Back in 1999, before home media servers were even really being built in most homes, I started thinking to myself that it would be really nice if there were a central computer in your home that could be used to send music/video/photos… to all rooms of the house pushing different media to each one. I was not a computer science major, I didn’t know a thing about computers really. What I did know was at that time you could: rip cds to MP3, rip DVDs to MP4 and other video formats, and I knew you could host your own web server either for the internet or for your home.
Armed with this knowledge I did exactly nothing. I was dumb and without motivation. About a year later, roughly 2000 I would buy my first computer, and then later build my first computer. When I went to build my computer I came to the Sad realization that Microsoft required Product Keys to activate their Operating System Windows. Now at the time this wasn’t a big deal, while you were licenced only to have one instalation of Windows per disk legally, the framework really didn’t exist to enforce this at the time.
I however was a good boy. I don’t like piracy, I don’t pirate, and I don’t encourage pirating. I do however encourage hacking for personal use, something I will discuss in greater detail later. Since I am anti-pirate, I was looking for deals on Microsoft Windows. While looking around a good friend of mine and former roomate Ryan Johnson suggested I give Red Hat a try.
As I mentioned earlier Red Hat is a Commercial version of Linux. Back in 2000, Red Hat was available for free via their website, or you could pay for a commercial copy with support. Being still a little knew to this world, I chose to purchase the Professional Version. I loved it, it was easy to use, I could write papers I could print, I could look at photos and I could watch some video.
I could not connect to the internet (I only had dial up and my modem was unsupported). I could not watch DVDs (DVD encryption is a licenced program that I could not get. For the uninitiated, Microsoft Windows, and MacOS do not come with DVD video support integrated into the Sofware this is bundled separately. Meaning that if you were to build your computer, you would either need to purchase the proper software to decode DVDs, or you would have to break the law and use various decryption tools available on the net. In this respect Linux was no better or worse than its mainstream competitors.
After a while, not being able to connect to the internet annoyed me and I went and bought a copy of Windows 2000. I spent the next year playing around with 2000, 98 SE, and Millenium. Then one night I was bored. I started reading about how to set up a modem in linux, I wanted to give it another shot because purchasing multiple copies of windows was expensive.
I stumbled upon a now defunct Operating System, Lindows. Lindows made installing programs easy, it looked like MS Windows, it had available at an affordable price DVD Software ($30). Additionally Lindows was selling for $49 and could be installed on any number of computers, while Windows was selling for anywhere between $100 for an upgrade and $300 for the full OS and could only be installed on 1 computer per license.
I didn’t buy it right away. The reviews were good, but it was under heavy litigation from Microsoft for Trademark infringement. Lindows won every lawsuit in the United States concerning its name. As it is Microsoft Windows got its name from the concept of a windowing operating system. As windows/windowing existed long before Microsoft the title Windows could not be trademarked. Ultimately to end confusion and law suits Lindows accepted a settlement, was payed millions of dollars by Microsoft and changed the name of their Operating System to Linspire while keeping the company name of Lindows. The day this happened, Linspire 4.5 was released for free if you could guess the password (it wasn’t hard “Lindows”). This free release was a marketing gimmic as a lot of marketing money had been spent on Lindows and could now no longer be used.
I downloaded my free copy of Linspire 4.5, enjoyed so much that I went on to buy two more copies. One for myself and 1 to give to others. I then did the same when Linspire 5 came out. I found that not only did this operating systmem just work, but I didn’t have to go buy Software or look for Software. Linspire came equipted with a Software Store called CnR or Click and Run. It was very much like Google Play or Apple App Store. This store however predated either one and in many ways was far morer versatile. You could set up “Aisles” and pre load them with programs, then instead of installing individual applications you could simply select on the aisle and install the entire list at once. For somebody setting up multiple computers or managing a network, this was a great asset.
In 2006 Freespire was created. This version was a for free version of Linspire. It lacked some of the Codecs that was pre-installed in Linspire but was for all intensive purposes the same OS and interoperable with the commercial version. A side note Linspire/Freespire was based on a version of Debian Testing/Debian Stable. During 2007, Linspire changed it’s base from Debian pure to Ubuntu. Freespire 2.0 was relased followed by Linspire 6.0. One of the additions with the 6.0 version were Microsoft Licence agreements. Linspire agreed to signing on with Microsoft, just as Suse and Xandros, in regards to patent recognition. As consequence a limmit of 4 instalations per licence was made for Linspire, but it came with MS Truetype fonts, as well as better interoperability with MS programs than many other Linux Systems of the time.
Within a year Michael Robertson the CEO of Linspire sold the company off to Xandros. There is a lot of controversy over the deal, and I won’t get into that. I follow both Michael Robertson and Kevin Carmony, the two chief litigants in the matter. It wasn’t long and Xandros disappeared as well. As of today the only OS that is still around that made a deal with MS is Suse.
In the absense of Linspire I turned to Ubuntu. I have run Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04, 11.10, 12.04, 12.10 and I am currently running 13.04. I have tested some other Distributions as well. Linuxmint/Mepis/Ultimate Eddition/Suse/Debian/PhoenixOS.
My favorites are PhoenixOS Ubuntu and Debian, though I am leaning on Suse a bit more and more. I don’t like Mint. I know many would be shocked to hear this, but Mint for all of its wonderful features irks me. For one thing, it uses non free software (software requiring user agreements, not necessarily for price) without necessarily establishing software agreements. Then there are the politics of Clem, the lead developer, I find his stance particularly on Israel to be indefensible. As such I don’t use Mint.
In the past, I have installed Mint for new uesers, but these days I find that Ubuntu has a better interface for newcomers than any other OS on the market anyway.
-BrotherLeRoy
