This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief tutorial about installing XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10. As you certainly know, XBCM is a complete Media Center based on Ubuntu. This program is multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OS X and also XBOX – not officially supported-) and, in our opinion, is the most efficient and complete open source media center you can find today on the Internet. Moreover, XBMC has developed a special version that could be installed on a USB Key on a Live CD to freely test the application before installing on your PC. The post is brief but contains all the complete instructions to quickly install XBMC without problems. Please, be sure to digit sudo apt-get update in Terminal after you install the new repositories. Recommended!!

Setelah kepemilikan distro Linux Linspire berpindah ke tangan Xandros Juli silam, Freespire kembali menggunakan distro open-source Debian sebagai sistem operasi pengembangan.

Sebelumnya, Linspire yang awalnya bernama Lindows menggunakan pengembangan dengan distro dari Ubuntu.

Sebenarnya Xandros tidak perlu bersusah payah mengembalikan pengembangan Freespire berdasarkan distro Debian jika saja Linspire tidak melakukan kerjasama dengan Canonical pada tahun 2007, karena sejak menandatangani kerjasama itu, produk Linspire menggunakan pengembangan dari distro Ubuntu yang juga sebenarnya dikembangkan dari distro Debian.

Nantinya, Xandros akan menyebut versi terbaru dari Freespire dengan sebutan Xandros Freespire 5, yang dijadwalkan akan meluncur pada akhir tahun ini dengan menggunakan pengembangan distro Debian versi Lenny.

Setelah itu, kabarnya Xandros juga akan meluncurkan Xandros Desktop Professional 5 yang dikembangkan dari code base Freespire dengan tambahan sejumlah elemen sebagaimana layaknya distro komersial.

Xandros sejuah ini dikenal sebagai distro sistem operasi yang menyuguhkan fitur kustomisasi terbagusm, yang mana terpilih sebagai distro sistem operasi di sejumlah manufaktur, termasuk Asus saat menggelontorkan Eee PC.

“Kembali menggunakan distro Debian untuk pengembangan akan membuat Xandros lebih canggih dalam melakukan pemeliharaan code base termasuk komitmen mereka melakukan interoperabilitas dengan sistem operasi Microsoft Windows,” ujar Chief executive Xandros Andreas Typaldos, seperti dikutip ZDnet, Minggu (17/8/2008).

Diperkirakan setelah mengakuisisi Linspire dan menjalin kerja sama dengan pembuat piranti lunak Viyya Technologies dalam mengembangkan alat-alat portable seperti laptop dan mobile internet device (MID), pemasukan Xandros akan mencapai USD30 juta dalam kurun waktu tiga tahun mendatang. (Sumber : Okezone)

That’s right earlier this year Xandros bought out Linspire (source: http://www.linux.com/feature/144307)

Interestingly Xandros plans to completely revamp Freespire with a Debian code base. This is exciting news indeed I’ve been wondering if they were ever going to go beyond Freespire 2 back when I used Freespire I was highly impressed (although it felt too commercial and I much preferred synaptic to CnR). There have been many cries for a Debian based Freespire I’m not entirely sure why although I have heard that Debian based distro’s are faster, more responsive and easier to upgrade than their Ubuntu counterparts.

Freespire/Linspire upset me recently when I went to use click and run. I used to LOVE this service as a great way to install Linux software. Well, they ruined it. There were all these additions, many not free, just a big cluttered mess I had to wade through. Then I found something I wanted to install and I got an error that it would not work with my os. I never had issues like this before, sucks, why did they ruin it? So then I heard that Xandros was purchasing Linspire. Ok , Xandros is nice , I have used it before, it is nice and clean and works great, but now I need Freespire even less. Delete. Yep, I wiped it. Thought I would go back and try a Debian install again. I have not done one of those in a while and I heard the installation was made smoother in the latest release. I also wanted to try the install with the single cd / internet installation based iso. That seemed interesting. I did and it worked great, if you have a high speed internet connection , it is a great way to install Debian, and yes the install was much easier than what I remember from the last time I did one , and took a lot less time to complete, yea Debian, woot woot!

LinTube is a new website whose purpose is to find and collect videos about Linux and all its distributions. LinTube webpage is very essential and full of Google Ads but it is very well structured and with just few clicks is possible to find the topics you are looking for and the related videos. At the moment, the main categories are: Commercials,Compiz, Distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Slackware), Fun Stuff, GNOME, HowTo, KDE, Linux Events, Linux Gadgets, Mediacenter, Misc, Security. LinTube is always updated and on the video linked are very well selected, the majority of them are very interesting and you will discover yourself spending much time on this website. For more, brief information, please, feel free to visit our Linux Page (in Spanish).

