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View Full Version : What changes will Freespire cause to Ubuntu?



jruschme
February 12th, 2007, 08:56 PM
As a Ubuntu user who has played with Linspire and Freespire, I have to confess that there are some packages and drivers from those distros that I would have liked to see in Ubuntu.

First and foremost is the mki_adapter kernel driver which is needed for Win4Lin 9x. *spire includes it in their kernel, but to run Win4Lin 9x under Ubuntu, I have to shoehorn in the patch and deal with building a custom kernel.

In the past, I've also tried to build a few packages such as Lsongs and the AOL dialer under Ubuntu, but have always run into python-kde incompatibilities between the distros.

Are there any chance that we'll be seeing these (especially the mki_adapter driver) in Feisty or Feisty++?

Thanks...
John

Adamant1988
February 12th, 2007, 08:57 PM
CNR will be the biggest thing, it's ease of use will remain it's big selling point.

justin whitaker
February 12th, 2007, 09:13 PM
Other than CNR, I would like to see some of the spit and polish that Lin/Freespire give to KDE make it's way into Kubuntu. Not that the Kubuntu guys and gals do not have a good thing going, but Linspire really has the whole KDE integration thing down.

Brunellus
February 12th, 2007, 09:19 PM
CNR will be the biggest thing, it's ease of use will remain it's big selling point.
Not much.

The people who need freespire will move to freespire. the people who use ubuntu will probably stay more or less the same. The really disgruntled will defect to debian, unless they like KDE, whereupon they'll probably defect to....I don't know, Slackware (?). Many many poisonous threads will be posted and subsequently locked or jailed. Improvised forkbombs will be let off. Distro hooligans will riot in the streets.

No big deal.

justin whitaker
February 12th, 2007, 09:21 PM
Not much.

The people who need freespire will move to freespire. the people who use ubuntu will probably stay more or less the same. The really disgruntled will defect to debian, unless they like KDE, whereupon they'll probably defect to....I don't know, Slackware (?). Many many poisonous threads will be posted and subsequently locked or jailed. Improvised forkbombs will be let off. Distro hooligans will riot in the streets.

No big deal.

You are such a realist. :)

Adamant1988
February 12th, 2007, 09:28 PM
Not much.

The people who need freespire will move to freespire. the people who use ubuntu will probably stay more or less the same. The really disgruntled will defect to Debian, unless they like KDE, whereupon they'll probably defect to....I don't know, Slackware (?). Many many poisonous threads will be posted and subsequently locked or jailed. Improvised forkbombs will be let off. Distro hooligans will riot in the streets.

No big deal.

I don't expect it to go that loudly at all... When CNR is introduced (as we've seen from the announcement) there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but things will calm down and people will get used to using CNR (or whatever Ubuntu implements of it)

Brunellus
February 12th, 2007, 09:28 PM
I don't expect it to go that loudly at all... When CNR is introduced (as we've seen from the announcement) there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but things will calm down and people will get used to using CNR (or whatever Ubuntu implements of it)
were you not here for the original Kevin Carmony thread?

Adamant1988
February 12th, 2007, 09:35 PM
were you not here for the original Kevin Carmony thread?

Oh, I was. I was. (and here for the recent CNR thread too!)


I just predict that by the time it actually happens, people will have accepted the fact that it is going to happen... The people who are upset will have already left for other distributions by then, etc. So I think it's going to be more like a low constant rumble from the community rather than a loud sharp bang and an explosion.

Anthem
February 12th, 2007, 10:01 PM
I agree that a well-polished KDE is probably in Kubuntu's future. The *spire devs are supposedly quite good about sending patches upstream, and we'll certainly accept those patches. Basically, Kubuntu just got their first paid developer.

I think Freespire will die within a year, actually. Those users will move over to Ubuntu/Kubuntu, which fulfills the purpose of Freespire quite nicely. So Ubuntu just took a big step up in terms of mindshare.

I'm all for consolidation. First Mepis, then Linspire, next hopefully Xandros. They can base enterprise products on the LTS releases. Everybody wins. What's interesting is that Ubuntu has basically become the Debian Common Core Alliance instead of joining it. Shuttleworth was right.

r4ik
February 12th, 2007, 10:10 PM
Sorry for breaking in this thread but i can't seem to find "disgruntled"

Adamant1988
February 12th, 2007, 10:10 PM
I agree that a well-polished KDE is probably in Kubuntu's future. The *spire devs are supposedly quite good about sending patches upstream, and we'll certainly accept those patches. Basically, Kubuntu just got their first paid developer.

I think Freespire will die within a year, actually. Those users will move over to Ubuntu/Kubuntu, which fulfills the purpose of Freespire quite nicely. So Ubuntu just took a big step up in terms of mindshare.

I'm all for consolidation. First Mepis, then Linspire, next hopefully Xandros. They can base enterprise products on the LTS releases. Everybody wins. What's interesting is that Ubuntu has basically become the Debian Common Core Alliance instead of joining it. Shuttleworth was right.

