[ale] Linspire and other commercial distros

[Mlfveer at cs.com]

Van Loggins <vanloggins at gmail.com> wrote:

>I bought a lifetime membership for Linspire a while back when they had
>their choicepc.com website and was trying to get money up to assist
>with the fight against microsoft's lawsuits against them in foreign
>countries.
>
>It's an OK version of Linux for a beginner. For ease of Use though I
>would recommend Xandros if the person has ever used a Windows based
>computer before. It's set up to be used in a business environment
>where the amount of time needed to retrain someone to use it is kept
>to a minimum. If they haven't it's still laid out very well and easy
>to show someone how to use. I loaded it on my laptop a while back and
>let my wife use it who has never used linux before and she had no
>trouble figuring out how to do stuff on it.
>
>Why do I not recommend Linspire? Well,I had built my Father a computer
>as a Christmas Present, and I had loaded it with Linspire and gave him
>access to my Click and Run account. We kept having issues with this
>system where Linspire's version of Mozilla kept destroying his user
>profile for him and would constanly prompt him to set up his email
>account every single time he attempted to use mozilla mail to check
>his email.
>
>I say that it had something to do with their version as I've never
>been able to duplicate the problem on any other version of Mozilla
>other than the one that came with Linspire 4.5
>
>I am ashamed to admit it, but getting my father to use linux failed
>because of the linspire mozilla problems. At the request of my Father
>his computer now has Windows XP Professional installed on it, but I
>did win a small battle for open source in spite of the loss for linux.
>My father was used to using mozilla / netscape and because of this I
>was able to get him set up and running with Mozilla Firefox and
>Thunderbird instead of having to use IE and Outlook Express.
>
>My Father Liked using OpenOffice, and had already created quite a few
>documents with it under Linux so he wanted it instead of Office.
>
>If the free version of Xandros 2.0 OCE had been available around the
>time that I was building that system I bet my father would still be
>running Linux and Loving it.
>
>So in closing my recommendation for a good Newbie friendly version of
>Linux go with Xandros.
>
>Have a great Day!
>
>Van
>
>
>
>-- 
>Van Loggins
>"Linux Geek In Training"
>vanloggins at gmail.com
>

Thank you for your experiences. What amazes me more than anything is the whole issue of choice. Most consumers, and by consumers I mean average pc users, have no idea an alternative to Windows exists. You'd think they'd be at least aware of Apple, but my experience is that it is "Windows or nothing." Linux makes no sense to them.

The good news is that Xandros, Linspire and Lycoris (and many others) are making it easier and easier to suggest a REAL alternative to Windoze.

Thanks!

Mitch

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