hi everyone
I love Amarok and use it all the time on SimplyMEPIS which installed on my own old P3 laptop and ran just great
However, I bought Xandros Pro for my partners centrino laptop as he is such a windows user I thought it was the easiest distro to introduce him to Linux. He can use Xandros just fine (the file manager is great as its very familiar to windows users) and since we both use his laptop for our music collections and portable MP3 players I thought I would put Amarok on it as well.
After setting the Xandros Network settings to use Debian unstable packages as well as Xandros\'s own repositories I tried installing Amarok only to find I was taken to Xandros\'s own advertisement site saying I need to first pay to install Amarok (and loads of other essential software like antivirus and even demos of Linux games like quake3 demo or Wolfenstine demo!)
I know xandros disables K3B so you have to pay for their own built into file manager Cd and DVd writing feature.
But surely I don\'t have to pay Xandros (again) for installing Amarok as well?
Is Amarok GPL? I am sure the antivirus I tried to install is (F-Prot and Clam and Bitdefender) I even tried using deb packages and rpm\'s as well but all failed and I was back to \'buy a premium membership \" for installing from Xandros network.
Hell I already bought my copy of Xandros Pro to pay them for the use of their in built CD writer and to use CrossOver office just to use an old copy of windows Photoshop.
Is this right for Xandros to charge users to use software others people have made?
I don\'t mind paying for stuff that Xandros has made itself as they must support their own developers I suppose and more power to Linux
But charging for other peoples work?
Do the developers of Amarok know Xandros is charging people for it? And more importantly is Xandros sending this money they make for selling Amarok onto the Amarok developers or keeping it for themselves??

Well, there is nothing illegal when someone is selling GPL software (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html).
But personally I would never use such a fscked up distro. If the friend of yours needs something easy to use, try mandriva or something.

mandriva? you could also suggest FC4 in this case (well, it has a broken mp3 support, but still better packers)

I mean, any desktop-oriented distro. Mandriva, FC, SuSE, (K)Ubuntu, Linspire - anything that doesn\'t behave like xandros

So if you already added debian unstable to your source.lst, comment out Xandros repr. and install from Debian. Seems you have to pay to Xandros to get all the codecs licensed (IMO).

Marcel

Linux does not need antivirus. Not that there are no viruses for Linux, but you are much better protected from viruses in Linux without virus protection as Windows with the best virus protection program. Most virus protection programs for Linux actually clean Windows viruses, so that the Linux computer doesn\'t function as a vector for spreading Windows viruses. Handy as a server, unnecesary for a desktop.

As far as making people pay for amaroK... well really you are paying for the install service not for amaroK. Software is always a service industry masquerading as a product anyways.

If I had a friend who was willing to pay for Linux (admittedly most of my friends who have any interest in a new Linux install run pirated Windows, so obviously they aren\'t) I would suggest Libranet. I haven\'t used it, but its Debian based and I\'ve heard good things about it.

But feel free to leave us a tip with the donate button on the left. :whistle:

hi all
yes I wanted to install antivius in linux to scan buggy old windows
my partners laptop is typical of many new machines in that it doesnt come with a proper copy of windows on CD . Instead it has a \"hidden\" partition with an image of windows to re-install from if anything goes wrong.
I can see the benefits of this idea but also the drawbacks. Its quicker to re-install windows BUT having the backup on the same hard disk in effect lets viruses get to it as well as the windows thats running (Like MBR viruses) Ive already had the windows bootloader trashed by a virus (I think) and its only luck I could re-install from a boot CD backup (thank you acronis and hirens bootCD!)
At the moment I am having to scan the windows partitions from a bootcd (Hirens) where I drop latest F-prot and MacAfee Dos antivirus defs every week
I dont trust windows to scan itself properly (after reading all the hacks to get around norton antivirus on astalavista) so I aways like to scan from a bootcd now.
Scanning from the linux partition would be beter and quicker though.
maybe I should install another linux OS as well on the same hard disk? trouble is I dont know how to install another alongside xandros as xandros has its own version of a bootmanager and i dont know how to edit it to add another bootable partition...
i\'dd like to put just a mini distro like DSL or Slax or astrumi or Insert on a small partition just to be able to boot into it to use an antivirus that I can easy update
i wantto leave xandros on the laptop because we paid for it to be able to let my partner use crossover and photoshop, and the hard disk is getting very full so we havent the space to put another full linux OS on it...

I understand that xandros is charging for using its repositories and Xandros network easy installation program. But even when I download Amarok or F-Prot as Deb packages from a \"free\" ftp they still wont install
Its as is Xandros is made so that it only installs things from its Xandros Network system.
I wonder is there is any way around this? To let me install deb or Rpm packages straight to the OS?
Any ideas would be welcome as it would save me messing around with having to make another partition and install another linux or even to keep having to remaster bootCds.
Thanks

> I wonder is there is any way around this?

You could try the hard way:

Get all the programs you need to compile programs yourself, if you don\'t have them already (gcc [ http://gcc.gnu.org ], make [ http://www.gnu.org/software/make/ ], ... - many of them can be found on the gnu site) , then compile amaroK,rpm&co from the sources. However, it is (imho) much easier to get a \"user-friendly\" linux distribution which includes all these tools...

I doubt that Xandros would let you install thinks like rpm if they can charge you for their services... :angry:

Post edited by: alanceil, at: 2005/08/02 21:27

You can\'t install debian packages because Xandros isn\'t Debian (even if it use the apt system). So Debian packages require different libraries.

Hi all
Yeah I think your right that I should finaly install a more freindly linux as well on the laptop
trouble is though i can easily make a new partition and install something small ish like vector .....but how do I make it bootable along with Xandros and winXP that we have already paid for and want to keep as well?
Xandros installs its own strange bootloader and I wouldnt know where to start in editing it to istall another boot option to load a new Os.
an ideas?
has anone else an experience of getting another linux onto a system alread running xandros ? whats the smallest distro I can install and still run Amarok and an antivirus from it? The damned laptop doesnt even have a floppy to bootfrom otherwise I would have just made a bootfloppy and stuck puppy on a small partition already.
is the xandros bootloader a hack of Grub? I cant find a config file for it though.

thanks for your input everyone
cheers

You can always just overwrite the bootloader, I wouldn\'t worry about it.

Xandros uses LILO as a bootloader.
.