Freespire will not die, if anything it stands to become more popular from this, regardless Freespire is important to the Linspire development as it will essentially act as the "bleeding edge Linspire" for those who want that, for OEMs they will benefit greatly from the testing that is done through freespire.. the best bits will be taken out and put into a rock-solid Linspire release. I am hoping that Linspire takes this opportunity to focus more on the features of it's flagship distribution, and gives it a professional spit-****. The quality of the last few *spire releases was a bit of a let down.

Brunellus
February 12th, 2007, 10:11 PM
Freespire will not die, if anything it stands to become more popular from this, regardless Freespire is important to the Linspire development as it will essentially act as the "bleeding edge Linspire" for those who want that, for OEMs they will benefit greatly from the testing that is done through freespire.. the best bits will be taken out and put into a rock-solid Linspire release. I am hoping that Linspire takes this opportunity to focus more on the features of it's flagship distribution, and gives it a professional spit-****. The quality of the last few *spire releases was a bit of a let down.
watch your asterisks.

darkhatter
February 12th, 2007, 10:35 PM
I'm guessing this is going to be like the Microsoft Novell thing on the suse forums. Huge thread with everyone fighting, 10 users announce they are changing distro, life moves on.

anyone want to second this

Adamant1988
February 12th, 2007, 10:58 PM
I'm guessing this is going to be like the Microsoft Novell thing on the suse forums. Huge thread with everyone fighting, 10 users announce they are changing distro, life moves on.

anyone want to second this

I second the motion.

Brunellus
February 12th, 2007, 11:00 PM
I second the motion.
motion is out of order and will not be considered.

Are there any other points or motions on the floor at this time? Seeing none, we will proceed to the next post. $user, you are recognized for $time.

r4ik
February 12th, 2007, 11:09 PM
Darkhatter is going to be right.
Let us leave this as is this has gone far enough !

deanlinkous
February 13th, 2007, 12:03 AM
The *spire devs are supposedly quite good about sending patches upstream, and we'll certainly accept those patches.
giggle giggle snort snort....
KC started a rumor and now it is *supposedly* true.... :D

malfist
February 13th, 2007, 12:18 AM
Does CNR not cost money? I though Ubuntu was 'free'?

jrusso2
February 13th, 2007, 12:52 AM
I have used both Ubuntu and Freespire.

The main attraction of Freespire is that you get a lot of the non free stuff installed up front so you don't have to hassel with that later.

Things like codecs, wireless drivers, nvidia and ati drivers are all there ready to go.

The bad part is the whole distro and its repository is broken or outdated.

Despite that its somewhat stable long as you don't need to depend on CNR to add a lot of software.

The good part about ubuntu is that its kept up to date but the bad part of that is you get a lot of bugs.

Jeanette

bowhuntr
February 13th, 2007, 01:04 AM
Does CNR not cost money? I though Ubuntu was 'free'?

There is a Basic service which is free and a Gold service which is 49.95, I believe. The Gold service is where you get the discounts on the Click and Buy programs.

malfist
February 13th, 2007, 01:16 AM
Okay, well when I tried Linspire (right after windows sued them and made them change their name) CNR cost $5 a moth or so.

Adamant1988
February 13th, 2007, 01:30 AM
Okay, well when I tried Linspire (right after windows sued them and made them change their name) CNR cost $5 a moth or so.

They have since made the basic subscription free.

RAV TUX
February 13th, 2007, 01:58 AM
Yawn!....reading this thread has just made me very, very sleepy.

darkhatter
February 13th, 2007, 02:10 AM
Yawn!....reading this thread has just made me very, very sleepy.

is there any news on letting normal users have pictures in there signature?

Brunellus
February 13th, 2007, 02:21 AM
yes. answer is no.

deanlinkous
February 13th, 2007, 03:45 AM
the new CNR will not let you install local packages? No saving packages to your hard drive or having them on a CD or whatever...
even synaptic can do that....sheesh

Oh and I found out that the browser invokes a mime-type that starts a plug-in client that actually preforms the download and install... So my browser that surfs the net is going to have a mimetype for a plugin that downloads and installs stuff. Does that sound scary to anyone else or just me?

bowhuntr
February 13th, 2007, 04:03 AM
Being able to save the packages to the hard drive will be available later.

http://forum.cnr.com/showpost.php?p=376&postcount=2

steven8
February 13th, 2007, 04:11 AM
In the initial release of CNR.com this capability won't be available, but the request is noted for future versions...

I wouldn't call that a slam dunk in favor of it.

Arisna
February 13th, 2007, 04:11 AM
I haven't been keeping up on this stuff, but so long as I can continue using apt and dpkg normally without being forced to use CNR as well, I won't defect to Debian (or, more accurately, return to Debian after two years). :popcorn:

bowhuntr
February 13th, 2007, 04:14 AM
I wouldn't call that a slam dunk in favor of it.

