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Installing Linux On A Wal-Mart OS-less machine
Azar writes "An article at Newsforge details the experience of installing Linux on Wal-Mart's OS-less PC. It states: 'A few months ago, super-sized discount store Wal-Mart made the headlines in the Linux world by becoming the first major U.S. retailer to offer PCs without Windows preloaded...While this was widely hailed in the Open Source community as a victory over the "Microsoft tax," which usually afflicts buyers of Linux PCs, one major question remained unanswered: How well do these machines support Linux?' Here is your answer." Newsforge is owned by OSDN, which also owns Slashdot, is all part of the sinister Andover keiretsu.
because they're cheaper.
Kudos to the author of this article, as it was genuinely interesting and informative.
These machines are obviously an affordable, functional, and useful personal computing package for the 'alternative' (or perhaps just plain thrifty) user. Perhaps Red Hat or another distribution vendor should strike up a deal with Wal-Mart to bundle copies of Linux with the machines? It's been done before with not a huge amount of success, but Wal-Mart is a pretty powerful distribution mechanism, and the product already exists minus one inexpensive and 'easy-to-include' component.
How long do you think it will take for other hardware vendors to follow a similiar path? Is there enough demand for it? Does Microsoft offer too great an incentive (target market, for example) for vendors to switch away from their platform?
Has anyone tried putting FreeBSD on one of these? I wouldn't expect the modem to fare any better, but it would be interesting to find out whether the rest of the package came up successfully.
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
At Wal-Marts website at the bottom of the page that features the Windows-less machines is the following note with respective links:
See all computers without operating systems. Also, check out our selection of Linux books.
Yes folks, they are PROMOTING Linux for these machines. So it might be possible that they could bundle a distro with the pc in the future.
build your own is fine if you care that much about specs. Personally, I don't.
I want a machine thats easy to use, easy to set up, and easy to dick about with.
MS falls down on step 3 - the dicking about with. I can set up and use an XP box in about half a minute - but once I've switched off the voice recog I've almost exhausted the possibiliuties so far as dicking about are concerned.
So a nameless motherboard running Linux sounds a whole heap more attractive than a posho self build with windows
It would have also been nice to throw in a piece of paper with instructions about your choices for an operating system to load, including a note that to install Windows, you must buy a full-price retail copy of it.
I'm all for getting rid of the Microsoft tax, but this just smacks of promoting piracy, frustrating users, and adding fuel to microsoft's arguments about how bad an idea naked PCs are.
On the other hand, if it never had an OEM Windows PC on it, you don't have to worry about violating the law for removing it...
Not by much, I buy wholesale and a hardware 56Kbs modem is only $10 more expensive then the equivalant software modem.
I buy wholesale and a hardware 56Kbs modem is only $10 more expensive then the equivalant software modem.
:-) that still adds up to a nice chunk of change when you're looking at selling a million or so machines.
Even if your definition of "wholesale quantity" is the same as Walmart's (probably not, eh?
Still, this is something people should complain about.
So over the next 2 weeks I spent a good amount of cash in getting additional cooling equipment: additional rear case fans, a slot fan, etc. I was able to shave a few degrees off the max temp under the warmest days. Of course, these weren't installed at one shot, and each time I changed the internal configuration, I worried that something might fail.
But finally I got it to the point of being a good little box, and hasn't had a problem since. However, I am still worried on it's temperature situation and monitor it often enough to make sure nothing weird is going on.
But after that experience with newer CPUs, I'd much rather avoid all the hassle of building the system from scratch, and next time I'm looking, purchase a system that has been prebuilt to handle the cooling effectively and such that I don't have to worry about that at all. Obviously, the above boxes wouldn't be for gamers, but as the reviewer indicates, would work well for a linux install as well as average-joe users if they wanted to install WinXP/2K on it. I'd consider getting one of these particularly since I would not expect custom shops to be able to beat that price easily without cutting more corners.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
or what if Walmart hosted install days?
Advertise for customers to order the PCs up to a week or two in advance to allow for delivery. Then have them return to the store on the selected Saturday & Sunday to pick up their new PC and have Linux installed on site for free by local geeks. They could sell books and distros near the install area. I'd do it at the local Walmart, no problem.
And I bet RH would supply tons of free CD kits. Hell, use one of the machines to burn CDs for the customers! That'll freak 'em out for sure.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Wal Mart's can be hard to find in cities, so many people may not know what a godsend they are to rural america. WalMart stores are typically located on cheap land--which is mostly rural America and out suburbs of the some large towns they can be found in. It's very similar to how Southwest on flies into and out of cities/airports with cheap airport fees and terminal space.
:)
And I encourage you to look at WalMart's prices and compare with others. They _are_ pretty damn low. Even in the small rural towns where Wal Mart has already put small mom & pop stores out of business and cornered the market. This is about the only downside of WalMart's--the little guys can't compete with them.
They provide many items which may not be sold in the immediate area also (shopping selection in rural America tends to be very limited). They have a good distrobution system where the ship the things that aren't selling real well in one location to another where they are during the night via truck. For instance, during the Missouri floods they would bring in sand, shovles, flashlights from other stores and ship things like riding lawnmowers and plastic play pools out.
This sounds more like a hit piece against corporations/Fortune 10 than truth. The article is seething with angst and loathing from the denotations of the adjecives and adverbs used.
Also remember, Sams is also connected to the Waltons and contributes heftily to the profits also. Anyone who has bought one bag of chicken wings for $10 to feed themselves for a month knows the joy of Sams
- Sig
I'd rather live in a world dominated by Bill Gates than one dominated by Sam Walton.
Lycoris had some HP desktops and have apparently sold out of the things.
h ttp://www.indybox.com/products/a ta.com/x86.html/ t tp://www.gtweb.net/custom.htmlo mputersystems.com/i n/system.cgi?pid=9/ www.sunsetsystems.com/
A company called OEone makes a distro based on Red Hat but using Mozilla for the desktop. They are selling "internet computer" boxes with their product installed. Here is Robin Miller's review of the appliance/OS. I saw a more negative review of the OEone Homebase distro all by itself, but I can't cite it.
There is definitely some demand for preinstalled machines, but perhaps the distros reckon they are better off just supplying OEM versions to small vendors.
From my bookmarks for preinstalled desktops:
http://www.linux-works.com/html/desktops.html
http://www.hardd
http://www.dsgzone.com/linux_lab
http://www.swt.com/
http://www.buypogo.com/
h
http://www.linuxc
http://www.micronux.com/cgi-b
http://www.atipa.com/
http:/
Yes, you can get a driver at that location.
But, according to the documentation, that driver DOES NOT support the specific chipset used in this particular Lucent modem.
The Lucent driver does not support ALL Lucent modems.