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TurboLinux & Linksys Announce Bundling Deal
Sam writes, "TurboLinux, Inc. announced today an agreement with Linksys to bundle TurboLinux in shipments of Linksys 10/100 Ethernet products sold in North America. The special bundling will be included in popular small and medium business solutions such as 10/100 hubs and switches, routers, NIC and PC cards.
The agreement, projected by the companies to include more than 1.2 million product shipments over the next 12 months, will give Linksys customers TurboLinux operating system solutions with selected purchases of Linksys products. Source: Electic Tech "
I knew that. I just... er... um. Wanted to skip some lines. Or something.
I got a free Turbo 4.0 with vol2 of Linux Mag I think. Looked like RH with a few extra tweaks and apps.
I know they have been arround awhile but they seem to be marketing their products like the Old Gaurd.
Check out their download page. Care to register first? If that doesn't discourage you how about skipping strait to the "download/install" page where you have two options:
There are two primary ways to download and install TurboLinux:
1). FTP Install
2). Local Hard Drive Install
Not exactly encouraging to the 99.9% of potential users who have at best a 56K connection and maybe little experience installing Linux. And if you try to go to ftp.turbolinux.com to download the entire distro you get a dead link.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
As for them teaming up with linux that's great maybe they could make they're own specific drivers even though the NE2000 driver works just fine for both the D-Link and the Linksys.
Since Turbo comes packaged with Samba this should be a win win situation. Home network with a good network and a great operating system
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Just one small question... how many people out there (I mean mass market... newbies) would take those TurboLinux disks that came with their new network cards, repartition and reformat their hard disk just so they can install Linux?
Yeah, I thought so....
On the other hand, this form of mass-distribution (ala AOL floppy disks) should have some impact on TurboLinuxs market share, if not on Linux as a whole.
*sarcasm* Atleast you get a stylish new coaster instead of the default AOL ones. */sarcasm*
My first reaction was that this is great news.
But I find myself wondering how many folks just toss free CDs that are included with products because of the AOL CD-with-everything phenomenon. Some kind of promotional CD comes with almost everything nowadays.
What will differentiate this CD from the junk CDs (like AOL) that permeate the industry?
Doug ---- Co-host of Ghostly Talk
A standard NE2000 NIC card runs about $15. TurboLinux 6.0 runs $19.99. I don't mind buying NIC cards because they're cheap. If the price stays the same then consumers would be happy, but A) Linksys has no incentive to bundle, and B) TurboLinux makes no money from the bundle. If the price goes up, consumers will buy other cards (Like D-Link, which I have had good luck with) because they're still hovering around the $12-$15 price range.
But if the price goes up, what's the difference between buying a Linksys Card with TurboLinux bundled, or buy a different card and TurboLinux seperately....other than conveniance?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
From an "advocacy" stance, I'm not really sure I see the point here: I can't see scores of LAN admins getting all excited about this. If they wanted to try Linux, they probably would have already. If they didn't, that copy of TurboLinux is about as useful as yet another AOL coaster^M^M^M^M^M^M^M CD.
From a "cool stuff" stance... well, okay, maybe.
By coincidence I helped a friend setup a proxy on his Windows box this weekend and he bought two of the SMC $15 cards you mentioned. True to form, plug-and-play detection did not properly detect the chipset and there were no printed instructions in the box or anywhere on the box about what to do next. I imagine Joe User would be stuck here. I suspected the "SMC TurboLinux" CD that fell out of the box may have some win drivers on it and sure enough if you dig under a few subdirectories you'll find the Windows oemsetup.inf file, the windows drivers, and if you look at the card itself you see the chipset is SMC1211A and the DOS diagnostic util for that chipset is under that subdirectory on that CD as well, which is also not printed anywhere on the box. See all you had to do was use your DirectTelepathy feature in Windows to have this information sent to you via ESP and then you'd know how to install the drivers for these dapaters. So after seven reboots, waving a dead chicken, threatening the machine with physical harm, and tearfully apologizing to Redmond for working at pro-Linux company I was then able to install and configure the card in Windows and it only took little over an hour. Gee, I really hope Linux can someday be as easy to use as Windows *cough* bullshit *cough*
AOL sends spam CD's through every route possible - they even send CD's just about every other week to the college computer center where I work. We offer them to the students that come in, but of course, they don't want it either - why should they? /is/ likely to grab a random Linux CD and install it?) but also to find out how much these CD's are being used - and hence if they are really getting something done by this little cantrip or if they should stop because it's just contributing to the already overgrown number of makeshift coasters.
