Xandros to return Freespire to Debian roots

Xandros, which acquired Linspire and its Freespire Linux distribution in July, has said it will return the operating system to its roots by basing the next version on Debian.

The move is the latest shift in the tumultuous history of Freespire, which began as the Debian-based LindowsOS in August 2001. Lindows went through several business plans and name changes and, in February 2007, under the name of Linspire, formed an agreement with Canonical to begin basing its software on Canonical's Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Xandros said Xandros Freespire 5 is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year, and will be based on the Debian 'lenny' release. Xandros will follow the Freespire release with Xandros Desktop Professional 5, which will be built on the Freespire code base with additional commercial elements aimed at enterprise customers.

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-Ken