Naming
From Freespire
Because both Linspire and Freespire use the same baseline of work, the naming can become a little tricky. This page explains how naming within Linspire and Freespire works:
The Three Tiers of the OS
Each copy of the operating system is defined by three different things: It's Distribution, Release, and Version. These terms, and their naming systems, are described below.
TOP TIER: "Distribution"
At the highest level you have the "Distribution." A distribution encompasses the differences between Linspire, Freespire, and other Linux "distributions" such as Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE, Ubuntu, and so on.
Linspire has two main distributions:
MID TIER: "Release"
A "release" is a snapshot of a distribution at a particular point in time when all the software is deemed stable. A release consists of a shared pool of packages used by both the Linspire and Freespire distributions. From this shared pool, a small subset of packages containing the most commonly used applications is used to create an installation CD (or ISO image). The rest of the packages are made available for installation over the internet via CNR or apt.
Releases are marked by version numbers (e.g., Linspire 6.0, Freespire 1.1, etc.). When using CNR or apt, you typically use the release that matches your OS version, ensuring that the packages are compatible. Once out of beta testing, a release generally remains constant, except for security updates. New applications may be added as long as they do not require modifications to the bulk of the packages in the release. Switching to a new release generally represents a major transition to the next generation of software, e.g., kernel, desktop software, C/C++ compiler, etc.
Releases are given internal names before final version numbers are determined. For these names, Linspire uses the names of fish found in the eastern Pacific, i.e., roughly local to San Diego, CA. (Fish and other wildlife that can be seen while snorkeling or diving off the coast of San Diego are certainly candidates, but with names like Giant Sea Bass, Painted Greenling and Sarcastic Fringehead, sadly these often get vetoed by poor typists and impatient youth.)
The species used so far are:
- Coho (Salmon)
- Marlin
- Skipjack (Tuna)
- And so on...
Packages
When discussing a "release," it's important to know what a "package" is. A package is a software archive used to contain all the files that make up a software product. Linspire uses the Debian package system (packages end in .deb). The version of each package consists of two parts, upstream and downstream. Upstream refers to the original authors of the software, the source from which the information flows. Downstream is where all the software is collected into packages and put together into a coherent release. Each group produces a version number for every iteration of their software and those versions taken together make up the entire package version.
For example, the KDE desktop software is produced and versioned by the KDE organization, the most recent stable version being 3.5.2. To debianize this, a packager adds information about how to compile the program, what files should be installed where, what menus should be shown, what other software is required to be installed for KDE to function correctly (runtime dependencies). The first attempt at packaging will be versioned 3.5.2-1, where the dash separates the upstream and downstream versions. The downstream version number can be extended to have multiple decimal places as well, each field of which represents different kinds of changes. Refer to the Linspire/Freespire version policy for more details.
LOW TIER: "Version"
Finally, you have different version numbers to represent the different versions of a distribution, which may or may not use the same "release." Examples include:
- Linspire 5.1
- Freespire Beta 1
- Freespire 2.0
- And so on...
Examples
The best way perhaps to explain this, is with some examples:
- Freespire 1.0 = This is the Freespire Distribution, which uses the Marlin Release, and is the 1.0 Version
- Linspire 6.0 = This is the Linspire Distribution, which uses the Skipjack Release, and is the 6.0 Version
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