Linspire 5-O released!

My blog has been pretty quiet lately since I became a insider. Due to the nature of what I was doing I really could not talk about much that was being done. Now I can write about my experiences as a "Insider" and Linspire's latest version which was named Marlin and is now version 5.0.


I like my laptop and I've had hell getting it to work properly with many Linux distros. Each one seemed to have it's own problems. Linspire 5.0 does everything I want it to. My laptop is a 2003 Model HP Pavilion ZE4430US if you care to look up it's specs.

ACPI works great and I get better battery life out of the machine than under Windows XP. Software suspend also works flawlessly along with out of the box support for my 54g wifi card built in. My web browser and email buttons fire up the correct applications and softkeys to mute, dim the monitor, and volume control all work as they are supposed to. I have not been happier with a OS ever.

Linspire ships with the 2.6.10 kernel, KDE 3.3 and Openoffice Org 1.3 with plans to include point updates to KDE 3.4 and OOO 2.0 in the near future to be expected Linspire is definately worth the money.

If you're looking to get your feet wet and jump into the Linux world definately get a copy of Linspire 5.0 from their website (Stores will have the new boxes by April) http://www.linspire.com/buylinspire

I believe the CNR edition is the best deal since you get a discount on a years worth of CNR service which allows you to install programs with one click. If you're familiar with Linux and package management and even if you're not understand that it's a mess. Many problems arise from bad packages, slow downloads from mirrors, and in some cases the software requires a bunch of cryptic dependencies to be installed that most users can not understand.

CNR takes all these problems away with a fast repository that is always up. With more than 2000 packages available and growing each one tested and modified to work with Linspire and maintain the overall look of the OS. Linspire also in some cases makes improvements to the software to increase it's functionality. With CNR you get a ton of benefits and none of the headache of installing software on Linux. Subscriptions to CNR also entitle users to free upgrades to the operating system so when Linspire 5.1 5.2 5.3 or 6.0 were to come out while maintaining a subscription to CNR you get all of that for free. What better deal could you get.

Soon

Soon

Speeding up the boot process.

Raise your hand if you think Linux is slow to boot. That's right folks there are not many who didnt raise their hand. I'm pretty satisfied with Linspire and other Linux OS's for home and server tasks. However the boot times range from 2-5 minutes just to get to a graphical prompt. Sure trimming a Kernel down to necessary things can speed them up in todays and future kernels this may limit your system's ability to work as a plug and play system or even updates. Not to mention that if you had to update it's a lengthy recompile.

IBM has worked on loading services and drivers/devices in a manner that loads a root device/service and then all dependent services at the same time. Basically you could consider example below.

Network: Loading
Network: Loaded Loading Dependent Services
SSHD, NFS, SMBCLIENT: Loading
Network Dependent Services Loaded

A total of 4 services were loaded. In a normal system each would be loaded and would take a average of 10 seconds a peice to load. In a parallel loading matrix you can reduce the time to 20 seconds for a 50% savings on loading those services.

So far I have yet to see this in pratice on any Linux distro. Hopefully I'll be able to implement it on Linspire and if it works well enough other distros will catch on.

Wish me luck!

Insiders Rock

I've just became a insider with Linspire.. I get to play with all this NDA and use cool new NDA and things like that. It's easy to become one if you use Linspire but playing with beta versions is not for the weak of heart and I only reccomend it if you have a spare machine around.

Also I've come across instructions on getting a EVDO (Verizon Wirelesses super fast wireless data from 300 up to 2mbit speeds) you have to get a Sierra Wireless AirPrime 5220 PC Card and activate it using Windoze but it does work according to those instructions.

100% Working Linspire on HP Laptop

I've finally gotten rid of the gremlins in my Wifi Setup. Seems I just had a issue with the KDE network telling me I was on chan 6 and then iwconfig told me I was actually on chan 11. I put the system on auto in the KDE network panel and now things are working. I'll re-encrypt the connection sometime tomorrow and see if it continues to work.

My only wishlist item here is the ability to pick up on other wireless networks if they're available in case I was at a airport or starbucks.

Next month I'll become an insider and begin to see what I can do to help out the next version of Linspire. I've put forward several items in the forums to improve CNR and hope to see those ideas put into the system someday. I'd also like to see Linspire work with Lycoris on their AI Squared product. I think if would help alleviate the problem with installing software on a system and get it working. However after all the glowing promise Lycoris said about the product they then turn back on everyone with "It only works for DesktopLX and we do not plan to expand the platforms it runs on." I understand the need to make a buck but this is something that would speed adoption of Linux across the board. Even Lycoris could reap rewards from more users using Linux.

End to Wireless Woes

I spent hell getting my 54g card going under Linspire today. I suspect it all had to do with a bogus .inf file in the HP drivers I've had lately. I vaugely remember a 20k inf file about a year ago when I first tried Linuxant's drivers.. then the .inf file blew up to nearly the size of the .sys file that the system also needs. We'll I found a driver on emachines site that had the older 20k .inf file and ndiswrapper appears to be working. And I suspect that Linuxant's driverloader will also work with the smaller .inf file as well.

If speed is not a issue I'd seriously suggest getting a Orinoco Gold pcmica card from ebay.. they go for as low as 20 dollars and work just fine in any Linux distro with the least hassle.

Software Suspend in a Unlikely Place

I've been working to get Linux working 100% on my laptop for ages. It's HP Ze4430us which is only about year old. Even with 2.6.x I was unable to get software suspend (Saving machine state to disk) which many Linux laptop users bemoan the lack of and are forced to wait through long boot times for many distros.

We'll I loaded my Distro of choice (Linspire) onto the laptop. I did not expect the desktop edition (Linspire has a Laptop Edition) to have any special laptop features already loaded. We'll it did and when the battery meter loaded up I saw a option to suspend. Since it was a fresh install and I was not really worried of screwing up anything I told it to suspend. We'll it did. And better yet it completely booted back up when I hit the power button. Mouse was a little confused but after turning it on and off with the button on the keyboard it worked fine.. so it's not really a big issue. They pulled this off on a 2.4.24 kernel which is also a big surprise.

So I can honestly say everything I want working on my laptop is working great. I'm still having a 54g issue and my trusted Linuxant drivers are not behaving but I'm confident I will have that issue fixed sometime today when I get time to see why it's not working.