United Online is planning to support Linux. United Online is the parent
firm for such well-known ISPs as Juno, Netzero, and Blue Light.
According to data from their most recent quarter-closing reports, United
Online has more than 2.5 million subscribers, making them the
fourth-largest dial-up ISP in the world, trailing only AOL, MSN, and
Earthlink.
At least one Juno customer has been told that Juno will soon be
supporting Linux. Candace Boheme told me by e-mail that she spoke to a
Juno customer support person on August 4 about reverting to a free account. She had recently
installed Red Hat on her computer and didn’t want to have to pay two
ISPs in order to get Linux support. She wrote, “He told me he thought
that Linux compatibility was in the works and put me on hold for several
minutes while he went to confirm that the info was correct. When he
returned he said, yes, it was to be announced soon but could not give me
an exact ETA. He just advised that I keep on the lookout for the
announcement.”
The Juno help page shows
Lindows as one of the platforms in a dropdown menu customers use to get
support. No other Linux distributions show up there, and elsewhere on
the Juno site customers are told that Juno only supports Windows and Mac
OS.
LindowsOS spokesperson Cheryl Schwarzman explained the Lindows option on
the Juno support menu when she told me that LindowsOS 4.0 includes
“dial-up tools to connect to NetZero, Juno, Speakeasy, and NetHere as
well as several others.”
Peter Delgrosso, Director of Public Relations for United Online,
confirmed the rumor late Monday. He said, “United Online is currently
collecting information from interested users in anticipation of a
Linux/Lindows client release to meet their needs. While we currently do
not offer service for the Lindows (Linux) platform on the NetZero or
Juno brands, the company is planning on developing a service, however no
specific release date has been set. Once the product is launched, the
company will notify the public.”
Joe Barr has been writing about technology for 10 years, and about
Linux for five. His work has appeared in IBM Personal Systems Journal,
LinuxGazette, LinuxWorld, Newsforge, phrack, SecurityFocus, and
VARLinux.org. He is the founder of The Dweebspeak Primer, the official
newsletter of the Linux Liberation Army.
Category:
- Linux
