Hello All,
The client who was given Mandriva 2006 yesterday is having the same problems in thunderbird that I was facing when I had 2006 installed in my system. It goes dead slow almost as if it hangs and the client has been giving me desperate calls. So I decided to install a new OS. I was sifting through my cd collection and found 'freespire 1.0' in the 'PCWorld 2006' DVD. I tried it out on my system before I do it at the client's place. It is a single cd iso and is a live + install version.
Freespire 1.0 is a debian based system but please note that it is personalized to some extent and is not a look alike to debian or ubuntu. It also contains a little dose of non-libre packages like flash player and the windows codecs and mp3 player etc. all pre-loaded.
But the best part of this distro is is is fully self contained with no extra download necessary and yet its not very heavy on the hardware. It is multimedia ready except for a dvd player. It has the latest firefox and thunderbird 1.5 versions so no updating or installation required. It uses terms like My Documents and My Computer and that makes it ideal for windows to linux migration. Another feature of this distro is that it is a live + install distro and installation time is very short. In the live as well as install option, after the preliminary desktop appears, it gives a set of options to be set, like display resolution, refresh rate, gamma, sound etc and that is a very good feature. Its desktop looks very sexy compared to other distros.
A note of caution. Freespire does not recognise other linux distros installed so it will boot with only its own and windows options. New linux users who are already using another linux distro are advised not to install freespire, unless they have some knowledge of mounting partitions and editing grub menu files. For only windows users there will be no problem with dual boot. After installation I was unable to boot into my existing Kubuntu 6.06. Even the rescue option in the kubuntu cd did not work. Although I mounted my partition and did a chroot, it could not do a grub-install. So I mounted the partition and added lines from Kubuntu's boot menu into freespire's boot menu. Still Kubuntu would not boot. When it could boot into kubuntu single user option, I found that it did not have the 'savedefault' line. Therefore the line was Hashed in the main boot option. Then kubuntu booted properly and I did a grub-install to restore its grub. The freespire's lines were then added to it and now I can boot into all distros.
Another important point to note is that during manual hdd install it only allows you to select an existing partition, it does not allow you to create a new one in free space or delete a partition. So you will have to do it manually before you install freespire. That can be done by first booting live and then rebooting again to install. Fdisk is available in the system.
I was able to play a vcd and sample .oog files on the music player. Firefox already had flash built-in so I could play on-line videos too ( from reuters.com site ). There is a package manager called CNR which requires a free subscription. It asks for an email address and password. Please don't put your email password there. You leave it blank and create a separate password later in the next screens. However, I found later that apt-get works in command line and requires no log-in. Its repos are already in the list. Thunderbird does not use its default .thunderbird directory. It uses .lmail and one simply has to open .thunderbird and copy all its contents into the .lmail directory. The grub menu uses a peculiar format for root=/dev/hdax. It uses root=/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/partx
So overall this distro is great for windows to linux users as it saves a lot of time in getting latest packages and codecs. Its only a little different compared to other debian distros, yet its debian and I hope to get a good screen resol at the client's place.
Regards,
Rony.
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Further to the previous information, when freespire installs, it will ask for a user name and below that ask for an admin password. This actually is not the admin password but the user's password. After logging in as user, do a 'sudo passwd root' and enter a new root password. With this password, su as root add edit the /etc/sudoers file to add the user with proper sudo privileges and remove the no password option for root. This is necessary for proper security. Exit from su and you never need to login again as root.
The CRN package manager is not necessary for package management. In the gui terminal, run 'apt-get install synaptic' This will install the gui for apt. Run this package after installation and for the first time it will update information from 156 repos and you now have a shopping list of about 20K packages to view and choose from.
Regards,
Rony.
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On 11/6/06, Rony ronbillypop@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Further to the previous information, when freespire installs, it will ask for a user name and below that ask for an admin password. This actually is not the admin password but the user's password. After logging in as user, do a 'sudo passwd root' and enter a new root password. With this password, su as root add edit the /etc/sudoers file to add the user with proper sudo privileges and remove the no password option for root. This is necessary for proper security. Exit from su and you never need to login again as root.
The CRN package manager is not necessary for package management. In the gui terminal, run 'apt-get install synaptic' This will install the gui for apt. Run this package after installation and for the first time it will update information from 156 repos and you now have a shopping list of about 20K packages to view and choose from.
Regards,
Rony.
Great report.. It will be very useful for starters in Freespire..
Thanks...
___________________________________________________________
All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Sometime on Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 10:26:05PM +0530, Rony said:
So overall this distro is great for windows to linux users as it saves a lot of time in getting latest packages and codecs. Its only a little different compared to other debian distros, yet its debian and I hope to get a good screen resol at the client's place.
Rony, that was great. Why dont you blog it, or atleast put it somewhere on a wiki or something.
Anurag
what was most striking for me is that it uses terms like "my computer", "my documents " etc. although I am not at all interested in following what windows does, it will be good for those who are going to have their first taist of gnu/linux. once they become familiar with the gnu concepts and how the OS works, we can then take these users to a more user friendly desktop with more friendly icon names instead of "my computer " etc. that as a great report rony. as anurag rightly pointed out. this should go on some blog at least. even I expect to grab one cd from you. regards. Krishnakant.
krishnakant Mane wrote:
this should go on some blog at least. even I expect to grab one cd from you.
Most welcome. I will make one for you.
And more good news, today the client's installation on Intel 845 GLVA went smooth like butter. During the live session itself it gave a resolution of 1024 x 768. Sound was very good. Printer setup took hp 695c easily.
Regards,
Rony. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Anurag wrote:
Why dont you blog it, or atleast put it somewhere on a wiki or something.
I don't know how to post on blogs or wikis but I will find out our own list wiki and post there.
Regards,
Rony. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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Anurag -
Dinesh Joshi -
krishnakant Mane -
Pushparajan V -
Rony