Linspire Announces Custom OS Build Service Initiative For Desktop Linux

Linspire, Inc., developer of the commercial Linspire and Freespire community desktop Linux operating systems and CNR.com, a free Linux software delivery service, today officially announced an initiative to offer a custom desktop Linux OS Build Service to partners. Designed to provide custom desktop Linux OS configurations, the Custom OS Build Service will also significantly help partners cut time to market and greatly reduce the overall expense required when building a desktop Linux operating system.

"With desktop Linux, more and more partners are asking for customization so they can take control of the OS," stated Larry Kettler, President & CEO of Linspire, Inc. "This service will not only provide the feature sets they want, but cut the time it takes to get to market with their products, as well as greatly reduce the overall cost to deliver a custom desktop Linux operating system."

Initially developed to make the release management process for Linspire's partners more resource efficient and less prone to defects, the Custom OS Build Service tool set will provide the ability to quickly produce clean Debian or Ubuntu-based desktop Linux operating systems, with customizable software stacks and other customizable features. As part of the OS Build Service, companies will get to leverage Linspire's expertise in building desktop Linux operating systems for over six years, saving them the inherent time and resource costs associated with producing and supporting a custom desktop Linux operating system themselves.

"Our expertise and advancements in producing efficient tools for packaging and building the Linux operating system will translate into a lower overall cost in terms of time and money for our partners," said Cary Harper, Vice President of Engineering at Linspire, Inc. "As the desktop Linux operating system continues to mature and offer real cost savings as an alternative operating system, this service will allow companies to take advantage of this technology without having to deal with all the complexities."

In addition, as a desktop Linux operating system is deployed into the channel, a partner also has the task of maintaining the OS builds with patches and fixes to the three thousand plus files that make up the installed file base of the operating system. With the Custom OS Build Service, partners are provided the necessary packaging tools and services to eliminate this problem through the use of the free and bundled CNR Service that provides access to a one-click software repository delivery system.

The Custom OS Build Service packaging tools provide the following features:

• Automatic patch application to source packages
• Automatic change detection -- Automatically detects when a package needs to be rebuilt
• Repository management features -- adding/removing packages/directories and signing repositories
• Packages are automatically built in a clean chroot environment, which ensures that the packages do not accidentally or intentionally depend on any special configuration or packages installed on the developer's machine.
• Packages can be organized into hierarchical groups

The Custom OS Build service will be part of the Linspire Partner Program, with over 7,000 approved partners worldwide, Linspire's partners have been bringing desktop Linux to the marketplace for over 5 years.

Linspire, Inc. (http://www.linspire.com) was founded in 2001 to bring choice into the operating system market. The company's flagship product, the Linspire operating system, is an affordable, easy-to-use Linux-based operating system for home, school, and business users. Linspire also pioneered CNR Technology, which provides free access to all Linux software through CNR.com, allowing one-click installation from over 20,000 software programs, packages and libraries.

Free to join, the builder program http://partners.linspire.com has no annual fees or volume commitments, and offers system builders the option to build pre-installed computer systems with both the commercial Linspire and community-driven Freespire desktop Linux operating systems. The builder program pays system builders a percentage on all commercial Linux software and services purchased by users of either Linspire and Freespire pre-installed desktop and laptop computers using CNR technology.

CNR.com is a free one-click software delivery service designed to standardize the process and eliminate the complexity of finding, installing and managing Linux software for the most popular desktop Linux distributions, both Debian and RPM-based. A free service requiring no registration to use, CNR.com users get the most extensive free resource available anywhere for desktop Linux software. Search from tens of thousands of Linux software programs, packages and libraries by title, popularity, similar software, category or function, and with just one click, install the software right on to your computer.

SOURCE Linspire, Inc.