Condensed Freespire 1.0 Review

[jsprojects]

When I first downloaded Freespire, I thought it was one of those Linux distros that people say is good, but is never to my taste. In other words, I thought Freespire was going to be a piece of crap! Well, to tell you the truth, I was wrong.

Freespire comes installed with many "necessary" programs including a Freespire version of Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, and many others, including Macromedia Flash Player. It has a very easy-to-use interface, and is a great OS to start with for Linux newbies and those trying to shove their evil sloppy opeating system under the table. The extremely easy to use desktop is very welcoming to those switching to Linux from any OS, including Mac,Unix(duh),Windows,other distros of Linux, and even Linspire(amazing isn't it?)! Freespire also comes with a very easy to use program called CNR (Click N' Run) that can be used to install software from the CNR Warehouse. You can use apt-get if you choose to, and I prefer apt-get because most software is more easily found in apt-get than CNR. On the negative side, Freespire has over 70 different apt repositories which makes the update process extremely slow even for DSL/Cable. But the worst part of Freespire is its outdated software. Freespire does not come even close to bleeding edge. This is most likely due to the lack of developers and community support.

My rating for Freespire 1.0 - 3 1/2 stars out of 5 (70% good)

Download Guide:
Rating: 10% - So bad, it it unusable by any creature who walks upon the earth.
Rating: 20% - Absolutely Horrible! DO NOT DOWNLOAD! A huge waste of time!
Rating: 30% - So bad, your eyes will burn just looking at the screen.
Rating: 40% - You may want to download it, but beware.
Rating: 50% - OK, not too too bad, but wait a few weeks for a better version.
Rating: 60% - The average Joe, nothing special about it, worth downloading
Rating: 70% - Nice system, a few kinks, some very notable features
Rating: 80% - Above Average, An absolute winner!
Rating: 90% - Do not hesitate, It is the best system out there!
Rating: 100% - Download it if it takes you forever and a day!

[WebThingy]

A very fair review. I use Freespire now and love it, but it does have a few bugs. It is only 1.0 though. Will be interesting to see how it progresses.

It's not cutting edge, but it's easy.

[deanlinkous]

Why use a distro with old software when so many good ones are available that have up to date software and are pretty much just as easy. Also considering the next version will not be out until early 2007.... well overall not the least bit impressive in my book. I had hoped it would be something but it seems just to be the same old stuff - literally.

OT-I wonder why someone would create a account and the very first post would be to post a freespire review?

[ImNeat]

Good review.

I use Linspire myself - kind of clunky, and nowhere near bleeding-edge. But it does what I want it to do much better (& easier) than any other distro I've tried.

[WebThingy]

Why use a distro with old software when so many good ones are available that have up to date software and are pretty much just as easy.

These answers will sound sarcastic, not intended that way though...

Maybe because I can watch embedded media content in web pages right out of the box without having to tweak anything? Flash 9, Quicktime 7, WMV, etc. etc. Sure, it mostly uses the Mplayer plugin, but not having to set it up and tweak it is nice.

Because CNR is free and easy to use for those of us who like GUI's and more options are in it than Synaptic or using apt-get? (Beats the crap out of Xandros Networks too)

Because a lot of people use older software for the simple fact it works well?

Because many people don't care if they have version 1.2.3.4.5.6.7. of a software if it makes little difference on the surface or to your general daily work you need to get done?

Because it's stable?

Because not loaded with tons of stuff I don't need?

Because it's got a lot of networking options.

An arguement can be made for or against any distro, but those are reasons why many people like Freespire. That and besides the long boot time (which will be fixed soon) it runs flawlessly on a laptop and is quick.

Just my two cents.

[deanlinkous]

sarcastic....nah just a good debate

- that long boot time has been being "fixed soon" for a long whilealong with so many other problems
- you can watch SOME media content and in exchange for this you get what some would call a unstable browser that is hard to update. The newest libxine and other packages is what makes a lot of that possible and other distros have that as well. I rarely run across anything *spire can handle that debian etch cannot. Depends on what you consider tweaking also I guess. GOt any examples of stuff that *spire will play but others won't? I always hear people say that but I never see any examples.
- when CNR is working good it is great, when it isn't then good luck but either way it has a lot of bells and whistles which is great if you want bells and whistles otherwise it is just a bunch of noise
- depends on how you define stable, it is not stable on a lot of systems, it is stable on some
- jack sound issues
- older software with security issues is not acceptable to me
- not loaded with tons of stuff you dont need? I would suggest looking under the hood a bit - see the gtk and the QT and the various python stuff, etc... When have you seen a distro require about 2gigs of software just to bring you a basic KDE setup with a handful of apps?
- older technology means it doesn't work for a lot of people, auto-mounting is a rough issue since it does not have the latest automount magic stuff, mount a share in their network manager and then forget to unmount it or shut the machine down that has the mounted share...see how well it handles it
- what networking options?
- run as root or sudo-root by default
- can you even install nautilus? where is the choice at?
- kernel choices?
- linspire has no security team, linspire has packages that other distros consider to have security flaws and yet linspire does not consider this a issue
- on and on but now I am being a bore

But my basic question was why 'old that works' when you can have 'newer that works' so a answer of 'it works' applies to both. A lot of people want "new" for no other reason than it is new.

