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Must be another CO day here. While we are at it, let me add my totally obvious comments. Instead of spending atleast 400-450$ on a PS3, you can build yourself a proper PC with components from newegg and download Ubuntu and install it for a superior Linux experience. What's that you say? You want a Blu-ray drive? Here's one that's not so expensive.

You don't want a BDROM and you can't be bothered to put together a PC? Say hello to Zonbu and their line of line of cheaper machines.

Zonbu not upto your taste? Perhaps Madtux might help.

That was from 3mins of Googling - you get my drift. Linux on PS3 is almost as old as Linux on PS2 (one with HDD). Anyone remember Linux on xbox?

I am not sure who or what I should be insulting here - the selection of this story or Popular Mechanics. Oh and 129$ from newegg for a BDROM drive is cheap enough for me (HTPC and all) - Give it a couple of months and you will get sub 100$ BDROM drives and as any serious gamer knows, it's not the console price that will get ya - it's the games as they come out but I digress. Back to watching Monty Python on Hulu...

A few weeks ago I came across MadTux.org while looking at the VectorLinux website. I was surprised how inexpensive their machines are ($149 - $289), all very well-equipped for the money. Most people would only complain about the size of the included HDD at 13.5GB, but it's plenty of room for your OS. You can get other drives for files (or not). Would also make a great thin-client in a fat box.

http://store.madtux.org/product_info.php?cPath=57&products_id=311

For example, for $149 you can get:
* AMD Sempron M 3000+ Processor
* 512MB DDR2 RAM included
* 13.5GB Hard Disk
* 100Mbps fast-ethernet port
* 128-bit 3D/2D Graphics engine
* Full-featured AGP v2.0 compliant 8x transfer mode AGP controller
* 3 PCI slots
* UltraDMA EIDE controller
* Memory expandable to 2GB
* Two 32-bit PCI slots
* Two IDE connectors onboard
* Realtek ALC655 6-channel AC'97 Audio CODEC
* Two PS/2 ports for mouse and connector, one serial, one parallel ports, one VGA port, one LAN port, four USB 2.0 ports and audio jacks

So go to MadTux and get a real PC for less. 512MB of RAM, 16x DVD+-RW, 80 GB hard drive, Vector Linux installed, and 60 days of email support for $281.99 with a Sempron 3000+.

There are other models and they can all be configured somewhat, too. What you get from MadTux is bigger and uses more power, but it's a lot more computer for the money. It's also vastly more expandable.

If you really need silent, low-power, and small, this FitPC is quicker than building your own EPIA case but not as fun. There are lots of PC/104 and EBX systems out there that don't cost much more. It appears that this is very similar to what Ampro, Winsystems, Via, and others are already doing, but at a good price. EMAC's PCM-5893 isn't much more in single unit quantities.

It looks like they (Compulab) are making the boards themselves since they are SBC builders. In quantity they probably could get close to these final prices by OEMing the boards and sticking them in project cases.

This PC is actually a rebranding of the ENC-iGLX it seems. You can also buy just the innards from Compulab, too. If you don't mind XScale instead of Geode and can handle 312Mhz, they have a system with 1 ethernet and wifi for $199.

Gumstix is much more interesting IMO, but this is a nice little box as far as PC compatibles go.

The new Intel MB with an embedded Celeron processor has far better performance at a lower cost. Try this:

  $46.99 - Hard drive - 40GB, 5400rpm Seagate
    28.99 - 1GB Memory - Corsair DDR2 533
    69.50 - MB - Intel D201GLY, Celeron 1.33
    54.95 - Fanless power supply - picoPSU-120
    59.95 - Case - M300

$260.38 - Total - Shipping NOT included

Far better performance, reasonable power consumption (~25w), small and silent

Or, if you prefer single stop shopping, try this.

MadTux.org has been selling a very similar box with no OS for a while:
http://store.madtux.org/product_info.php?cPath=57& products_id=229

It is sort of sad that they're not selling the Celeron E520 with Ubuntu on it. That would work great, and it would be an amazing deal if they priced it at ~$310. On the other hand, I guess they're assuming that anyone who would consider Linux is savvy enough to spot the Celeron / Core2Duo difference immediately - and that they strongly prefer performance over price.

In any case, if you want the *cheapest* pre-built Linux boxes, there's always MadTux Affordable Linux PCs. =P

http://store.madtux.org/index.php?cPath=57&osCsid= ab13235458a21b30b17c7b68d351ff71 Or those same users could use open office, evolution, and firefox. ;D

Dell's N series is an interesting strategic decision on their part. It's carefully hidden on their website so no "normal" customer could ever find it, but it's available from an easily linked to URL so that it can be used to prove that "Dell really does sell Microsoft-free PCs" in Slashdot and Digg discussions.

