspire is doing a lot to push desktop Linux, and I think it’s important for many to realize that recently, Linspire has probably delivered more via new desktop applications than most other distributions.
To sum up: Linspire Five-0 is definitely a good base from which to build. The lack of well rounded applications when compared to other OSes in its class leave me wanting more, however, a slick look, some powerful Linspire specific apps, and a non-crippled undercarriage remain appealing.
Linspire Five-0 is definitely an exciting distribution. While this beta version has plenty of snags, it’s one of the most exciting distributions out there, because it delivers so many unique experiences. A custom theme, several new and powerful apps, a solid Debian base, and ready and friendly support should make Linspire an attractive option to new Linux converts. For the seasoned, Linspire brings an easy and familiar desktop and great new apps, and should be worth the value if you forgo the CNR membership in favor of apt-get and the Debian repositories.
Installation: 8/10
Hardware Support: 6/10
Ease of use: 9/10
Features: 8/10
Credibility: 7/10
Speed: 8/10
Overall: 7.66
Bravo!
I work with RedHat all day long and enjoy the simplicity of Linspire when I come home at night so I can relax and not have to work any overtime. I even use CNR and payed the DVD $4.95. It’s my money, my choice.
Their Launch button looks similar to the Linare explore button…
http://www.linare.com/screen_shots/desktop.html
It’s sort of fustrating to think that Linspire have spent a large sum of money on a new look, and although it is improved over previous versions, it still looks like a gaudy knock-off version of Windows. Less is more sometimes people, come on. Cut down the system tray and the number of icons on the desktop as well as the use of the “bevel and emboss” effect and hire some _real_ designers.
Other than the tacky visuals, this looks like a decent release. Kudos.
Does it recognize and set up second and third hard drives without having to manually hack it?
Is SMP support finally compiled in? – And before someone says it doesn’t need it may I remind you that P4-HT’s use SMP in order to run 2 instances of folding@home clients. There’s probably other times it need SMP as well.
Has wireless and laptop power management been expanded?
I’m sorry but the review that was given was the typical “well its got this kernel and this gui” type of review that tells us jack.
i dont get it either, but people seem to like gaudy.
Just wondering if Five-O will recognize and use a dual processor setup. (not sure if that is dependent on the kernel or something else..)
It is inevitable when there is a commercial Linux Distro like Xandros or Linspire there those in the Linux community who cannot help themselves, they just have to let you u know that their distro is better and since it is geared towards some migrating from Windows, it isn’t really Linux.
I have a question for the ” My Linux is better than your Linux people” and it is, Do you want to really put a dent in microsoft’s dominance as an OS? Then why not applaud companies like Xandros and Linspire for bringing Linux to the masses with something that eases the tranistion from Windows to Linux and at the same time you can tweak, compile , and configure to your hearts content and take comfort in the potential increase in Linux users. You dont ever have to use it, just support it exsistence : Linux user Unite! What difference whether someone is using Xandros, Linspire, Mandrake, or Gentoo the important thing is that they are not using Windows. You know this ridiculous in fighting distro flaming in the Linux Community is exactly what Microsoft wants and Im suprised they havent talked about this in some of their anti Linux propaganda, u have heard of the divide and conquer stragety right? All the condescension and scorn cast upon easy to use Linux distros and their users could discourage potential Linux users when they see all the nasty distro flame wars. Just stop it ok, use whatever distro you wanna use and don’t insult the intelligence of anyone because they are using what you like to use. Just be happy they are not using Windows.
I
“I think the problem with paying extra to play them is that people have already payed for the dvds and expect them to just work.”
This is nonsense. You did buy a physical DVD player, right? Where the heck do you think a portion of that money goes? To pay for the licensing of the codecs. You don’t buy a DVD and stick in your VCR or your CD player. Folks, you’re going to have to get used to paying for some premium features. DVD playback is not something you can’t live without. If you wanted, I suppose you could blame the manufacturers of computer DVD readers and burners. Actually, this would make more sense. Why can’t they flit the bill for the codecs? Why is everybody blaming the OS? HMMM.
