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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?
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!
Ah, the power of reading the article...
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.
I think it's horrible they sell a naked PC that has hardware that requires Windows to be used.
Check the other comments - the modem in this machine can be used by Linux and other operating systems.
Also, as for it being a naked PC, it's not like they're not warning you - find the link in the article to Walmart's site and you'll see that they trumpet it underneath every ad - "THIS PC DOES NOT INCLUDE A COPY OF WINDOWS" in bold. At the top, it recommends users read their PC guide or something before buying, and states that the computers do not include a required operating system.
I think things like this are a VICTORY for consumers. Sure, this product isn't the right thing for some people, but for others, it is the perfect thing. Sure, there are people out there who could mistakenly buy this but I'm glad the option is available for people like me who want a cheap addition to the home LAN.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
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
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
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."
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.