He aquí el origen del nombre (y algunos logotipos) de unas cuantas distros de GNU/Linux.

	Ubuntu Su nombre significa “Humanidad para todos” y su logotipo da una impresión de colaboración. Los diversos sabores de esta distribución se suelen identifican por poner un prefijo al nombre.
Kubuntu Su nombre viene de añadir K (de KDE) a Ubuntu.
	Xubuntu En este caso la X viene del liviano (e infravalorado) escritorio XFCE.
Fluxbuntu Lo de Flux viene de su liviano (y demasiado limitado en mi opinión) escritorio FluxBox.
	Ubuntu Studio Esta es la versión especializada en edición multimedia, lo que le falta de originalidad al nombre lo compensa con un logotipo que a mi me encanta.
OpenGEU Este sabor de Ubuntu combina los escritorios GNOME con Enlightenment. Originalmente llamado GEUbuntu, cambió de nombre por problemas legales con Canonical.
	Debian Su nombre proviene de la unión del nombre de Ian Murdock con el de su esposa Deborah.
PCLinuxOS. Este nombre proviene de unos famosos foros de Linux del mismo nombre que en su momento decidieron hacerse una distro propia.
	OpenSUSE El nombre de esta distro alemana es un acrónimo de “Software- und System-Entwicklung”, que viene a significar “Desarrollo de Software y Sistemas”. También se comenta que podría ser un homenaje a Konrad Zuse.
Red Hat Su fundador, fue en su juventurd capitán del equipo de la Universidad de Cornell. Era muy conocido por su fedora roja con lineas blancas, aunque un día lo perdió. Dicen, que lo buscó desesperadamente y que dicha pérdida marcó su vida. Tan desesperadamente lo buscó que cuando publicó la primera beta de una distribución Linux, en el manual hizo un llamaiento para que quien tuviese su sombrero, se lo devolviera.
	Fedora Core Esta distro es patrocinada por Red Hat. Su nombre proviene del sombrero del sombrero del logotipo de Red Hat, que es una fedora.
Mandriva Originalmente esta distro fue llamada Mandrake, fue con la que me inicié en el mundo de GNU/Linux hace unos cuantos años. Perdieron una batalla legal por el nombre y al de poco tiempo, tras fusionarse con otra distribución llamada Conectiva, cambiaron su nombre al definitivo.
	Gentoo Esta distribución en la que todo se compila, toma su nombre de la especie de pinguinos que nada más velozmente y como Gentoo es rápido, pues…
Sabayon Es una distro italiana basada en Gentoo. Su nombre proviene de un pastel llamado Sabayon (o Zabaglione) hecho de llema de huevo, azucar y licor dulce.
	Puppy Linux Es una distro que se centra en ser fácil de usar. Su nombre y logo viene de la mascota de su creador, un chihuahua.
Freespire Esta distro comercial, intenta parecerse a Windows, al menos en sus primeros momentos. Originalmente fue conocida como Lindows, pero por motivos obvios acabaron cambiando su nombre a Linspire. La versión libre pasó a llamarse Freespire.
	Xandros. Su nombre viene de la isla griega Andros, donde la mitología griega asegura que nació el hombre.
gOS Es una distribución basada en Ubuntu para integrar lo mejor posible todas las aplicaciones de Google. Curiosamente, la G viene de Good, no de Google.

I’ve been using the Linux distribution Freespire for about a month. I had been using openSUSE, but grew weary of the difficulty of installing software. Not that’s it’s really that hard to install software on suse, but I don’t like to have to jump through hoops to get something working properly.
I had considered purchasing Linspire, which claims to be the world’s easiest desktop Linux distribution. I, instead, opted for Freespire, which is the free, community version of Linspire. Freespire, like Linspire, comes with the CNR (click and run) feature which literally lets you install free software with the click of one mouse button.

I do a lot of on line computing, i.e. a lot of the work I do is based in an on line environment. An example would be google docs/spreadsheets, where users can create/store documents online instead of locally. There are, of course, privacy and security issues involved in such ventures, so sensitive stuff should still be kept local.
This move on my part to moving a lot of stuff online is more of convenience than anything, but it also negates the need for me to install a lot of software I don’t need. In fact, most of the computing I do these days is browser-based which generally is cross-platform, so at home I can use Freespire (Linux), and at the library I can still access my stuff via their commie windows-based computers. Or if I’m at a friends house that has a Mac, I can still access the same stuff.

whoa… way off subject there.. anyway, I’m pretty happy with Freespire. What I like best about it is the rock-solid stability, it is literally virus-proof out of the box, security is unrivaled (as with all Linux distros), and it has yet to crash after running for 3 months straight (2 months with suse). Can you say that about Windows? ha! It comes pre-installed with just about everything you need. It will play mp3 files, rip cd’s, play cd’s etc. I’ve yet to get a DVD to play correctly, but that’s ok.

