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Anything goes - Freespire, Ubuntu and stuff

Cathbard - 07.09.2006, 09:21 Uhr
Titel: Freespire, Ubuntu and stuff

I am here to say something good about Ubuntu instead of joking about their putrid colours. Yes, yes don't drop your coffee cup in shock but it's true. Winken

Well when I say good, I mean not as bad as some. See, I told you not to drop your coffee, it isn't that shocking. Lachen

I have been playing around with Freespire for a couple of days so I could check out CNR in action and I found something very interesting. We often hang it on Ubuntu security for using sudo instead of a root user but Freespire takes it one step further. They create a single default user with admin rights on installation and use sudo like Ubuntu. However when you issue a sudo command it doesn't ask for a password!
I headed over to the sudoers file and sure enough they have set NOPASSWD=ALL by default. Needless to say I quickly got rid of that.

Well I guess I should say what I think of CNR while I'm here so here goes.
CNR is very slick and gives access to a lot of non-aptable (there's a new word for you Winken

) applications and seems to do a fairly good job at installing software. It has a few pay for apps like PowerDVD, games etc as well but I haven't gone down that path and nor do I think I ever will.
It did get some things wrong. I tried to install Google-earth and it created ~/.google-earth with owner root so it wouldn't run from the menu until I fixed it. Being able to install it directly from CNR is a good thing I guess and I'm sure they will fix it eventually. Kopete failed to install and I have no idea why because it keeps you in the dark. Everything else installed fairly well so I guess that isn't bad going.
However CNR seems very slow. It takes two clicks to install an app just like kpackage but you don't get the details of what is about to happen with dependencies and the option to bail. Whether this is dangerous or not I'm not sure but personally I like to know what's going on.
So is it a good thing? In some ways yes in other ways no. It may take less clicks but overall it is a lot slower to install stuff and it keeps you in the dark. As a replacement for kpackage/synaptic - hell no. As an add on extra, quite cute.

Is Freespire good overall? If you are a total noob coming from Winblows and scared of CLI then I guess it's not a bad thing. It is fairly unsecure with that sudo issue but still has to be better than Winblows in that regard. If you are a noob and want to learn real Linux then it's probably not and Ubuntu would be a better alternative.
Freespire seems quite restrictive and would drive me crazy after a little while. I'd hate to try to compile a realtime kernel for it, I reckon I'd be in pretty dangerous waters there.
Ubuntu is also quite restrictive and is not fun if you go outside their repos but it is closer to "real" Linux than Freespire.
Overall, what can I say? Kanotix rocks and makes both of them look like a dangerous toy with childproof locks.

jackiebrown - 08.09.2006, 03:12 Uhr
Titel: RE: Freespire, Ubuntu and stuff

I would rather use the new mepis than use freespire or linspire.

Cathbard - 08.09.2006, 05:22 Uhr
Titel:

Linspire/Freespire is aimed squarely at Windows users who don't want to learn anything new. It's an odd one that's for sure but as a first port of call for people that are scared of Kanotix or even Ubuntu it's not a bad option. At least it gets them started on the righteous Linux path. Winken

I'm yet to find anything that touches Kanotix, but I like learning things.
I haven't tried Mepis and seeing how it is now based on Ubuntu I don't really have the motivation to do so. (I like both my arms) Lachen