Welcome to show and tell!

Seeing as this is a first "new page" for me, it seems quite a sucess, if you are reading this, so I will take some time to tell you about my latest venture.

Nick

Linspire

Its Here! Linspire, an Easy to use Linux Distribution.

My review

First thoughts Looking at the screenshots, I must say it looks good, sophisticated and yet simple to use and understand. Using what looks like a modified KDE, it is simple to use and comparable to windows, with speed, but much more reliable.

Download Procedure Via Bittorrent, this took around 4 - 5 hours to download from many seeds.

Installation on various systems System 1 Compaq Evo N610C Pentium 4 2.0Ghz 256MB DDR Ram Ati Radeon 7500 chip

Installation took 12 minutes and system runs extremely well. No lag, sound works well, and all hardware is detected and utilised.

System 2 Compaq Evo N600C Pentium 3M 1GHz 128MB SDR RAM Ati Radeon Mobility 7000 chip

Installation took 17 minutes, and system runs well. A tad laggy at times, but that is most probably down to the age of the laptop. All hardware is detected and utilised.

System Itself The Linspire system provides users with everything they need. Web browser, email programs, and the "CNR" software, subscription based, which allows users to download as much extra software as they want/need. Another "feature" of Linspire, as with all Linux systems, is thier inability to crash.

The Install CD doubles as a live CD (Linspire Live!) which allows a user to test the system and see if it meets their needs.

Hardware A compatability list is available on the Linspire website, and much to my suprise, many Wireless adaptors are instantly detected. Linksys WPC11, which needed lots of configuration in MandrakeLinux 10.1, and would not work in SuSE 9.1, works out of the box with Linspire. Very pleased.

Final Word If you want to look into Linux as your first alternative to Windows, check out Linspire five-o. Excellent system, especially for newbies to the Linux Platform. Enjoy!

Prices: $49.95 for Linspire Five-O $59.95 for Linspire Five-O CNR Edition.