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Walmart Ships PCs with Lindows OS
Tonetheman writes "Walmart is now shipping low cost PC's with Lindows pre-installed. And yes I know there was a review earlier on Slashdot about installing Linux on one of these bad boys. This is different and much more exciting. To think of the legions of rednecks who could now possibly be running Lindows instead of Windows..." There's a Newsforge story too. Hopefully Lindows makes a good impression.
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_screenshot s.php
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Maybe I missed something...but last time I checked Lindows was still in beta stage, and with good reason too!
From my experience, they might be combining MS-like stability and security (running everything as root etc.) with Linux-like usability*, resulting in a horribly unusable OS - for which Linux will most probably get the blame by mainstream reporters. Ah well, we'll see.
Walmarts idea is probably something like this: they can save money on the computers this way, and they probably don't really care about what their customers use it for (do they have a reason to? Do they have to offer support etc.?), so that would explain things....
* usability for Joe Avg. User, e.g. consistent GUI's and stuff, you know what I mean...combining Wine and KDE and X will not get you a very consistent UI experience probably....
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Actually, Linux tends to run really well on cheap shitty hardware. Hell, I've had a motherboard which would not run windows setup no matter what (no kidding - kept crashing with a random error, problem went away with mobo replaced). Linux ran rock-solid on the thing. If it's supported, it will be way more solid than any windows version (including win2k, nt, xp, whatever - those crash only a little less often than 9x).
Of course it will. They'll think it's fantastic, right up to the point when they try to install their favourite Windows applications and it all goes horribly wrong.
Then they'll mutter "crock of shit" and take it back to Walmart to complain.
Not that I blame them, Walmart is advertising it as having the ability to run most Microsoft software, which (unless it's changed drastically) isn't quite the case.
I'm all for getting Linux to the masses, but if they oversell what it can do, then they'll end up putting off people rather than attracting them.
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You mean like running IE or Office or something?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
I think the EULA for Internet Explorer stats that you need a valid Windows licens.
Sure you can run it without but that would violate the EULA, and that is actually illegal.
Just because you don't like Microsoft, it doesn't make it okay to break the law.
So who is going to make sure that Lindows users don't install IE ?
From the IE EULA
1. GRANT OF LICENSE. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is licensed as follows:
* Installation and Use. Microsoft grants you the right to install and use copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on your computers running validly licensed copies of the operating system for which the SOFTWARE PRODUCT was designed [e.g., Windows(r) 95; Windows NT(r), Windows 3.x, Macintosh, etc.].
(Okay this is from IE 4.0, but I don't think they changed it alot).
Now I don't think that IE is designed for Lindows. Well perhaps no one will think of the idea of installing IE, let's hope so.
I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you.
This will be big news when the redneck can actually walk into a Walmart and see the Lindows computer on the shelf and put it in their cart.
Don't bother. These are only sold via the website.
The difference: Wal-mart is selling their computers for $299 and up. $299! In this way, Wal-mart is not competing with Apple at all, since a person considering a really inexpensive PC will most likely not be considering a $3000 Apple workstation.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Probably because you are a fucking clueless moron. If you learned how to properly administer Windows 2000 like you did Linux then you would see similar uptimes. I've run Windows 2000 IIS websevers which would have had uptimes of 2 plus years were it not for service patches and hotfixes. That's stable. You seem to confuse installing updates and hotfixes with stability.
Wal-Mart is an evil corporation. Those dirt cheap prices you pay have a price elsewhere. There is an excellent story about Wal-mart on Alternet.
How Wal-Mart is Remaking our World
First off, I work in the shipping and recieving department for Walmart's online venture. This has been a somewhat storied start here in the company, let me tell you (my best friend is in the marketing department and does product testing and write ups as well as consults on all things that are considered electronic). The decision to go forward with this boiled down to a phone call between the Marketing and Product Aquisition director and the CEO.
