Linspire and Ubuntu to Join Forces

In an announcement posted earlier today, Kevin Carmony, the President and CEO of Linspire, Inc. announced that Linspire will be based on Ubuntu in the future. In return, Linspire’s CNR service will be available to Ubuntu users. Below is a chart demonstrating how Linspire will be set up in the future:

Linspire and Ubuntu Chart

According to Kevin, Linspire will still default to KDE and, most probably, be based on Kubuntu, the KDE flavor of Ubuntu. It will continue to look and feel just as it does now, with the same features and improvements that already exist in Linspire.

The CNR plugin for Ubuntu will be available with the 7.04 release of the distribution, labeled “Feisty Fawn”, which is scheduled for April 2007. From that point onwards, if all goes well, we will be able to perform one-click installations of software that has been a pain to obtain and maintain so far.

At first glance, this is definitely great news. Ubuntu users having easy access to tons of proprietary software like drivers, games, software, etc. — and Linspire being based on Ubuntu, Debian’s… successor, if you will. 87% of the official announcement’s readers think so too, where 4% disagree and 7% have mixed opinions.

Personally, I am a bit skeptical of potential compatability issues; whether or not CNR and apt will successfully co-exist in perfect harmony and happiness, and to what extent Linspire will be supporting Ubuntu over the final Linspire in their package optimization process. Having some packages available to Linspire users and not Ubuntu users because of Linspire-specific additions would really suck — but only time will tell.

Kevin Carmony also included a FAQ in his announcement, targeted at Linspire users.

Taking Over the World

In terms of broadening the use of Linux, this is good news and progress however way you twist it. Generally, things have been moving a lot faster lately with all of the DRM issues of Windows Vista. And not just in the tech-savvy field; the Swedish armed forces have chosen to use Red Hat Linux, Russian schools have chosen to migrate to Linux after a recent Microsoft privacy lawsuit, and finally, PSA Peugeot Citroën in France have made SuSE their desktop of choice. These are just some of many others who have already officially made the switch, including high-profile entities.

Now, if only my X-Fi was supported… Creative, I’m looking at you!

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