I just saw this over at www.DistroWatch.org:
“Freespire 2.0 has been released: “Freespire 2.0 is immediately available; the latest version of the free desktop Linux operating system. Building on the best of open source software using Ubuntu as its baseline, Freespire 2.0 adds legally licensed proprietary drivers, codecs, and applications in its core distribution, to provide a better user experience. Freespire is able to provide improved out-of-the-box hardware, file type, and multimedia support, such as MP3, Windows Media, Real Networks, Java, Flash, ATI, NVIDIA, WiFi, and many more. Freespire is also the first desktop Linux operating system that will include a CNR plugin for the soon-to-be-released new CNR Service, providing free one-click access to thousands of open source applications.” Read the full release announcement for more information. Download: 2.0.0_full-feisty….iso (688MB, MD5); also available via BitTorrent.”
I think I’ll try this on the old Duron 1.1 machine and see how it compares.
-Mr. Zonbu
PS – CNR stands for Click-and-run which is a slick package manager that Freespire uses to help non-technical users install new applications.
Real life with the Zonbu Mini-PC 
Thank You…this is more interesting to me than the zonbu with gentoo, but to be able to add freespire on the zonbu or koolu thin client. perhaps with someone offering hard drives pre-loaded with freespire would be great. Maybe something zonbu could offer.
Hi Gary,
I wouldn’t necessarily assume you need a hard drive to enjoy the system.
I think Zonbu is on to something with the S3 storage model.
Using USB keys for local files and S3 for less frequently accessed stuff, you can have a nice silent system off the flash card.
I just received a number of 8GB and 16GB cards so I’ll be able to easily test Freespire on the Zonbu hardware, without touching my Zonbu CF card. Just swap and try them out.
-Mr. Zonbu
Yeah…preloaded cards sounds great….I don’t need backup server’s because all I do is browse and listen to streaming music and pic’s from my camera go to free online sites.
Out of curiosity, what would you pay for a pre-loaded card optimized for the Zonbu hardware? $99, say, for a 4GB card?
I’m still trying to get a grasp on what the Zonbu business model is, because someone could easily step in and start offering other options.
-Mr. Zonbu
Well if zonbu wanted to offer something like freespire for those who wanted it I don’t see why it should cost any more than with gentoo. Ubuntu or freespire might work with the hardware just fine without any problem’s. It would move more traffic to their site.
(completely unrelated, but I found no contact information or form here.. maybe a good idea to add?)
It seems Zonbu removed all updates (that were out-of-date at the moment anyway) off of there website: http://oss.zonbu.com/overlay/
Do you happen to have any more information available on this? If memory serves me right, the GPL license requires them to share their source codes and what-not, so I’m pretty interested in what their plans are. Especially since I have the ‘community model’..
Alrighty, I spoke too soon: It seems their developer page (http://www.zonbu.com/company/developer.htm) is updated to match all this, and they now have an install script (http://oss.zonbu.com/) present too. Still not exactly what I meant, but it’s at least something..
As a brand new zonbuist, and very new to linux, i’m experiencing things from a very non-technical end of things.
Is there a wiki already up and running with handy pages telling me what the essential Killer Apps are that my (now Beta) zonbu needs adding — and a step by setp of how to do it — and possibly ditching the gentoo for linspire?