Chapter 25. Running Freespire and Xandros
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding Xandros, Freespire, and Linspire
Installing Freespire
Entering 2008, Linspire and Xandros were two of the most popular commercial desktop Linux systems. On July 2, 2008, Xandros Inc. announced it would acquire Linspire, pledging to continue both Xandros and Linspire products. In August 2008, Xandros announced it would discontinue Linspire, but continue the community-driven Freespire Linux system that had been sponsored by Linspire.
Many open source proponents dismiss Xandros because it includes proprietary software in its distribution and because of its close relationship with Microsoft. As with Novell, Xandros has signed "patent covenant" agreements with Microsoft, despite the fact that Microsoft had levied no specific patent infringement claims against Xandros (or any other Linux distributions). See the Microsoft/Xandros covenant page for details:
www.microsoft.com/interop/collab/xandros/customer_covenant.mspx
With the recent Linspire acquisition, Xandros has also announced a new direction for its product line. Instead of a focus on the desktop, Xandros set its sights on the server market. Xandros server products now include the BridgeWays xMC remote management system for Red Hat Servers and Xandros Server, version 2.
Because this book is not intended to describe Microsoft products, this chapter skips descriptions of Xandros and instead focuses on the (for now) free Freespire operating system.
Understanding Freespire ...
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