My biggest beef with Freespire is that it absolutely refuses to read/write to my external NTFS hard drive, which is where I have most of my digital everything backed up from my previous commie windows computer. openSUSE could do this after a little tweaking, but everything I’ve tried thus far has failed. It simply doesn’t “see” the drive at all. Don’t know why, but oh well.

So, if you’re interested in trying out Linux, Freespire is a pretty good choice. Tired of getting a virus every other second on your windows computer? Tired of getting hacked about every other week with spyware? Make the switch. Freespire installed in about 15 minutes on my computer.

Oh, did I mention it is 100% free?

As I wrote just several hours ago, I have made the move (temporarily) to Freespire.

It looks like that stay will be short-lived.

The CNR client is not working on my computer.  I go to CNR, with the CNR client running, click “Install Now”… and I get redirected to a page that says something along the lines of “Upgrade CNR client to install software.”  The problem?  It upgrades… but I have performed the upgrade 3 times — and still without success!

I am really not sure what is going wrong.  I have found that it is indeed a bit unstable on other systems, since CNR is in beta form.  Thankfully, apt-get is available to help in the effort, althouh I will not be staying for long.

Since I needed a system to last until the Ubuntu 8.04 release, my search has landed me back at Freespire 2.0.  I know, I know… I said that I would never use Freespire again, all because of their patent deal with Microsoft.  Now, I’ve had a year to cool off, and seeing as Linspire, the company that sponsors Freespire, is not doing so well these days, that I would give Freespire a chance.

Installation of Freespire was easy, just as I remembered from the last time I tried it back in 2006.  The 2.0 version of Freespire is based on Ubuntu, which really was another reason that I wanted to try it.  It has support for my wireless and graphics cards out of the box, which makes installation all the easier.

My first impressions of Freespire are simple:  It’s not a bad system.

Everything works as it should, and the best part, you can clearly see the underlying Ubuntu system.  The applications can be seen as built for Ubuntu, such as OpenOffice, which has the OpenOffice splash from Ubuntu 7.04.  CNR updates itself, and there are proprietary media drivers preinstalled.  Alright, so I could have installed the drivers from Fluendo, but it is far more convenient to have them preinstalled.

Firefox, which is called LBrowser in Freespire, gave me a bit of a scare at first boot:

That’s right, this was the first evidence of the Microsoft deal that I had found.  Most distributions have Google as their default search, but this is the first I had come across with Live search.  Thankfully, this could be changed to Google, my search engine of choice.

Another result of the Microsoft patent deal was a converter for the Microsoft’s OOXML document format.  Really, the format in Office 2007, “.docx” is a partial integration of OOXML, but it is nice to have the format just in case someone sends me a file with the .docx extension, although the chance that I will receive a .docx file is minimal at best.  Most people still send .doc files for the purpose of compatibility.

Freespire 2.0 is a nice system, and with Ubuntu 7.04 as it’s base, it is both reliable and relatively updated.  With the added CNR feature, it makes application installation a breeze.  Let me be clear, I do not support the patent deals with Microsoft, or the usage of an unfinished format such as OOXML (math doesn’t work well in Excel…), but I am glad that the other features are there, and legally, mind you.

What a professional may look in one operating system?

Hmmm. It is not so easy to achieve this goals. Everybody is aware of the danger of the viruses and all the malicious software that wants to hurt your computer and everybody is aware how hard is to do it.

So, just think how many resources it costs to have an antivirus software with”some” effectiveness against the viruses.Think about the damage that a possible virus can do to the system as well as installed software and important documents. And what if you loose this documents? Not good, definitely.
But what if you can avoid all these unwanted troubles and danger? Did you think how you can save your time and money? And probably you can earn more money just because of improvement of the work.

ok. There is solution for all these points.

Many people have fear of GNU/Linux and everything that have relation with it. But now I will show some ways how one can improve the work and benefit in one shot. And all of this will be achieved via GNU/Linux. ok. How a distribution can improve anyone’s work? Very simple – via avoiding troubles. So, there is a distribution known as one of the easiest in the world. That is Freespire. Freespire is Ubuntu-based distribution made for the home user. Take a look about it. If this GNU/Linux can satisfy your needs then probably is more profitable to you to take the opportunity instead of working in the old way.

