BIOS: Technology Means Business

Linspire, the full-featured operating system, has made its way to the UK. Linspire claims to offer you the power, stability and cost savings of Linux with the ease of a Windows environment. In addition, Linspire features exclusive CNR (click-n-run) technology that makes installing software on Linspire fast and easy, according to the company. Typically, Linux is great on servers but is still not ready for the desktop. Whilst there's been a dramatic change the quantity and quality of Linux applications over the last few years, such as Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Lsongs, Lphoto, The Gimp, Nvu, KDE, and the fact that desktop Linux is as easy as Windows to add, remove and keep updated software programs, we still recommend that you tread gently with your first steps towards this alternative OS. For a full list of over 1900 free titles available for Linspire, take a look at the company's CNR Warehouse.

Pros: Full-featured OS; includes tabbed browser and office suite
Cons: Your current hardware devices may not be supported

Edited Release: Phoenix Global Software, a leading re-publisher of software, is delighted to announce the release of Linspire OS v4.5, a full-featured Operating System (OS) based on the Linux operating system. Linspire is perfect if you use your computer for the Internet, music, video/DVD, gaming or in a school or office environment, and wish to keep expenditure to a minimum.

The Linspire Web suite is optimised for convenience and usability. The tabbed Web browser with pop-up ad blocking keeps you desktop free from clutter. In addition, the integrated find feature lets you perform custom web searches with just a click of your mouse. The intuitive e-mail spam filtering learns which e-mails you consider to be good, and which you consider to be bad, making it a really effective anti-spam solution. The built-in instant messenger allows you to simultaneously connect to multiple IM accounts for AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ and more!

Linspire comes with robust office suite software, including a Microsoft Word-compatible (.doc) word processor, a Microsoft Excel-compatible (.xls) spreadsheet programme and Microsoft PowerPoint-compatible (.ppt) slide show software. With this included office suite, you can create, edit and share great looking documents for home, work or school.

Listen to CDs and MP3s, or watch video files with the built-in players. Click and run the Linspire DVD Player from the CNR Warehouse to watch DVDs at home, or on-the-go on your laptop. Linspire comes with a host of games, and you can easily add more with just a click of your mouse-button, using the CNR Warehouse.

Linspire 4.5 takes only a few mouse clicks to install and takes less than 10 minutes on most computers. The interactive multimedia tutorials walk novice users through everything from navigating the desktop to setting up email, wireless networking and more. Installing software is also easy with the CNR Software browser, which lets you click and run software by downloading and installing any of the 1900+ programs in the CNR Warehouse, each with one click of a mouse and hassle free!

With Linspire's advanced automatic hardware detection, your hardware will automatically be detected, and Linspire will install the drivers for you (no need to keep track of all those confusing and annoying driver disks). Linspire has extensive hardware support, including expanded WiFi support for wireless Internet.

Linspire is 'Plug & Play', so you can plug in your USB or Firewire devices, such as scanners or digital cameras and Linspire will quickly recognise them and load necessary drivers in just seconds. The Printer Wizard will walk you through adding a printer to your computer quickly and easily, without any driver disks or additional software necessary. In addition, Linspire's Easy Networking lets you read, write, share and browse on a Microsoft Windows network just like you would on a Microsoft Windows computer!