I'd stay away from it myself - every n-Series system that Dell sells is one less system that a smaller vendor who provides better support for Linux doesn't get. Until Dell actually supports Linux, at all, on a machine that it's possible to find by clicking around from the Dell homepage, I'm going to have to recommend supporting smaller vendors that actually support Linux.

Smaller vendors like: http://store.madtux.org/index.php?cPath=57 (Really cheap Linux PCs), http://www.system76.com/ (Nice Ubuntu systems), http://www.powernotebooks.com/ (Nice OS-free laptops).

No-OS, Computers without Operating System (for those who want to install their own Operating System):

  http://www.abestpc.com/laptop.htm Laptops

  http://www.adamant.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.avadirect.com/ Desktops Laptops
  http://www.com4.nl/ Desktops
  http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.goldenelectronics.co.uk/ Desktops
  http://www.hypersonic-pc.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.ion-technologies.com/ Laptops
  http://store.madtux.org/ Desktops/

  http://www.laptopchoice.com.au/ Laptops
  http://www.mtechlaptops.com/ Laptops

  http://www.mwave.com/ Laptops
  http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/ Laptops
  http://www.powernotebooks.com/ Laptops

  http://www.rjtech.com/ Laptops
  http://www.topmicrousa.com/laptops-notebooks.html Laptops

  http://www.unitedmicro.com/ Desktops Laptops
  http://xnbs.com/ Laptops

  http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/ Laptops
  http://www.zepto.com/ Laptops
 
  http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/

madtuxoffers a dual core linux laptop.

"...Like WHO?

The only "linux on laptop" companies I know about take standard big-brand-name laptops renames them, puts Linux on them and then doubles the price..."

Well, heres two:

http://www.shoprcubed.com/

http://store.madtux.org/

By the way, my daughter and son in law recently purchased the $300 Freespire loaded pc from MadTux (above). Neither have ever used Linux before and they love it. Their XP box is rarely used anymore. Linux is no harder to use than Windows when it comes preloaded.

i didn't pay dell, instead I paid http://madtux.org/ and i've got all gpl drivers to boot!

Even if you don't play on using linux and plan on wiping it and installing windows on it, or even dual booting, your system will be linux hardware compliant, so you have a better chance of selling it later. just bought a linux system at http://madtux.org/ for around 300$ and installed centos(rhel_code) on it.

MadTux.org sells Linux-friendly wireless cards – although not sure if they'd work with Ubuntu, it has horrible wireless support last time I checked. May as well just get a more wireless-friendly Linux, I hear Ultima's pretty good, might be better for you :-P

But I know of osCommerce, which is a pretty popular storefront solution... and then if you do a custom solution, I have a PHP/MySQL database manager that can be used for the site's backend. Not sure how useful it would be for your site – I originally wrote it for MadTux, a Linux download site, and their needs are admittedly more than a little more specific than most sites would need – but may as well offer it if you have any use.

I happen to be a distro maintainer myself – yes, I know, I say that every single post, but at least now it actually is relevant – and I'll admit, up until recently I didn't distribute any of the source code either. But starting with the latest release, I've done no less than three whole discs of nothing but source – it's really not that hard to do, honestly.

(If you're wondering, it had nothing to do with the FSF or GPL zealots; I've been working on doing an AMD64 port of my system, and that meant I had to move away from simply pulling pre-existing x86 binaries and actually start building the source myself. Honestly, it actually seems to be working a lot better this way.)

Just in case any other would-be distribution maintainers are reading this, I may as well offer some advice – I've just put together a set of three ISO images containing the complete source code, as well as build scripts, etc. to automate the compile process. You really just have to know how to distribute it. As far as my distro's concerned, I don't actually distribute the ISO images or CD's myself – all the downloads, etc. go through MadTux.org, who not only host everything at no cost to me, but they also donate some of the money from monthly CD sales to me to continue development, pay for Web hosting, etc. So get someone like them to help with the hard part (actually distributing everything) and once that's out of the way, you should be fine.

I second the notion to just host it yourself on a Linux box, and use BitTorrent to handle stuff. I was in the exact same situation as you once with my own distro, Ultima – and look where it got me. I've had over 8000 downloads now, all running off 384k uplink, a 700MHz Duron, and endless BitTorrent seeding :-)

Couple tips if you're going to be creating a Linux distro:

Tell DistroWatch.com and get yourself famous. That's more or less how I got well-known. I'm not sure if they do the Windows-based distros, but it's worth a shot.

Know the good BitTorrent sites such as mininova, one of my own favorites, and The Linux Mirror Project. There's a ton of people on those sites who will download stuff just because it's there, and trust me, if you want instant fame that can be a very good thing.

If you need FTP, may I humbly suggest telling MadTux.org about your project. I myself heard of them when they e-mailed an offer to host my project for FTP download, and they're very, very friendly people. They do have a fee for downloaders, but to get your distro's ISO's or whatever hosted with them is free. (Tell them that I sent you, they'll know what to do ;-)

May be a few other things I've forgotten, but those are the big ones. Good luck!