Yes, I'm cleaning out all the stuff I've saved about Linux reviews. I like reviews, almost every Linux user I know likes reviews, and even the non-Linux folks should read these reviews so that they can better appreciate their own OS choices. So now I've got 2 on Linspire.

"What Linspire Has Going For It" is a few months old, but it's still worth your time. Basically, he focuses on the Linspire Click-N-Run Warehouse, praises it, & offers some suggestions.

I've been playing with something similar for the last few days as I've been delving into Knoppix deeply; namely, the klik site, where you can "run thousands of debian applications without installation". Most of the time, it really works (some apps on Knoppix just don't install, like OpenOffice.org 2.0 preview, for instance). klik supports these distros: Kanotix BH 8-X, Knoppix 3.7 2004-12-08, Simply MEPIS 2004.4, and Linspire 5 (although it apparently works with some other distros as well - gad, more evidence of the innovations possible with open source & the Linux community!) If you haven't checked out klik, get over there & look at it. It looks VERY promising.

Back to Linspire. The buzz is building for the next release of Linspire 5.0, and OSNews has an article examining what's coming in "EXCLUSIVE: Linspire Five-0 First Look". I haven't tried Linspire yet, but now I just may have to. The reviewer talks about the good - a new custom theme, new programs that copy other programs from other OS's (Lphoto, Lsongs, Nvu, & Ltorrent), & the easy availability of APT in a way that doesn't break the OS (yeah, I'm lookin' at YOU, Xandros) - and the bad: sound doesn't work, video isn't corrent, & the software selection is a bit limited out of the box (but hey, this is still in beta, so let's reserve our judgment!). Well, I hope the good gets better & the bad gets stomped, y'know what I mean?