Friday, April 15 2005 @ 02:01 AM EDT Contributed by: glosser
Although, I can't think of ONE reason why someone would want to do this, I'm going to post this tutorial on how to hack Linspire, to make it less user friendly and more resemble an ordinary Debian system.
Linspire 5.0 (Five-0) is a Debian GNU/Linux-based distribution with a pretty interface, proprietary video drivers and browser plug-ins, and a pricey desktop software subscription model. If you like Linspire but hate the company's Click N Run pay-as-you-go software service, here's how to disable and circumvent CNR and switch to using standard Debian packages and the Synaptic package manager. I'll also show you how to set up your system for watching DVDs without Linspire's proprietary DVD player software.
Of course, I'm not sure why you'd want to pay $50 for Linspire only to disable its crowning feature. If that's your goal, you might be better off trying a different Debian-based distribution such as Ubuntu Linux or SimplyMEPIS, both of which cost less, are more freedom-friendly, and have more traditional APT-based graphical software management tools. What I'm going to show you in this article is how to make Linspire more like these distributions in terms of software management. Don't attempt these procedures without having made and verified backups of your important data.
