Why is the Linux edition for Ubuntu only?

[formackiek1]

Why is the Linux edition for Ubuntu only?

I use OpenSUSE at home and my laptop has Fedora installed. I'd rather not risk installing something for Ubuntu on either.

[bleucanard]

It isn't :) !

We had to decide on a distribution that we will fully support (ie you can call our technical support to have help) and we decided on Ubuntu 8.04.

However, we try different distributions all the time (so far, we have tried Inspire on openSuse 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, Mandriva 2008, 2009, Debian 5, Molinux, Lliurex, Max, etc... My desk is full of computers running Linux !) The only difference is our QA / Test department has done full tests on Ubuntu, but not on other distributions (we just don't have the manpower to run full tests on a large number of distros).

If you are happy to run Inspire on openSuse without official Promethean support, contact mary.wallace@prometheanworld.com , she will tell you how to get Inspire for openSuse (we have a repository for openSuse 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1). She might insist you sign a non-disclosure agreement and sign away your first - born, or at least something to say you understand we do not support openSuse officially (but there's always the forums).

I am also working on an Inspire-only install that will install Inspire on any distro but outside the package management system : not my preferred solution, as you don't get dependencies and automatic updates, but it will let people try it on distros for which we don't have a repository).


Pierre Burghgraeve
Promethean
Driver / Linux Software Engineer

[andyed]

Nice user name Pierre.

Blue Duck.

By the way Pierre is a strange Linux user. He loves Windows

[davidlloyd]

Andy

Anyone who loves Windows has to be strange;)

[tegen]

My work notebook is a Xandros Eeepc, the tiny one - which won't take a mimio - yet! - and this would be where I would install. So, Pierre, are you going to run a linux version compatible with this? please? would it help if I said please again? Thanks, Jim

[bleucanard]

Is this an early eeepc (700 or 701) (look underneath) ?
I have had Inspire running on it, but it was the most problematic because the version of Xandros on it
is a bit behind, and some libraries are a bit out of date.

I have one at home set up with Xandros, I will check, it might be possible to use the Ubuntu 7.10 repository on it (Xandros is a Debian derivative).

(and I'd like to point out I don't love Windows)
(and thanks for saying please. It's the second please that made me answer ;-) )
Pierre Burghgraeve
Promethean
Driver / Linux Software Engineer

[davidlloyd]

(and I'd like to point out I don't love Windows)

Pierre Burghgraeve
Promethean
Driver / Linux Software Engineer

Apologies Pierre. Just goes to show we shouldn't believe everything we read!

[tegen]

Hi Pierre,
I also have little love for windows - Ex senior engineer of MS! - however, I am scraping my brain for my VI and GREP days of Unix. ahhh, Halcyon days!
Anyway, enough revelrie, my eeepc is a 900 - it's really up to date - and I vaguely recall a Debian notation in there somewhere. I would appreciate your help on this, thanks.
Thank you again, just in case you didn't get it first time,
regards, and thanks,
Jim ;-)clwn

[bleucanard]

Jim (and others for that matter!),

We are working on a solution to allow people to install Inspire on other distros, we will let you know when it's ready (probably next week, maybe even earlier).

Unfortunately, we lost the restore disk for our eeepc, so I haven't been able to have a look at running Inspire on it (We have an eeepc 901, but I installed Mandriva on it. Give me a computer and there's a fair chance I will install several distributions on it before you've had a chance to say "Windows 7" ! ).

I will ask around the company, I know someone in marketing has one (the one I got an early version of Inspire to work on a few months ago).

Pierre Burghgraeve
Promethean
Drivers/Linux Software Engineer