Is linux free 5008

One of the most valuable uses of Distrowatch is to find unobscured, efficientdownload links. Consider SimplyMEPIS, for example: The MEPIS guy (Warren Woodford) really does try to encourage people to purchase copies rather than downloading them, and doesn't in general go out of his way to make the download URLs obvious, relying on people to follow enter "MEPIS" into the search field. (In theory, MEPIS offers SimplyMEPIS for desktop users and a ProMEPIS developer version, but the latter has gone roughly nowhere.)

That takes you to Distrowatch's MEPIS page, page until you find the section Recent Related News. Notice that the most recent dated item is "2005-09-28: Development Release: MEPISLite 3.3.2 Test 1". Let's say you decide to locate and download that pre-release version. So, you follow the item link, taking you to

You read the news item, and notice that it ends with "Download: MEPISLite-3.3.2.test01.iso (660MB)."

The hyperlink is to ftp:--ftp.cise.ufl.edu-pub-mirrors-mepis-testing-MEPISLite-3.3.2.test01.iso

And that's your download direct link.

Here's the thing: Most reviewers don't understand the realities of freely redistributable distros -- in exactly the way you didn't when you started this thread: They'll say "Hey, where are the MP3 utilities? Where are the Window Media and QuickTime players? Where's Adobe Acrobat Reader? Where's RealPlayer?1 Where's Sun Java?

All of those are restricted by either patent (e.g., MP3) or copyright encumbrances. Some of them are available under restrictive licence from their owners, but then the resulting distribution would no longer be freely redistributable, because it could then be lawfully distributed only from authorised sites.

That is why Ubuntu, Fedora, and any number of others omit such packages, and they need to be retrofitted by you if at all.

The default setup of Fedora (with GNOME) is very RAM-hungry. It can be configured to use a different window manager, but likely you don't have the patience for that, and would probably be happier with some other starting point, anyway.

I advise likewise, even though I use Debian on almost all my machines. There are excellent Debian-derived desktop distributions: Ubuntu, MEPIS, Kanotix, Libranet, Xandros, a number of others. I'd advise looking into those. If you prefer an RPM-based distribution as something you're more used to from RH7-9 days, then consider Mandriva or SUSE.

Xandros is an excellent illustration of the point I made earlier about freely redistributable distributions: The retail boxed set editions from Xandros, such as Deluxe Edition and Standard Edition, include quite a number of those proprietary "enhancements" that reviewers complain about being missing from freely redistributable distros. And those boxed-set editions are not freely redistributable, specifically because of their presence, plus the commercial enbreastlement for paid technical support that is bundled with them. Accordingly, they also cost money.

Of necessity: If you were to simply hand someone a copy of a program you wrote without an explicit licence, then the implied licence that's inherent in copyright law would apply, and that licence's terms are proprietary. Therefore, the only way one can have open-source software is with explicit, (usually) written licences. Since those have to explicitly grant the public some rights that otherwise would be reserved to the copyright holder, it's unescapable that they seems somewhat legalish. However, you'll find that any open-source licence is much easier to understand than almost any proprietary-software one. For example, did you ever read the one to Sun's Java SDK? Did you understand it?

Whatever licence that's from, its meaning is that only the licence grants you the rights to copy, etc., and attempting to do so in any way other than as provided by the licence automatically terminates the licence.

-- Cheers, Chip Salzenberg: "Usenet is not a right." Rick Moen Edward Vielmetti: "Usenet is a right, a left, a jab, The postman hits! You have new mail."