Freespire 2.0 - Reviewed
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When Freespire 2.0 was first released I was unable to get a clean download via BitTorrent. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that Freespire 2.0 was finally available via mirror sites. I chose a ftp site from Indiana University and the download speed was very good averaging over 300KB all the way. I burned the .iso file and proceeded with the install. Everything worked very well during the installation including finding all of my hardware. I have read some reviews that claim that Freespire install is slow. I didn’t personally find this to be the case at all.
Having tried the beta versions before the final release, I found that Freespire 2.0 final was pretty much what I had seen previously. Nothing more, nor nothing less. Which is not to say that this is a bad thing. Freespire just works. Which is always nice for any distribution you try. Only one slight problem. I thought that CNR would be available with this release. Unfortunately this is not the case. It seems like the folks at Linspire are still working on it. Once CNR is released, Freespire is going to be more than ready for prime time as well as a viable replacement for Windows.
Over at Michael’s minutes he had a interesting take on a recent event when he was on a recent air flight. He stated:
I recently flew to New York and the gentleman in the seat next to me wrestled with his laptop trying to get it to boot XP for 1.5 hours before retreating to the airline magazine crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, I was watching videos and playing music on my IBM laptop running Freespire - a new free version of Linux designed for desktops and laptops. Linux is really gaining polish and maturity and warrants a new look if you’re in the market for a low cost operating system that comes without the security hassles and constant maintenance of XP or Vista.
Though I am sure he is slightly prejudiced in his view, still Freespire is worth taking a look at. You can download a free copy from here.
You can also read Michaels minutes from here.
Comments welcome.
[tags]freespire, linux, review, 2.0, [/tags]
2 Comments
Eric Cashin
August 22nd, 2007
at 9:50am
Freespire 2.0 saved me.
I was recently traveling for work and was trying to do my online assignments (for college) in the hotel at night. My windows XP crashed on me, not just once but close to a dozen times (blue screen of death). No explanation, I had not installed any new software or hardware. It just decided to give up. I was able to save critical files to a jump drive before complete failure.
Fortunately, I had Freespire 2.0 on a cd I had burned to take a look at while I was traveling. I installed it on my Dell Inspiron 2200. To my suprize, everything worked right out of the “box”. WiFi card, video, sound, everything. I was able to log on to the internet and complete my assignments using Freespire.
I have since loaded the vmware player and my license of XP for those programs that I absolutely need Windows.
It is working great. Look forward to CNR getting fully implemented (apt-get working in the meantime).
If Ubuntu, Kubuntu, OpenSUSE, or any of the other distros been this easy and functional, I would have dumped windows a long time ago. Freespire 2.0 is a win for me.
Ron Schenone
August 22nd, 2007
at 12:28pm
Hello Eric,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Regards, Ron