In this post I will give my raw first impressions of Linspire 5.0. It’s not all good, but it could have been a heck of a lot worse.
First, however, I need to give a caveat. The process of burning the Linspire CD failed at the end where the disc is closed. I would have tossed the disc and used a new one but this was my last CDR. As such it put me in a bit of a pickle and I tried the disc anyway. To my surprise, it ran!
Second, these thoughts are based on the Live CD which is a version of Linspire that is ran directly off of the CD. The reason for this is because there is no free version of Linspire as there are for other Linux distributions. This is the only testing distro available. I would like very much to run a full installed copy to give a more accurate review, but short of shelling out $50 to $60 USD, that’s not going to be an option for me. Unless, of course, Linspire wishes to send me a review copy. Yeah, I’m not expecting that either.
Now let’s get into what we can.
Linspire is, in fact, an easy to use Linux distribution. It has the easiest step-by-step setup process that I have yet to see in the now three and a half distros that I’ve tested. What happens when Linspire first boots is the desktop is replaced by a full screen setup wizard. This screen first presents a graphical analog clock with a world map presented below it which allows you to set your time, your time zone, and provides an option for the system to automatically adjust your time based on daylight savings if that’s pertinent to your geographical location.
In other words, if you’ve ever set the time on your computer in Windows then you’ll have no problem setting the time in Linspire.
From there you’re presented with buttons aligned in the center of the screen that are used to access the graphical configuration of your various system components. Your internet connection, your audio and so on. These windows were pretty straight forward, allowing you to enter whatever information is required for the component that you’re configuring.
You’re not forced to configure the various parts of the system. If you’re so inclined you can skip over this and go directly to the dekstop or simply configure whichever systems you want to at the time.
Which all brings us to the topic of hardware. For me, Linux has been notorious about having issues with my hardware. Linspire wasn’t much different in this area, however, with the exception of my Wireless USB device (of course!), everything else worked! Not flawlessly, but it worked.
For example, the instant that Linspire booted I knew that my screen resolution and refresh rate were just right. None of the other distributions that I’ve used – Ubuntu, Mandrive, and SuSE – were able to get this very simple setting correct. Those three distributions would flat out refuse to allow me to use certain desktop resolutions or refresh rates, requiring me to edit their sytem config files manually to setup my display. With Linspire, that is a thing of the past. Linspire makes the process easier than it is in Windows. Seriously. What’s more, it actually works!
The window is very simple, with the resolutions available in one list and the refresh rates available in another. You click the ones you want, click okay, perform a “quick restart†and you’re done. Not that I had to do this anyway, since the system booted directly into a resolution and refresh that I found to be the most comfortable.
The link to the next page is below.