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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.
As long as you have experience putting linux on a PC, this should be no problem, as long as you don't need a modem; it's a winmodem.
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
did walmart use a modem designed for windows on a machine that did not have windows pre-installed?
Sure, that particular modem can be supported under linux (and other operating systems?), but the clear point of these machines was that they did not have windows pre-loaded
so why use components that are designed for windows and often wont work with other operating systems?
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.
How many people, who buy computers at Walmart, are willing to installing Linux/read these instructions.
You must be trolling.
With Microsoft Windows nearly unavoidable on a PC purchase, it's more like worrying about a "car" tax and going to a car dealer. The big deal here is that a major retailer is offering computers without Microsoft pre-installed.
You're a major stud for building your own PC. This isn't about that.
If you are so worried about the MSFT tax don't buy prebuilt computers, duh.
That's like worrying about paying a "ford" tax and going to your ford dealer.
Not at all - this is a "Microsoft Tax" - the computer is not made by Microsoft. If when you bought your Ford you had to take out insurance from a particular insurance company (whether or not you already had insurance), then that would be a better comparison, and people would complain.
You ought to be able to buy a computer without a software vendor insisting you buy their product as well.
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.
Some of the followups to that article mention that a working version of the modem driver can be obtained from http://www.heby.de/ltmodem.
Given this, it would be nice if someone could put together a complete linux distro (complete with the OpenOffice suite, etc.) ready-to-run on this box. Heck, maybe we could even convince Wal-Mart to give it away with every box!
So it appears that the Wal-Mart machine as tested makes a very reasonable Linux box. But I suggest you lose the Lucent modem card and replace it with a real hardware modem. I have more respect for Wal-Mart now. I used to scoff at shopping there, but if they can produce this kind of barebones system, at a very low cost, that can handle Windows and Linux with equal ease then the state of the computer as a home appliance is improving greatly. As for me, I buy my computers from a friend who owns a computer store so I probably won't be getting one myself.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Ah, the power of reading the article...
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
That's like worrying about paying a "ford" tax and going to your ford dealer.
Oh, ok. So all prebuilt PC vendors are Msft dealers/franchise - roger, gotcha.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Not really, goto mwave.com and get the motherboard bunddle and throw in a HD, video and case and your set.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I've got an Intel Celery 1100 board with everything integrated. The only thing I did was to disable the onboard video controller and add an Nvidia MX 400 card. It's hardly a crappy board. A better word for it would be inexpensive, and reliable. Probably the same applies to the Microstar board. Not everyone is interested in overclocking and tinkering with chip voltages.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
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...
A couple of years ago, beowulf clusters was made from a bunch of 'relatively' cheap ALPHAs. I wonder if there will be a new breed of beowulf clusters, made from a bunch a REALLY cheap Sam Walton branded PCs? :-)
:-)
Can you imagine a rack full of PCs with the sticker "Sam's Choice" on them all? LOL
Just thought that I'd give you all a chuckle....
Not really, goto mwave.com and get the motherboard bunddle and throw in a HD, video and case and your set.
So just buy the motherboard and cpu...then buy a hard drive, video, case, ethernet and all the parts you need and assemble them. You're right, that's much easier than assembling your own from parts.
As the other post basically said, this isn't about having a MS-less computer on your desk, it's about having one on the shelves of a major retailer. If one does it, maybe other companies will follow suit, and allow consumers a choice (even if that choice is Win2k vs WinXP vs WinME).
I was very glad to hear that most distros installed on the machine with no trouble I was thinking about getting one these things myself.
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I hear some people painting the winmodem experience as typical but I have used the ltmodem packages on four different machines with great results. Below in some of the comments it is explaining that this particular one is a chipset that is not really supported. Still, the ltmodem modules work great for the winmodem in my Dell 4000 right now.
What I like is that he did not just install one distro and let it go at that. He installed multiple distros which gives a reviewer a much nicer base of experience to speak from.
Read carefully his experiences with the install. It just goes to show linux installs are getting much easier and autodetection is very good.
There are still gotchas (his was the modem) but anyone not using Windows pre-loaded from the manufacturer to work with that machine will come up with at least one install gotcha. My gotcha was the free Umax scanner that came with my laptop. Xsane still has no driver for it because of Umax's bull-headedness. The funny thing is that Dell started selling the Epson 1250 after that and I hear they work great with Linux. Argh!