The TurboLinux approach is to only send their stuff to their target market - small businesses who are networked. Of course, it's still a bit much, and I think that it would be a good idea TurboLinux includes an online registration system in their install program not only to get some marketing research data (just who
My friend bought an Ethernet card just 2 days ago. I think it was by SMC - it was a cheap 10/100 card for about 15$. What surprised me is the CD he handed me when he asked me to install the card - because he couldn't figure it out. Popping it in I saw directories like dosutils, img, root, etc... I looked at him and said, "Did it come with any instructions?" he pointed to the back of the box that had detailed instructions for linux and 1 sentence for windows. For windows it said "Windows will detect and configure the card automatically." sure... It didn't. I was stunned - I told him that the cd contained no windows drivers and instead was an TurboLinux CD. "It might contain Linux drivers", I said sarcastically. He didn't get it.
Joseph Elwell.
what?
I guess I could use some new coasters. I don't really see how this is going to be effective for anyone invovled.
Not the most brilliant move I've seen this week.
For what it's worth, the card cost $15, and there was a $29 TurboLinux about an aisle away at the CompUSA. I still like my Debian & FreeBSD, but it was a neat gimmick. And since the DE4x5 chipset wasn't listed on the box, it was a convincing cue that there'd be driver support for the card.
I see a lot of people comparing these CDs to the AOL ones. And, of course, the same applies to Corel, who will be (or are they already?) bundling their distributions with certain motherboards. But keep in mind that AOL is as popular as it is today primarily BECAUSE of all those free CDs. Even if most people throw them away, there will still be some who try it out. This is exactly the kind of push Linux needs to increase its userbase. Keep in mind that right now, most people using Linux are using it on servers. This could be an effective way of getting more people to try it on their desktops. Next, we need to start seeing Linux bundled in magazines and mass-mailed out to individuals, just like AOL did. All we need is a company ready to put the money into this.
Also, I like seeing the variety of distros doing these things. I'd rather not see any one distro capture the entire market.
--
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
If you only bought a network card based on what it said on the box, it doesn't say much for you intelligence. The Netgear PCMCIA cards are fully supported by Linux just like the Linksys card. You should have bought a card on its merits, not just because it touted your favorite OS. Thats like buying Office just because Microsoft makes it... Oh wait.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
How can anyone complain about bundling Linux with hardware? Many people that I know don't run Linux because they've:
Bundling Linux with a NIC or LAN-in-a-Box package is great. Not only do you get hardware that will run on Linux, you get the OS as well. This will undoubtedly increase Linux's presence in the desktop and server market.
People are comparing AOL's CD distribution scheme with the Linux OS bundles. I view this opinion as flawed. Linux bundles are not mailed to every household, they are not included in most new PC purchases, etc. Additionally, I'm certain that the AOL CD marketing scheme has been wildly successfull. Otherwise, AOL would have stopped long ago since it does cost money to press and disseminate the CD's.
In closing, let me state that the Linux bundles hurt no one and may introduce people to Linux. In other words, it's a Good Thing(tm).
"Me, Myself, and I" -- De La Soul
First, I like Linksys for a number of reasons, mainly that they state on the box "Linux supported". I always make it a point now to only buy hardware with the 'L' word in plain view. A few weeks ago I was in Best Buy looking at PCMCIA cards and had to choose between a Net Gear card which said "Windows, and other operating systems" and a Linksys which explicitly stated "Linux". Who got my money? Linksys of course!
Secondly, something I noticed at the Linux Demo Day we just had - people were amazed that we were giving them a complete operating system for free. They were walking out of the Microsoft show into the throng of friendly smiling Linux folks. They had just been told that they were going to have to pony up $500 for a buggy as hell piece of software, and here we were handing out a very worthy competitor. Hell, a lot of people even came to the show just so they could get a CD which they read about in the Kansas City Star.
People want to try Linux. Will they keep using it? I don't know. I hope they do, and I am going to do my best to see that they are happy running it and will be there to answer their questions. I am sure they will enjoy it. Linksys is helping to spread the word here. Sure, people are going to mess up their systems, but to that I say "big deal!" I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I have messed up my system because I did something stupid and boneheaded. But another way to look at it is this... When I ran Windows I would reinstall the OS every 6 months. After six months the system would come to a crawl. That is part of my normal MO here at work too - reinstall it at least 2 times a year on every desktop. If you don't you are asking for trouble from all the absolute crap that gets in there and clogs it up.