Freespire home page

Software repository

Community forums

At the first time when I started to use Freespire I was so surprised. Version 2.0.8 is so well-designed and everything worked. Ehh, alomst everything. With the using of the system I found out that my installation is progressively failing. I do not know why. But the effect and defect of this was only to the CNR. Every time I tried to install something I got the message “CNR received dpkg error”.

Then my next actions was to investigate the reason this error happen. I have used the tool “strace” and the following log files show all the actions of the CNR client.

strace stderr cnr output

strace stdout cnr output

After the first investigation for this error I found how it is happened. It seems the cause of this was the CNR client itself. When the client have failed with installation of particular application then next installations somehow reports error but in fact there is no error and the application is installed correctly. For me, that is obvious bug in the CNR client appears in some particular cases. My case was VirtualBox but probably it may happen with other applications too.

To fix it and make the client work properly I just removed the virtualbox package manually via apt-get. After that CNR client began to work as it has to.

OpenVZ is an open source container-based virtualization solution built on Linux. OpenVZ creates isolated, secure containers (otherwise known as VEs or VPSs) on a single physical server enabling better server utilization and ensuring that applications do not conflict. Each container performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server; containers can be rebooted independently and have root access, users, IP addresses, memory, processes, files, applications, system libraries and configuration files.

The OpenVZ project is an open source community project supported by Parallels and is intended to provide access to the code and ultimately for the open source community to test, develop and further the OS virtualization effort. It is also a proving ground for new technology that may evolve into the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers product offering. We encourage the community to access, use, develop and comment on the software and references on this site.

1.-Ubuntu: Si, esa distro que no deja dormir a Bill Gates, basada en Debian, una distribucion mas “humana”, presenta una instalación sencilla, se puede usar como un Live CD, y probar sin problemas, aparte que puede ser entregado a las puertas de tu casa, viene en tres diferentes sabores: GNOME, KDE y Xfce, que mas se puede pedir.

2.-Wubi Hay algo mas sencillo que ubuntu.exe, si tienes una conexion rapida de internet, podréis instalar y desinstalar ubuntu (otra vez) como cualquier aplicacion, una alternativa sencilla para quien le quiera dar el beneficio de la duda a esta distro. Pero no todo es perfecto, la versión de ubuntu que instala es la 7.04, no es malo, pero se pierde una actualización con cambios importantes.

3.-Live CDs Usar un sistema operativo que quepa en un cd, bienvenido, son cientos, por no decir una cantidad mas grande, de distros que se ofrecen como Live CD (ubuntu también), lo unico que requiere es descargar la ISO de la distribucion, directamente o por un torrent, y quemarla en un disco o en su defecto un DVD, reiniciar la PC con el y listo, tienes ejecutando GNU/Linux en tu computadora.

4.-Damn Small Linux ¿Un sistema operativo que tenga cliente FTP, Navegador, procesador de textos, reproductor de medios y mas en 50 mb? No es broma esta distro puede correr incluso encima de windows, no es rápida, pero se esta utilizando linux. Esta distro cae en la categoría de SO de usb, ya que en un llavero usb podemos instalarlo e iniciar la computadora con el, así no podremos preocuparnos por perdida de datos del disco duro.

5.-Freespire Cuando se hace la mudanza de windows a linux, a veces no estamos conscientes de que linux (por defecto) no reproduce mp3, flash, java, quicktime, quizás no lo necesitemos pero alguien que este muy acostumbrado a windows, no loa acepte, aparte que el hecho de instalar aplicaciones no es muy sencillo, para eso esta Freespire, una distro basada en ubuntu (esta en todo), con KDE, que incluye software propietario como para utilizar las aplicaciones que mencione, además de CNR (click and run) instalaciones de un solo click como en windows, pero con software libre, tan poderosa para el usuario linux, y tan sencillo para quien empieza en esto.

6.- Unetbootin No tienes un quemador de CD o eres demasiado tacaño para comprar uno (si hay personas asi), no hay problema, que tal este instalador universal de distros Linux, lo unico que necesitas es una buna conexion de internet, un disco USB o quizas una particion en tu disco duro, y listo. Este sencillo programa multiplataforma (Windows/Linux) ya tiene algunas opciones marcadas para las distribuciones mas populares como Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora

7.-OpenSUSE ,Version libre de SUSE Novell, quien dice que linux no tiene soporte de grandes compañias, un cliente de instalacion muy facil para los usuarios, manejo de paquetes igual de sencillo, un escritorio que es recomendable tener, viene en KDE 4 y Gnome, despendiendo de como lo escojas.