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ACK
I see Wal-Marts everywhere
That is probably because Walmart, number one on the fortune 500 with $220 Billion (with a B) in annual revenue (compared to Microsoft which is 72nd with $25 Billion), has sucessfully used predatory pricing to drive out of business all of the small mom-n-pop businesses and most of their larger competitors.
Before we all jump on the WalMart bandwagon just because we think they are taking a swipe at Microsoft, we must remember that this is the company that used its power to force record labels to produce two copies of every album (one nice for Walmart and one naughty for everyone else).
not everyone has the time or the inclination to go out and find, buy, and assemble all of the parts into one machine. Some people might just not be into the hardware scene enough to want to do that. I'd buy I clone because I'd just have more fun fixing it when it sucks and breaks. The problem here is that for a long time you could only buy a computer *with* an operating system, and the only OS the store would give you to choose was Windows. It sounds like something called coercive tied selling to me (salesperson implying that you must buy one product in order to buy the other). Maybe before building your own was the best way to avoid that problem. Maybe people are just saying that they're glad it's not like that now, and they can just go out and buy a computer like anyone else would.
I would suggest you all consider NOT shopping at Walmart -- for anything at all -- read this please
/. headline states) Labour Day everywhere else in the world but Canada, USA and SouthAfrica. Did you know May Day became Labour Day because of the American Labour Movement? Read a little history here
It is very sad that this story is also posted on May Day, which is (as another
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:
amsung is not known for hard drives, however there is nothing inherently wrong with samsung hard drives. I have one in my wife's machine, and lots of laptops use samsung drives with no problems. as for microstar, they are very reliable boards for the price. If i was forced to use an integrated board I would choose microstar. although the shared memory is kinda bad. Microstar beats the hell outta amptron. Overall i think the wal mart low end system is GREAT for the price. 1 GHz value CPU, 40GB hard drive, 128 MB RAM for only $349? sounds great to me.
-without the knowledge of the employee or their families-
Nice troll. I heard the same radio program. The big complaint was when an employee died, the family did not recieve the bennefit. There was no mention the employee or the family bothered to pay the premium. Both could have taken out a policy if they wanted to be the benificiary. It was a case of sue for the money whether you have a right to it or not! Too bad the broadcast distorted the picture so the family looked like the victim they were not.
Now if they billed the family for the premium and then kept the benifit, then you would have a real issue!
The truth shall set you free!
All he tested was a Duron at 1GHz. I would like to see the results from doing the same tests with the higher end models. The way he made it sound, you could get a much better PC for about $600 and most of the components would probably be PCI and not wired to the motherboard. When you get the lowest of low end, like a Duron, it frequently comes with one of those do-it-all motherboards that has substandard (in my opinion) components, such as the modem and ethernet interface.
It was a thorough review of the low end machine, I admit, but I'd really like to see how the higher end machines performed. $880, or whatever he said the max price was, isn't that much for a 2Ghz machine with 512MB ram, and I think that would still be a "price concious" buy for a linux user.
~ now you know
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
On what notion of "reputable" do you base that? Among professional storage folks, Samsung drives have a perfectly decent if not stellar reputation. Sure, their drives are no performance kings, but they're as reliable as anything else and are generally above average wrt environmental factors such as heat and noise. IBM is supposedly a "reputable" vendor, but look at their GXP series. Other vendors have put out clunkers from time to time as well. Who do you think is better, and what evidence do you have to back that up?
RPMs don't matter; performance matters, and this isn't supposed to be a rule-the-road kind of machine anyway. For mom and pop surfing the web and so on, there's no way the fact that it's a 5400RPM drive is going to matter even one little bit.
If there's one place that they might have been a little bit too skimpy, it's here. It's a budget machine, sure, but RAM's dirt-cheap right now. An upgrade to 256MB would give a lot of bang for the buck, more than doubling the memory available to the OS and applications.
It's not as bad as you think. MicroATX is an increasingly popular form factor, with quite a few good boards available from well-regarded vendors. Motherboard swaps are pretty rare compared to other types of upgrades anyway, and spec-compliant cards fit just fine. Lastly, it's not uncommon for budget-oriented machines to have limited expandability; some of the most common vendors of full-ATX systems are less upgradable than this.
In short, you're wrong that the board being MicroATX has a significant effect on upgradability, and even if you were right it's a common and acceptable tradeoff for this class of machine.