I have been using Linspire/Lindows since they gave away the 4.5 Developer Edition to OSNews readers for free a year or so ago. I run 9 Debian servers every day. I have used, at various times, Slackware, Mandrake, Debian, Knoppix and Linspire on my desktop systems.
There is a price to be paid in flexibility by staying within the CNR model. It’s the same price you pay by not adding sarge/sid to apt.sources in stock Debian. You lose some flexibility, lose access to bleeding edge updates, and gain tremendous stability.
Linspire makes all of the standard development tools, kernel sources, etc available in CNR. It is trivial to install them (one-click) and go grab anything I really want that is not in CNR from source.
However, for day to day operations on my primary laptop (Dell 5150), I like not having to go figure out what the latest glibc update broke. What perl module some app is missing because the developer did a poor job of building his deb. What conflict this particular version of some app has with the version of the KDE libs I have installed.
It is refreshing sometimes, to have a system just work. All the time, every time, no exceptions. That’s why I use Linspire despite not being a newbie or recent Windows convert. That’s why I paid $99 for a lifetime CNR subscription.
The quality of people at the company, the quality of people in their user forums, and the fact that I still enjoy tinkering is why I paid another $99 to become an Insider for life.
As far as I’m concerned, that $200 is some of the best computing dollars I have ever spent.
“I have a question for the ” My Linux is better than your Linux people” and it is, Do you want to really put a dent in microsoft’s dominance as an OS? Then why not applaud companies like Xandros and Linspire for bringing Linux to the masses with something that eases the tranistion from Windows to Linux and at the same time you can tweak, compile , and configure to your hearts content and take comfort in the potential increase in Linux users.”
Maybe some of us think that the masses will be turned away from Linux by these distros. Loading a crippled Wally World laptop with Linux is my prime example. Also, you can’t “tweak, compile, and configure to you hearts content” with Linspire, as it will surely break. For many Linspire will turn out to be an expensive stepping stone. Others will go back to Windows. The uneducated public needs to be aware of the limitations and costs of certain distros. Linspire is a great alternative to Windows for those who are not technically savy. Nothing wrong with that. In my experience, Linspire 4.5 installs default with a firewall which is more than I can say for a few newbie targeted distros. Although I’m not sure why it has 9 or 10 services running behind the firewall.
You are being ripped off.
All the OEM Pioneer drives in Australia have the Nero Suite. I think LiteOn are the only ones that don’t have software.
My advice buy value for money, not cheap.
First of all DVD players don’t typically come with DVD burning software 😉
Second of all, AdamW asked where he could purchase a DVD (reader or writer, he didn’t say) that didn’t come with software so that he could save a few dollars and I provided him a link.
Since I only use hardware that is Linux compatible, I could care less if software or drivers are provided. To me, compatibility = value, not extra non-compatible software.
oh, well in that case, you’re barking entirely up the wrong tree. CNR is a software distribution tool. MandrakeClub isn’t. MDK has a perfectly serviceable software distribution tool called rpmdrake, which you get for free, and which uses freely available repositories. MandrakeClub is more of a community.
no, it’s not nonsense. The problem is not paying for the licensing of the codec. The problem is paying for the licensing of DeCSS.
Now, think about this. DeCSS gives precisely nothing to the consumer. So far as you the watcher are concerned, a DeCSS protected DVD has exactly the same features, quality and everything else as a non-protected one. All DeCSS does for _us_ (or rather, *to* us) is restrict our fair use under copyright law. The *only* people who benefit from DeCSS are the studios. Yet, bizarrely, we the consumers are supposed to *pay* for it. Why does this make sense to you?
Thanks for making that distinction…
When one is a lifetime member as I am, and the user I was responding to is…
When you purchase an Insider’s Subscription, basically… One has a permanent membership as an Insider AND as a Lifetime Member.