Apparently the entire department from the top down was against selling the computers with an OS at all, especially the admitedly difficult to use and limited Lindows linux. Our return rate on pc's sold online has been relatively low, with about a 1 in 42 return rate (that's good in comparison to other stores in fact). Several post sales enquiries and surveys revealed (of course, you know this can be skewed anyway you want them to) that most people were installing MS products and were absolute novices with their only computer experience steming from either college or work. About 3% were installing OSs other than windows based on our numbers generated internally and we had about a 48% response vector from all parties quiried (not a bad response either).
We are cringing... while it's not a bad os, most people just won't get it and we expect (in fact project into our return merch budget) a 1 in 5 ration on those systems shipping with Lindows to novice users and an overall return rate hike to 1 in 27 machines.
> About the crack about rednecks buying Lindows...what do you think
> the average demographic of a Wally world online customer is? I'm
> willing to bet it's not ma and pa kettle in podunk Arkansas.
College students and suburbanites mostly, I think...
But the point of the original redneck remark was that people
who buy computers at Wall-Mart are not tech-savvy users, and
that's true, as a general rule. Tech-savvy users buy their
computers from small shops that build them, or they build
them themselves, or they shop around. In any case they
usually don't buy the true bargain-basement stuff, because
they're planning to upgrade components as necessary and keep
the thing running for several years, or if not it's because
they can afford a new (nice) computer every year or so.
These are power users.
People who buy computers at Wall-Mart are end users.
These are overgeneralisations, of course, but in general
they are mostly true. Redneck is not the word I would
have chosen, but the point made is valid. Think about
droves of people buying these things who previously
were not aware that Apple computers don't use Windows
and had never heard of Linux, much less anything more
obscure than that, and have no idea that Windows XP
is based on NT ("huh?") rather than the consumer Windows
line. Whether that makes them rednecks or just regular
people in some field other than IT, the point is that
they're not computer geeks. They're end users.
End user awareness that there are various operating
systems to choose from is a good thing.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I have been running their latest version of "Sneak Preview X" and all I can say is that this OS is full of bugs and holes! It is based on Debian and Wine. But, there are tons of problems with video, networking, and hardware. The only Windows programs that I have gotten to successfully run is Word and Excel. No other Windows software will even install. (Even though Lindows claims that you can run tons of programmes!). They have been telling the Insiders all along that this product isn't even beta yet (it is just in the "Sneak Preview" phase). Yet, here they turn around and start selling copies to "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel" at Walmart. This is going to be a complete and utter failure for Lindows. And unfortunately, this will be the first impression that many of these people will have of Linux. This may sour them completely.
(http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/Myth.htm l)
and here is a nice little quote: "Consider a tale of two companies. Wal-Mart is among the most efficient corporations in the world today. In fact, a late-2001 McKinsey Global Institute study of the boom found that "Wal-Mart directly and indirectly caused the bulk of the productivity acceleration" in its category. How? Information technology, for the most part. Wal-Mart uses IT to help it store and transport goods more efficiently. (You'll never find a half-full pallet in a Wal-Mart.) It relies on forecasting tools to ensure that there are never too few or too many employees on the floor at any one time. It encourages suppliers to stock the stores themselves, using an elaborate data interchange system to make sure suppliers know when inventories are running low. And it takes advantage of economies of scale by building stores in a hub-and-spoke pattern around giant distribution centers. As a result, Wal-Mart has become one of the largest companies in the world while earning returns on capital that are the envy of its peers. By contrast, its competitor Kmart has been plagued with stock-outs and is hooked on sales and markdowns."
Lindows is just repackaged debian with a nice front end to apt-get. From what I hear they're making OpenOffice available on their click-n-run warehouse in the near future, but the standard linux version of OpenOffice from openoffice.org runs fine.
Linux Books on WalMart.com
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_categories . hp
Looks like they are planning to make a profit
by subscription service.
"All products free to Click-N-Run Wharehouse Members"
Most new users to linux won't bother learning
the traditional "configure-make-install" routine
and I think the plan to take advantage of this.
According to an artcle on NewsForge AOL runs on Wine 2.0.
Here is a screen shot with an AOL icon
Running AOL wins most of the user acceptance battle.