Nonsense. Microstar products are mediocre, but no worse. There are a lot of worse vendors, even among the big names. While it would be insane for an enthusiast to buy a Microstar board, it's a reasonable choice for a budget PC.
In short, you're a snob. Your criticisms of the components seem to be influenced more by advertising and name recognition than on a realistic consideration of the components' and vendors' actual track records, and you resolutely refuse to accept that the requirements of building a budget mass-market PC are very different than those affecting an enthusiast such as yourself. This is a perfectly reasonable machine for its target market, even if the lack of an endorsement from Britney Spears seems to bother you.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
How much would it cost W'mart to sell these machines with a pre-loaded Linux image? Surely if they cut a gold image it would only cost a few cents to ghost them onto the hard drives before they went into the machines? Or they could produce a "recovery CD", which restores a Linux image which works on that hardware?
How much better for the customer to go home with a system which they can plug in and start playing nethack straight away without having to obtain and install a Linux distro.
And it would annoy the crap out of M$.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Not all rednecks are stupid. :-)
Look, you are viewing this backward I think. Maybe I'm the one viewing it backward. The point is this, however.
Wal-Mart does not care about the people who are usually shopping at Wal-Mart when they are selling them these computers. This, in my humble opinion, was never about the typical Wal-Mart shopper.
Someone in Wal-Mart management was only just savvy enough to recognize that there was a computer community in full force that did not want to have Windows on their computer. It goes back to the basics of supply and demand.
There is a community of people demanding that computers be available without Microsoft anything.
There is now a supplier of computers without Microsoft anything.
Now, with news sites like Slashdot running stories on it. More people are going to be saying to themselves. "I could hit walmart.com, pick up a new clone and drop linux on it." Some of them might even be saying "I could drop my existing copy of Windows on it."
Even if the machine isn't a major name brand, Wal-Mart has more people than ever looking their way now because of this. With the whole Microsoft trial, and the all the anti-Microsoft sentiment right now, this is probably just the thing for Wal-Mart to do.
Even if they can't pull in the "build it yourself" crowd. Joe Sixpack has heard from all his buddies who are in the crowd how bad the "Microsoft Tax" really is. Even if they end up installing Windows anyway, these machines still get a quick look.
The only thing I can say is that it appears to be a win/win situation for Wal-Mart.
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
That is perhaps true. However, there are also people whose cheap computers have just died, and they need a new one, and they already have a "legal" copy of Windows that was installed on the dead computer (assuming that it's not an OEM version tied to the original hardware). That's a completely legitimate use that not even MS can really argue with.
And then you have people who are buying a second computer (for the kids perhaps) and are going to install one copy of Windows on both of them. Microsoft might call that piracy, but most reasonable people wouldn't.
With that in mind, the number of people who are actually pirating Windows --- in the sense of actually going and downloading XP from Morpheus or some such just to avoid paying for it --- to put on a new computer is probably not quite so large as you theorize. It's probably still mostly going to get Microsoft POed, though, because they're going to perceive it as encouraging piracy.
Microsoft might be the 2,000 pound gorilla ... but Wal-Mart is a pretty big ape itself. They could stand up to MS if they really want to.
would a company still qualify for the MS OEM reduction, if they sold an OS-less pc, but included a cd of a linux distro, without actually installing it?
A mom and pop vendor, or even someone like Gateway and Dell would probably not be able to get away with this, but because Walmart is the world's largest corporation, it can force Microsoft to accept this action. If Microsoft did not like it, then Walmart could threaten to discontinue selling all Microsoft products altogether, which is definitly something Microsoft would not want. I don't know how big Walmart's computer sales are compared to its overall revenue, but I can't imagine that not selling PCs (along with any other Microsoft software and products) would force it out of business. On the other hand, Microsoft would lose a MAJOR distribution channel for its products (not just OS's, but Office, mice, games, etc.) if it pissed Walmart off.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
>> we must remember that this is the company that used its power to force record labels to produce two copies of every album (one nice for Walmart and one naughty for everyone else).
... But why would I base a computer buying decision on if the store offered "alternative clean" CD's? I can see they understand that their clients (shoppers) are more family oriented and may want to purchase "today's music" without "today's decedent message..." (In my days it was fu*k like a beast --- now days it's fu*k a beast.)
