| Freespire | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | PC/Open Systems LLC |
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | Revived/Current |
| Source model | Open source (with optionalproprietary components) |
| Latest release | 10[1] / 7 December 2023; 2 years ago (7 December 2023) |
| Repository | none |
| Available in | English |
| Supported platforms | x86-64[2] |
| Kernel type | Monolithic kernel |
| Default user interface | KDE Plasma (versions 1.8.2 onward) |
| License | Free software licenses (mostlyGPL) with optionalproprietary-licensed components |
| Official website | www |
Freespire is a community-drivenLinux distribution currently owned by PC/Open Systems LLC. It is derived fromLinspire and is composed mostly offree,open source software, while providing users the choice of includingproprietary software includingmultimedia codecs,device drivers andapplication software.
Freespire 1.0 was based onDebian, while Freespire 2.0 was based onUbuntu. Linspire was bought byXandros, who originally planned to switch back to Debian for future Freespire releases.[3]
On January 1, 2018, PC/Open Systems announced it had purchased Linspire from Xandros and released Freespire 3.0. While Linspire is available for $29.99,[4] Freespire 3.0 is free.[5]
In August 2005, a distributionLive CD based on Linspire's source pools namedFreespire hit the web by accident.[6] This distribution was created by Andrew Betts and was not produced or released by Linspire Inc. Freespire was confused by some users to be an actual product from Linspire, and at the request of Linspire the distribution adopted a development codenameSquiggle and began looking for a new name. Linspire then, on the back of the generated publicity, offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9, 2005. Squiggle OS is no longer in active development.
On April 24, 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire".[7] The new Freespire distribution was announced by then Linspire President and former CEO Kevin Carmony. This follows to the model ofFedora being supported byRed Hat and the community since 2003.Novell had also started a similar community project by the name ofopenSUSE for itsSUSE Linux product line in the second half of 2005.
Xandros acquired Linspire/Freespire in the Summer of 2008.[8] Xandros had plans to keep Freespire as a community developed distribution similar to that of openSUSE and Fedora for their respective commercial distributions.
Freespire 2.0.8, released on 30 November 2007,[9] and based on Ubuntu 7.04, was the final release until the distribution was revived with 3.0 in January 2018.[10]
The distribution is a Debian-based, community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution. Freespire includes previously proprietary elements from Linspire, such as theClick N' Run (CNR) client, while other elements, which Linspire itself licenses but does not own, like theWindows Media Audio compatibility libraries,[clarification needed] remain proprietary,closed source. Consequently, there are two versions of Freespire, one with the proprietary, closed source libraries, and one, called Freespire OSS Edition, that includes mostly open-source components. Freespire has a number of in-house programs written inHaskell andOCaml, such as itsISO image builder, its hardware detection and autoconfiguration, itspackage autobuilder and "Debian library", and also the programs managing theCGI.
| Version | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 Release Candidate (1.0.2) | 2006-07-28[11] | Release candidate |
| 1.0 (1.0.13)[12][13] | 2006-08-04[14] | Public release based on Debian, Linux kernel 2.6.14, and KDE 3.3.2[15] |
| 2.0 RC (1.9.0) | 2007-07-10[16] | Release candidate |
| 2.0[17] | 2007-08-07[18] | Public release based onUbuntu 7.04,Linux 2.6.20, andKDE 3.5.6,[19] with the built-inCNR 7 plug-in |
| 2.0.8 | 2007-11-30 | Fixes and BetaCNR plug-in[9] |
| 3.0[5][20][21][22][23][24] | 2018-01-01 | Have Linux kernel 4.10.0-42,Mozilla Firefox Quantumweb-browser, and other software updates. |
| 3.0.1[25] | 2018-01-14 | Meltdown andSpectre fix. |
| 3.0.6.5[26] | 2018-02-08 | Linux kernel updated to 4.13.0-32, added new UI tweaks for feedback about distro, removedGParted, updates until February 7, 2018 are applied and more. |
| 3.0.8 | 2018-03-19 | |
| 4.0[27] | 2018-08-20 | Migration from Ubuntu 16.4 LTS to 18.04 LTS base |
| 4.5[28] | 2018-12-20 | Security updates |
| 4.8[29] | 2019-05-03 | Various Updates |
| 5.0[30] | 2019-10-15 | Various Updates |
| 6.0 | 2020-02-10 | Various Updates |
| 6.0.3[31] | 2020-06-22 | |
| 7.0[32] | 2020-10-30 | |
| 7.1[33] | 2020-12-28 | |
| 7.5[34] | 2021-05-09 | |
| 7.7[35] | 2021-07-30 | |
| 8.0[36] | 2021-12-05 | |
| 8.2[37] | 2022-03-02 | Swap desktop fromMATE toKDE Plasma 5. |
| 9.0[38] | 2023-01-23 | Swap desktop fromKDE Plasma 5 toXfce |
| 9.5[39] | 2023-05-08 | Various Updates |
| 10[40] | 2023-12--7 | Swap desktop fromXfce to modifiedGNOME |
1 license - Self Support $29.99 USD
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