The feature is there for the current version of CNR that comes with Linspire so I don't know why it wouldn't be included on the new version that is being developed.

deanlinkous
February 13th, 2007, 04:30 AM
Being able to save the packages to the hard drive will be available later.

http://forum.cnr.com/showpost.php?p=376&postcount=2

spin it.... :)
It doesn't say it will be available later at all. It doesn't even hint at that. How many times has spire been *working* on something that never showed up? How many times has something been *noted* yet that is all that was ever done?

They are slimming down the company and MORE things are going to get accomplished? I doubt it but you could be right.

bowhuntr
February 13th, 2007, 04:33 AM
I am not trying to spin it. I was showing what has been posted about the subject. You sure enjoy spreading FUD, don't you.

deanlinkous
February 13th, 2007, 04:40 AM
Dude, what FUD? You can accuse me of FUD'ding all you like but I see none....

I notice you did not answer my questions or offer proof that what I said was incorrect?

I cant help it if Linspire buys freespire new digs and sets them up with bling and brags about the whole thing and what freespire is costing them. Then they tell freespire to move over because linspire is moving in! :) too funny.... Same product, same forums, same users.....yea really we are two different things. :)

jruschme
February 13th, 2007, 03:23 PM
I haven't been keeping up on this stuff, but so long as I can continue using apt and dpkg normally without being forced to use CNR as well, I won't defect to Debian (or, more accurately, return to Debian after two years). :popcorn:

You can use apt and dpkg just fine in Freespire/Linspire. The issue, if any, is that they seem to be considered "power user" things with no integration to CNR. So, if you install a package from apt/dpkg and it is updated, CNR won't notify you of the update. Similarly, if you install a package with CNR, updates won't show up in an apt-get dist-upgrade.

It will be interesting to see how/if the new CNR resolves this, though I'm not sure that this is so much a CNR technical issue as a Freespire repository management issue.

Still wondering about my original question, though... will we see additional drivers (i.e., mki-adapter) in the Ubuntu kernel as a result of the deal or will Freespire maintain its own kernel packages?

Brunellus
February 13th, 2007, 03:39 PM
You can use apt and dpkg just fine in Freespire/Linspire. The issue, if any, is that they seem to be considered "power user" things with no integration to CNR. So, if you install a package from apt/dpkg and it is updated, CNR won't notify you of the update. Similarly, if you install a package with CNR, updates won't show up in an apt-get dist-upgrade.

It will be interesting to see how/if the new CNR resolves this, though I'm not sure that this is so much a CNR technical issue as a Freespire repository management issue.

Still wondering about my original question, though... will we see additional drivers (i.e., mki-adapter) in the Ubuntu kernel as a result of the deal or will Freespire maintain its own kernel packages?
If my experience with SuSE 9.1 is anything like the apt/CNR experience, it might be instructive.

You *can* use apt with SuSE. The problem is/was that it felt like a bolt-on, and was a pain for newbies to set up and configure. I ended up jumping to Ubuntu simply because it had apt instead of yast.

wh0rd
February 14th, 2007, 07:55 PM
sudo apt-get remove cnr

deanlinkous
February 14th, 2007, 08:13 PM
sudo apt-get remove --purge cnr*
:D

wh0rd
February 15th, 2007, 06:12 AM
No one is really questioning CNR it seems. Here's an article that I found that's interesting:

http://blog.notsosoft.net/2007/ranting/okay-everybodys-talking-about-non-free-bundles.html


Wow. So GNU/Linux is just another product to some people. I find that concerning. Torvalds didn’t write it to be a product, Stallman didn’t write the compiler to be a product, and I don’t think the KDE or GNOME folks did it for that reason either. I know I certainly don’t hack to make a product that others can sell while they marginalize my motives. I don’t mind if folks make money, but the very idea that they feel okay with bundling proprietary software with what was supposed to be a system with complete freedom does bother me greatly.

You can marginalize me by pointing out practicalities and hypocrisies, and that’s all fine and dandy. People are monetizing something that they didn’t even participate in making–short of packaging it–and they’re not even paying lipservice to the freedom that it is supposed to represent. It’s not that they ignore it even, it’s that they actively suppress the ideas that founded GNU/Linux and made it great. The concept of Open Source is one with origins in businesses trying to do just this. They wanted to distance themselves from the political and social motivation behind free software, so they couldn’t very well call it free software… so they focused on source code and call it Open Source. It’s not a development methodology, it’s a means of viewpoint discrimination and suppression of ideas that they don’t agree with.

SunnyRabbiera
February 15th, 2007, 06:18 AM
The cool thing is that you can still use whatever you want to install whatever you want, simply put I dont think buntu will dump synaptic so all is calm on the western front with me, and I only view CNR as a possibly positive addition to the foray :D