I hate censorship as much as the next guy...(however I am now a father and can appreciate not wanting your kids subjected to all of that crap)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Why doesn't Wal-Mart just preinstall linux themselves on these? It would expose Linux to people who otherwise probably wouldn't try it, and hey.. maybe they'll even like it and keep it!
if you read the user comments they link to a few sites that sell OS-Less Laptops
Also, www.shackstore.com will sell you a laptop sans OS
and also Ive been told if you specifically ask for no os and order over the phone, Dell will sell it to you w/o an OS -- but IIRC there is no price discount.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Wrong. Building a PC from scratch requires quite a bit of knowledge - not deep knowledge, but broad. Jumpers and DIP switches and voltage settings and connectors that are easy to insert backwards. Non-obvious concepts like master vs. slave vs. cable select. How to install a heatsink/fan without cracking the CPU core, and so that it actually provides the necessary cooling. How not to zap your system into oblivion with static. Get one thing wrong and your system won't even get into the BIOS...now, or perhaps forever if you really managed to screw up.
Linux installs on vanilla hardware have gotten pretty damn easy, even for novices. Building a custom machine, and then installing Linux and XFree86 with the right drivers (because the basic install might not recognize what you have or know how to set it up properly) is still very hard for most people. It's a hill - not a mountain - they're just not interested in climbing, nor should we expect them to. They have better things to do with their time; they're willing to pay someone else to put together even a mediocre computer system rather than have to deal with it themselves, and that's a valid choice. I also have better things to do with my time than learn how to fiddle with my car's engine, so I pay someone else to do that. Civilization itself is based on that same willingness to pay someone else for their specialized skills, and it's hardly a bad thing. Just think, if everyone did learn how to do this stuff themselves, you'd no longer have even that one lame reason to feel so special.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Please write to them in friendly, non-condesending words how helpful it is to offer non-winmodem PC's, of make modem an option. Being a jerk is unlikely to have your letter read past the "Dear Bloated Sack of Protoplasm" salutation. It's a big step for Wal-Mart, love 'em or hate 'em, and if it's a success than others will likely follow suit. If Wal-Mart sees it as a failure and the type of customer they've attracted as obnoxious jerks, the decision to drop it and declare it a bad business decision will be that much easier.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I installed 2k Pro for non-profit on one of their 1.4 athlon's. It came with good driver cd's for M$ products. A bit loud, but working fine.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
It has a winmodem, which I couldn't get to work. Don't know whether BTC has their own propretary driver module or if there is really an open-source driver available. Anyway, I just ended up buying an external modem for $30 on e-bay, and that works fine.
A few minor problems: I had to turn on sw_cursor in my XF86Config, because the video card's hardware acceleration feature for drawing the mouse cursor wasn't working correctly. (This was an intermittent bug that would show up every day or two.) Ethernet also didn't work correctly at first. Had to download the mii and 8139too modules and add the relevant insmod lines to rc.modules.
Find free books.
The source code compiles fine and a script complete the installation. There is even pre-packaged drivers for many distros including: RedHat and Debian. So, yes it is not straight forward, but is not as painful as recompiling the kernel.
Achille Talon
Hop!
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
They need to offer a sweet deal on a cd set to sell along with it. Allow Walmart to hit a price point, like under USD $20.
I'd rather live in a world dominated by Bill Gates than one dominated by Sam Walton.
[i]If I had wanted to keep Windows on the machine, I would have had to manually install drivers for both the ethernet and sound card, because Windows did neither on installation.[/i]
Yeah, recompiling the kernel is SO much easier than checking "Use a driver from specified location"
However, there are also people whose cheap computers have just died, and they need a new one, and they already have a "legal" copy of Windows that was installed on the dead computer (assuming that it's not an OEM version tied to the original hardware).
That's a pretty big assumption. You'd have to go back quite a few years to find an Windows preinstall that wasn't tied to the hardware. You have got to pay the Microsoft Tax, as many times as possible, says Microsoft.
Ping! The light bulb goes on. Did Microsoft actually say that you "purchased" a copy of Windows? Not that you "licensed" a copy...?
What does that do to the "this software is licensed, not sold..." term in the EULA?
Most people buy new PCs as replacements for, not supplements to, their old one
You really think most people just throw away their aging computers? (not asking in a snobby voice, just pondering.) I would have thought differently, really. As the kids start growing up, I would think the oldest kid would always get the newest hand-me-down, and so on down the line. It's just the geeky few who actually network the house and firewall it off. The rest of them just share a 2nd phone line.