But yea, I am too harsh on them but it just seems they beg for it by not owning up to the faults of their OS.

When spire works, it works great and when it doesn't then forget trying to get it working because you are more likely to break it.

Not to mention management in general at *spire. If freespire can become a true community project and not be controlled by corporate *spire then it may turn out cool. But I think it is doomed just because it is really IMO just another linspire.

But maybe freespire will manage to truly become something besides just another linspire but I personally doubt it. Seems to me they like the "community" buzzword and hope that brings them in some help and that is about it.

And I still wonder why the OP would register and make only this one post.

Looks like we will end up with a root-by-default login in freespire next...
http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?p=21907

[mahlerfan]

Well in your rant I think you might have exposed some confusion you might have-- freespire is a debian clone, so if cnr doesn't give you want you want use apt-get. Debian has a gigantic repo, and you can get just about any thing with apt-get. Including slow file rollers like nautilus. Why do you want to use nautilus anyway?

Automounting was a charm for me, I'm not sure why you consider it rough. It did all the usbs, the optical drives and the firewire ports.

That was a pretty typical for a 2 gig kde based installation, not sure what you're talking about there. Installations that provide you with more software usually are 3-5 gigs. If it was 2 gigs xfce based, I would understand wondering what software is provided, but 2 gigs kde based, kde is huge. That's pretty typical size for a monolithic kde build+base system.

Also most distros don't give you a choice for kernels, they give you one and a source to recompile it. I think that your kernel choices is a non-issue. You don't like it, recompile it.

Root priviledges is bad, I agree with you there. Ditto on the security. But in both of those senses it is like windows! lol which is what they were aiming for...

I would like to know what you mean by breaking it?

Anyway I think you do have a few relevant points, but there's alot of points that you made that I think are either incorrect or irrelevant.

I think overall the aim of the distro is a free alternative to windows, it's for people just migrating to linux, and I think it is a good choice for that. I think Freespire delivers there. It's not my favorite by far, but it's a pretty sweet linux for grandma distro.

[techieMoe]

The biggest thing I like about Freespire is the ability to have legally-licensed codecs for common media. It's unfortunate that you have to download Freespire along with them, though.

[mahlerfan]

The biggest thing I like about Freespire is the ability to have legally-licensed codecs for common media. It's unfortunate that you have to download Freespire along with them, though.

Damn straight! That's why I'm defending it!

[deanlinkous]

Can anyone name the "legally" licensed codecs that it comes with compared to where legally reversed engineered codecs are not available.

The biggest thing I like about Freespire is the ability to have legally-licensed codecs for common media. It's unfortunate that you have to download Freespire along with them, though.

That was funny. And I agree too, at least with the latter part. But I am not sure why anyone feels the need to defend it, especially since I am not attacking it. Only stating stuff and yes basically ranting.

Carry on oh ye defender

2gig KDE....uh no... Pull up synaptic or do a dpkg list and look at all the stuff that is installed. A lot of it isn't even related to anything. Some of it is obscure dependency maybe from past versions or something...I don't know but there is a LOT of stuff just for a handful of apps and a base KDE. Compare the default set of apps to any other livecd distro and see if it compares. I do not feel that it doesbut you are welcome to disagree.

Using apt and pulling in from debian will kill freespire quick!

Have grandma running as root and in a few years the landscape will be just as clouded with malware and virii as the current grandma OS. Along with the lax security I feel that is troubl enough not to recommend it as a grandma OS. IMO....

Breaking it? Install something outside of CNR. Try and change fstab. Try and get Jack sound system to stop starting at startup. Try and use a different sound system. Change your partition scheme. Try and remove the linspire web browser. Heck try and uninstall the los-theme. Remove Ocaml. Try and boot while you have usb devices hooked up. It is very easy to break/trash/fubar *spire compared to other distros, whenever you change stuff, tweak stuff and so forth IMO.... I guess I simply mean it is not a tweakable distro. It isn't for anyone who wants to change what they provide. As I said, when it works for you then it usually works very well otherwise it is twice as hard to tweak and get it to work.

(rant over)

I am serious though....has anyone run across specific example of files that play in freespire that other distros have problems with?

Oh and search CNR warehouse for "dvd player" and you will get no results anymore? Wonder why? Did you know when MR was asked about the legality of the DVD software he responded it was legal and they had a mpeg license. Yet, afaik a mpeg license has nothing to do with CSS and legally playing encrypted DVDs.

But I admit I rant about them too much. I was treated like crap and as such I treat them just as fairly. I will try to be nice.

edit - and when is that long boot time going to be fixed?