At least, as long as Linspire stays in business…
Which, I hope is a long time to come.
ROFLMAO!!
YES, it IS begging… (Laugh a little, ok?)
Personally, I don’t have a problem sending some money Linspire’s way.
I haven’t yet registered as an Insider, I probably should soon…
I also helped them out when they asked for people to pony up money to fight Microsoft in Europe. I also paid for a year of CNR prior to that. Just like you.
I like sending money to support people to make stuff for me to enjoy…
I also like generous people who make great stuff, and give it away freely.
I don’t like myself when I expect people to give me stuff they worked hard to make for free…
I’ll get Five-Oh when it’s released. If I want it sooner, I can join as an Insider and get it in the next 20 minutes.
I’ll probably join as an Insider, just to give them more money. And, I’ll probably buy that OpenOffice/FireFox Suite to reward them for all the good work they do too..
Even though, I’ve already downloaded both packages…
I’ve watched too many neat things die, because the programmer couldn’t afford to keep doing it for free (Amilthon for one…).
I’m willing to donate for ReactOS. I’m waiting for them to be setup for that.
//You can imagine my astonishment when finally I got this system installed and patched (*seven* reboots!!!), I inserted a DVD, and windows had no core system component capable of playing a DVD.//
Personally, I’m astonished that anyone would *sit in front of a computer* to watch a DVD!!! I’d much rather pop the DVD into my home theatre, sit on the couch, and enjoy from 10-20 feet away.
This is a NON-ISSUE to 98.9% of the market.
lots of students don’t have home theatres. Lots of kids have PCs in their bedroom but no DVD player. And increasing numbers of people use their PCs as home theatres – my PC plays all my DVDs through my nice 27″ TV and 5.1 speaker setup.
concerning my statements:
Then why not applaud companies like Xandros and Linspire for bringing Linux to the masses with something that eases the tranistion from Windows to Linux and at the same time you can tweak, compile , and configure to your hearts content and take comfort in the potential increase in Linux users.”
I actually meant to say that the users of more demanding forms of Linux can tweak, configure, and compile to their hearts content and still be happy that their is something like Linspire or Xandros to get the newbies get their feet, solely on the fact that are breaking free of Microsofts chains. I tried Linpspire and while its not my distro of choice it certainly has it merits, esp for the newbie migrating fresh from Windows.
You see there is a Linux for everyone from the techinal savvy user to the beginner and thats what we should be celebrating, not smugly sneering at the User friendly distros and their users.
“I actually meant to say that the users of more demanding forms of Linux can tweak..”
Understood. It made a good entrance for my “can’t tweak..” statement though. (Still waiting for CTO Tom’s ansewr to my 5.0 apt-get compatibility question).
I too have used Linspire (several versions) on several computers and it always needed work, usually for hardware. Once one has to start monkeying around under the hood, they might as well have started with a less proprietary free distro. Pushing pre-installed software on lame hardware isn’t the answer.
I don’t agree with the “my distro is better” statements. Pointing out the limitations and sometimes not so obvious costs of distros is not a bad thing though.
Thanks for a great OS!
I am a newbie on Linux but this OS is a very simple one (actually far more simple then windows) but flexible.
The best of all is CNR!
If you are ready to be ripped off every month with the CNR subscription to a warehouse full of OLD programs and have mp3.com old and crappy music shoved down your email chute then go ahead and fall for this! Try UBUNTU. Youll pay nothing, have a way to ungrade your system constantly with NEW programs and be part of a real good community, not this paid off $20 million by MS Linspire concoction!
There are plenty of good ‘free’ distros out there. Mepis replaced XP on my boxes months ago. Anyone interested in checking out the many Linux distros available should visit distrowatch.com.
Does anyone know when this will be released. I’ve tried 4.5 but had not much luck because of my hardware. But I’m hoping to try it out because I’ve been hearing alot of good things about it.
It should be released in maybe 2 months the insiders is testing it for full horses at this time…It will be awsome!