8.-Fedora Otra version libre de una distribucion comercial (Red Hat), una distribucion limpia mantenida por una gran comunidad, rapida, poderosa, y muy amigable con quien empieza con esto de GNU/LInux.

Bueno aqui termina mi lista, si alguno de ustedes conocen mas alternativas favor de comunicármelas para poder ampliar y que ya no haya excusas.

“El tiempo avanza y cada vez mas personas se acercaran al open source y veran que es bueno.”

Artículos Relacionados

• All About Linux 2008: Ten great live distros
• Comparing Linux USB flash disk distros
• Install Linux Without CD

It has been a while since my preoccupation with Linux. After much deliberation, I choose to stick with Windows XP. Not that Linux is bad, but most of my work get done in Windows. Actually, I wanted to write something about Linux as a desktop ecosystem, but during the research I found Freespire, the free version of Linspire, which used to be Lindows.

For me, the thing that sets apart Windows and Linux desktop is hardware support (especially for the new, fancy gadgets), and the ability to install and uninstall with ease. No doubt Windows win in the arena, which provides freedom of installing application of your choice, except of course, you have to pay for certain proprietary software, which not the main issue I’m going to talk about here. Linux distributions on the other hand covers only software applications distributed together with the CD or through their own repository of thousands of softwares. For normal Windows user, converting to Linux requires lots of patience with abundance of esteem for Linux based system.

Freespire comes with its homegrown CNR, which offer the one-click installer. However, some claim that the installer is a little less user friendly, but I do not know to what extent. I guess, when one wants a change, one must not expect that it is going to be the same all the way. We are talking about a different systems all together, or else may risk lawsuit from Microsoft : (

Anyway, it is still very recent, but this worth a try. I may have to use the unallocated disk in my laptop now to test. It also comes with Live CD. Better to run with the Live CD first to check for hardware compatibility.

Check out Freespire.org

OMG! lol, linspire (one of my top fifteen distros… I’ll do a post on that later ) is now proudly announcing the release of cnr.com (click ‘n’ run). This was already available for Linspire and Freespire but now it extends out to other popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and Debian.

CNR is free, it’s also very simple to find over 37 500 (and growing ) linux software and applications. Searching and installing software on your desktop computer has never been this easy, as CNR provides user reviews, screenshots, descriptions, charts and more.

Once you find some software you like, click and it and it will be installed, with menu shortcuts etc… CNR also notifies you once the software has been updated; and install the update with one click. CNR has many commercial titles for sale as well like cedega, crossover office etc…

To install (I suggest you try) CNR in Ubuntu feisty or gutsy, just head to their website, install the client and you’re off!

To get started with CNR:

Head over to:
System -> Administration -> Software Sources

Click on add and add these two preceding lines separately:
deb http://apt2.freespire.org/CNRUbuntuExtra gutsy-extra main restricted
deb-src http://apt2.freespire.org/CNRUbuntuExtra gutsy-extra main restricted

Now, if you haven’t, uncheck the Cdrom with Ubuntu 7.10 so that it doesn’t nag you to put in the cd each time.

Open up a terminal and do:
sudo apt-get update

If you get an error about a key, just ignore it and go ahead and install the CNR client:

sudo apt-get install cnr-client

Once you’ve installed, launch the client from:
Application -> System Tools -> CNR

And let it synchronize with the CNR.com website.
http://www.cnr.com/index.seam

Enjoy,
nikoPSK

  En un post anterior les comentaba sobre la distro Freespire, que es la versión libre de Linspire y cuyo instalador de Software llamado CNR ya esta disponible también para Ubuntu Gutsy, gracias al acuerdo que hay entre Canonical y Linspire. CNR es un portal muy completo de Software para Linux, el cual lo podemos podemos descargar de un solo click.

Para instalar el cliente hay que añadir los siguientes repositorios:

deb http://apt2.freespire.org/CNRUbuntuExtra gutsy-extra main restricted

deb-src http://apt2.freespire.org/CNRUbuntuExtra gutsy-extra main restricted

y luego despues del clasico sudo apt-get update instalar:

sudo apt-get install cnr-client freespire-archive-keyring

tambien lo puedes descargar directamente  

Una vez instalado lo puedes ajecutar directamente invocando cnr o en Aplicaciones > Herramientas del sistema > CNR o simplemente llendo a: http://www.cnr.com/ desde el Firefox.

Referencias.

http://www.cnr.com/supportPages/aboutDownloadPluginInstructions.seam#Ubuntu7.10

http://www.vivalinux.com.ar/soft/cliente-cnr-para-ubuntu.html