Linspire promises friendly Linux for new users

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 10 Oct 2007 at 16:19

Linspire is seeking to overturn the image of Linux being a difficult proposition for new users by bundling its latest operating system with a whole range of proprietary drivers, codecs and software.

Notable among the proprietary software on Linspire 6 are the video and Wi-Fi drivers, as well as Real Player, Java and Flash. The operating system (OS) also incorporates several Microsoft technologies including Windows Media and Open XML translators that allow OpenOffice to open .docx file formats. TrueType font support is also provided.

The operating system also includes a beta of Linspire's new CNR software, which provides Linux users with one-click access to both free and commercial software. CNR is one of six core software enhancements that Linspire says it has made to the Ubuntu core, along with the KDE user interface, Firefox and Thunderbird, as well as the Lsongs open source music player and Lphoto image editor.

"Today we continue the Linspire tradition by offering the choice of a better overall experience for users new to desktop Linux," said Larry Kettler, CEO of Linspire. "Linspire 6.0 further bridges the gap between open source and commercial software, combining the best from each into a single easy-to-use, familiar and productive operating system.

"If you are genuinely interested in finding an OS alternative, Linspire 6.0 will show you how far desktop Linux has come. We have put everything into this latest commercial release to make it our most complete offering to date."

Linspire 6.0 is also the first commercial offering from Linspire to provide customers with Microsoft patent covenants, following the two companies' broad interoperability and technical collaboration agreement signed in June of this year.

The agreement ended six years of legal wrangling, which saw Microsoft pay $20 million to persuade the Linux distributor to change its name from Lindows.

Linspire 6.0 costs $49.95 and is available from linspire.com for $49.95. All its new features are listed at linspire.com/newfeatures.