Fedora

Newbie ? Installed Freespire 2.0.8 about two weeks ago and used CNR to download a couple of programs, but now (for the last week I haven't been able to complete any downloads (always get "download failed") the process starts but never completes. I have tried signing up with the CNR community and get nowhere. I see one of the programs I am trying to download (amaroK) with a number of downloads completed and the number continues to rise so somebody is successful. Am I doing something wrong or is everybody having problems with CNR?

More detail, please. What precisely is this CNR program? I don't recognize it.

CNR is a program loaded into Freespire which is a one click Linux software app download program. You supposedly can click on an app and it will automatically download and install into Freespire. I haven't had any experience with app-get but from what I understand it is similar. CNR worked with Limewire and Apollon but I can't use either or Ktorent as they are blocked by a firewall (that another problem I am working on) as I said before any help would be appreciated.

If you're having firewall problems that'd be the thing to check, yes. Unfortunately those error messages are highly uninformative and could mean almost anything... Are there any logs you can check?

There's also the admittedly-sleepy linspire forums with people who've heard of CNR.

I was already in the Linspire forums, the latest post was from January of 2009 most were over two years old. I picked freespire randomly as a linux OS and from what I am reading here freespire may not be one of the more common linux OS. Is there a more widely used linux OS? I am new to Linux, do like it but I don't want to be the Guinna pig. What is the most common Linux system and/or what do you recommend? I just bought "Linux for Dummies" and it contains a copy of Fedora and the book obviously hones in on that system. I don't want to start over but I also don't want to be constantly running into deadends. Is there that much of a difference from one Linux version to another. Thanks again for your help, I feel like I am back in the 1st grade.

I'll (hopefully successful) compare distributions to cars. Every car has a combustion engine that works on the same principle, in an OS that's the kernel. A subgroup of those exposes the same connectors to the outside (aka API). Linux is a even more special subgroup of those, like an engine manufactured by one company, but used by many others, that might or might not make special adaptations, but nothing too extreme.

Around that, every car has a frame, some electrics, headlights, ... Some of those are specified by law (in the UNIX world the POSIX standard), but can be adapted for special needs. As software those are called the tool set. Most Linux distributions use the GNU line of tools, as they're completely Open Source. This lead to the term "GNU/Linux" to indicate that this distribution uses the GNU tools around the Linux kernel.

But if all cars looked the same the everyday commute would be even more boring than it is now. Same goes for distributions, which is why every one of them does some small thing a bit different. They're all compatible for the most part, but differ on what software ships by default, how certain things are configured, and how to configure some very specific parts.

The currently most used distribution probably is Ubuntu, which is derived from Debian GNU/Linux. Another is Fedora, which is the base for RHEL. One of the oldest distributions still out there is Slackware.

And then there are even more free Unices like FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, NetBSD, and MINIX. Or crossovers like Debian GNU/kFreeBSD.

Pludi,
Thanks so much for the Linux explanation, as someone who often draws parallels you couldn't have done a better job explaining. The best thing for me to have done is testdrive more than one distribution, then decide on my new car. For now I'll continue to drive Freespire but will probably take some time to test a couple of other versions. On the comparison, I drive a 98 escort with 195K on it. Why? Because it runs well gets 30+ miles a gallon and is dependable. The main reason I switched to Linux was the undependability of Windows. If my car broke down as much as Windows I wouldn't still have it. With the last crash I totaled my OS and no longer wish to drive in the same vehicle. Thanks again for the advice.