I seriously think AOL will consider releasing a Linux distro targetted at recently-replaced machines.. great to give to Grandma and your average ten year old. That whole idea relies on families keeping older PCs around that have been replaced.
Intelligent Life on Earth
You say "predatory pricing," I say "efficiency and selection." Let's be clear: the reason Walmart is successful is because lots of people like to shop there. I personally don't, unless I'm looking for something like an inexpensive appliance, but lots of people really do.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I'm the author of the piece at NewsForge.
Let's get this straight: the modem does not work.
The people who say they have a working Lucent modem do not have this Lucent modem. This Lucent modem (type 048c) is not supported by any driver I can find. One of the people who insisted that the modem works had a type 0440, which is supported by the Lucent driver.
If someone has a patch that makes the 048c modem work, I'll be glad to try it. But the ltmodem driver does not have it, according to the documentation.
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.
Maybe they should try it then
I believe that the fact Walmart is even selling OS-less PCs is proof that they are trying it already. They most likely didn't ask MS if they could do this, they just saw a market and are trying to make money by filling it. IMO, the best part about Walmart's buying power is that they can dictate to MS (and any other supplier) exactly how much Walmart will pay them for a copy of Windows, Office, etc., instead of the other way around.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
"Proper" modems are expensive, winmodems are cheap. Many winmodems do work with Linux- drivers have been written for them. There's no reason not to use one of these. However, it must be one of these...
# Option "sw_cursor"
I just had to uncomment it.
What's SiS? Is that a chipset? I don't even know what video chipset this machine has -- Mandrake just autodetected it.
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Linux users who are not going to use Windows face a Windows tax when buying a computer from a distribtor like Gateway, granted. However, what incentive would a new user have NOT to pay the Windows "tax"? You may say that the user wishes to save however many dollars extra is costs to have Windows preinstalled, but realize that that money's going to go straight to buying RedHat (or whatever).
Yes,yes, I know these are downloadable for free, but what *newbie* is going to download the image files and burn them to a CD? Unless the newbie wants to try out Linux, I'd wager that the costs for either option are roughly the same. (RedHat 7.2 costing $59.95 - I don't know what the tax is on a Windows OEM version, but I'd bet it's comparable.)
I guess I just don't see how this cheaper model (stripped of the "Windows tax") really saves newbies much money, if any at all...
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Keyword that should have been included in this article is WINMODEM. Drivers have not been distributed with the latest distros of linux, but there is a .org of developers that have Linmodem drivers under construction. Presently beta versions though. Good article though. Walmart should have sold the HW with full HW modems but that would have tacked on another $50.
Jaxs
Okay, first off, corporations are imperfect by definition, so yes, Wal-Mart has done some bad things. I know that personally. But your examples are inane.
Let's say you own a small bookstore. As a retailer, what you do is buy things on one hand and sell them on the other. You put books on your shelves and you hope people buy them.
Do you have an obligation to stock any particular book? If you're a gaming bookstore, are you going to have teachers banging on your door, demanding that you stock more books about science and math? If you do run a science-oriented bookstore, are you going to have Christians banging on your door, demanding that you stock Christian Bibles?
Maybe you will, but you'll send them on their way, or call the police if they get too annoying. And you'll be in the right.
Any retailer has to make decisions about what they will and will not stock. More importantly, any retailer has the unalienable RIGHT to decide what to stock. The size of the retailer has nothing to do with it, because abuse of monopoly power is about things you do to your *competition*. If Wal-Mart would only stock albums from publishers who would not sell to K-Mart (aka Microsoft in reverse), that would be an abuse of a monopoly.
Wal-Mart controls what they put on their shelves. Not you, and not the government. And certainly not the bands or the publishers. Misunderstanding this makes you look like someone who doesn't understand the system. Wal-Mart isn't coercing bands; that's ridiculous. That's like saying you're coercing Hershey's to stop using almonds whenever you buy a candy bar that doesn't have almonds.
Whenever you use an argument like this, think about what you're suggesting. For example, are we suggesting that the government should prevent Microsoft from forcing OEM's to load Windows only? I think so. Do you want to suggest that the government should allow the music publishers to control what Wal-Mart is required to stock on the shelves it owns? I think not.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Why the hell was my post modded down? How can it be over-rated when it's not even rated? The moderators need to quit with the crack...
A man who wants nothing is invincible