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My guide to Freespire Linux Freespire is a community-driven, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community driven, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you. I strongly recommend trying the “Freespire Live” functionality of Freespire before deciding to perform a full install. This can be accomplished by booting to the CD and selecting the LiveCD option when booting. NOTE: This is not the default option. The default option upon booting is a full installation. Freespire can be installed as a dual boot option with another operating system (Windows, etc...) or as the sole operating system on your PC. Refer to the user's manual for Freespire at http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_User_Manual for comprehensive setup and user info. Freespire comes with a complete set of programs: Music player-Lsongs Video players-Kplayer and Realplayer Flash playing-Macromedia flash player Program for CD burning-K3b Office suite-OpenOffice Simple text editors-Kate and KWrite Web browser-Lbrowser and Konqueror Peer-to-peer client-Bittorrent Email client-Lmail Instant Messaging client-Gaim Internet telephone-Gizmo Graphic files viewer-Lphoto and Kview Screen capture-Ksnapshot Archiving tool-Ark Package manager-CNR Need something not on the list? Here is a great resource to find the Linux equivalents of popular Windows-based software http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software Additional application resource: http://www.linux.org/apps/ WINE will allow you to run many native Windows applications under Linux. WINE is available on Run Programs / Utilities / CNR More. http://www.winehq.com/ is a terrific resource for WINE support. Freespire is compatible with an extensive amount of hardware, including hardware designed primarily for Windows systems. Freespire supports over 800 different printers from over 40 different printer manufacturers. A partial list of compatible hardware is available at http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility_List Picasa, developed by Google, is free, available for Linux, and is a professional-grade image management software package. http://picasa.google.com/linux/ Here is a massive list of games available for Linux, freeware, shareware, and commercial packages (Includes Quake 4!). http://icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php If you would like to test Freespire in a window on your Windows machine, you can do this by using the freely available VMware player at http://www.vmware.com/download/player/ Once you have the player, download the pre-configured Freespire virtual machine at http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/518. You will need a BitTorrent client to download the file. See “What is BitTorrent” at the previous link. Freespire...
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