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Check the vendors' list at linux.org, and Alt-F for laptops. There are a couple of them, and not only in US: Hong, Malaysia, US (1, 2, 3).

Here are some other responses to said report:

http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml -- Linux Weekly News
http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html -- Linux Hardware Solutions

-Ben

Here are some other responses to said report:

http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml -- Linux Weekly News
http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html -- Linux Hardware Solutions

-Ben

Today, thanks to the mass market in commodity components created by the IBM PC platform (see The Commoditization of Computers), any Joe Consultant in Hoboken, Michigan can put together his own computers that are every bit as high in quality and low in price as those from Dell. It's an amazing democratization of the computer industry, totally unlike anything that has ever happened in any other industry. Suddenly any schmuck off the street can build a computer just as good as what he can buy, often for less!

Given all that, folks like VA Research, Penguin, or Linux Hardware Solutions would have to be nuts to design their own motherboards. People don't buy our hardware because it is somehow better than what Joe Schmuck can put together in his back room with an issue of Computer Shopper in hand. People buy our hardware because we are *LINUX* people. We know Linux. We can choose the best hardware for Linux out of that vast array of commodity hardware just sitting on the shelf for the picking. We can configure Linux to best work on this hardware (and for the guy who says Red Hat 5.2 won't work with the 2.2 kernel, every single one of our SMP machines ships with the 2.2 kernel, and probably 90% of those are Red Hat 5.2). We can set up the automounter so that people don't have to mount and dismount floppies and CD-ROMs. We can install "X-CDRoast" when people buy a CD-R from us.

When every Joe Schmuck can put together a box that's every bit as good as what he could buy from Dell, Gateway, or LHS, we're no longer in a business where engineering is the difference. Rather, the difference is going to be service and quality of components. Fundamentally speaking, folks like VA Research, LHS, and Penguin sell the service of pulling together Linux-compatible components and installing Linux on the resulting computers. How well we do this is what detirmines our success or failure -- not how many components we manufacture ourselves.

Note: I'm talking about the "mainstream" market, between $1,000 and $30,000 in price... past $30,000, we're talking about engineering making a difference again, and below $1,000, you need massive quantities that Joe Schmuck can't do in his back room. Still, you get the point, right?

--Eric

The sad part is that it'll probably work. After all, it worked back in the days when IBM did it all the time against rivals Amdahl and Fujitsu, and I don't see that the buying public has gotten any smarter in the meantime.

-- Eric

You define FUD as FUD = Spreading Fear Uncertianty and Doubt, I tend to think of "FUD" as going a little further and having a motivational component. Since I'm still relatively new to Slashdot (one year) and Linux culture in general (two years), I did a quick Google search to see where I might have come up with that idea, since I know I didn't come up with it on my own, and came up with this page, which was featured here on Slashdot some time ago. It garnered a lot of comment, some negative. As much as I don't like the rash of attempts to write "scholarly sounding" documents that broke out after The Cathedral & The Bazaar got so much notice, I felt like FUD was pretty clearly summed up, especially since the author went so far as to attribute a source for the term.

Given that paper, I still maintain that this article is not FUD. It's ignorant, and it spreads the components of FUD by its mere publication, but it lacks a motivational element. Call it manslaughter instead of premeditated murder, I guess.

I will also continue to maintain that because in some ways Linux represents as much a cultural as technical phenomenon, and to the extent that the democratic, anarchic nature of the phenomenon's base will never settle on having a "ministry of truth" to issue press releases, reporters will tend to catch as catch can when it comes to reporting on this phenomenon.

You may also choose to note the headline of that item: Linux fans fear Red Hat takeover.

That's true. And again, I stand by my assertion based on cursory observation of virtually every story about Red Hat that runs here on Slashdot.

I don't think the openness of Slashdot is bad, either, by the way. But I've been around long enough to know that things that are "good" (free speech) don't always confer goodness in their use (libel, slander, FUD). This story by CNN is most likely an example.
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net

Although we're certainly not Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc., etc., we're a long way from a garage operation.

I have all ideas VA won't fit in Larry's garage, either. We're both doing very well without pushing MS products.

Dell started in a dorm room, so what's the stigma there?

There are alternative OS shops that sell and support Linux.