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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.
A company as large as Walmart might be just big enough and have enough bargain-basement customers to make this fly. And at $299 for the Duron 850mhz model, who can't afford one of these.
One problem I can see is that the hardware in these systems might(and probably is) of sub-par level. Instability issues caused by poor hardware quality may undermine the "frugal" consumer's viewpoint of the *nix OS enviroment. Not to mention that they'll have a hard time finding tech support locally considering that most tech shops are generally geared towards MS products and not Linux.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
AFAIK, Lindows is based on wine. Wal-Mart customers will tend to buy a lot of games for their computer. Sounds to me like manufactures will soon find it a requirement to test their games with Lindows, and thus they will be wine compatable too.
Not as good as native linux games, but a close second. If nothing else this could drive some real compitition to microsoft!
If only it works... I'm not holding my breath yet.
To me, it didn't seem to be much more than KDE2 default with a pretty picture for the background. This is a problem. KDE default is NOT intuitive to Windows users.
I am currently helping a co-worker who is curious about Linux learn her way around on one of the spare machines here. Her first question (w/ RH 7.3 default) was that even after 10 minutes of poking at stuff she could not find the taskbar buried in with all that other stuff. That was just the beginning.
If you are going to cater to the Windows crowd you have to _really_ cater to them, not just change the icon theme.
You know, I've a couple of posts around /. lately talking about how great the /. community is..caring and helpful, but in the few posts I see here so far, all I see it snobbery. Just because someone lives near a Wal-Mart or goes to a Wal-Mart to buy stuff (even if it's a computer), doesn't make that person a hick or a red-neck.
Maybe you people should be glad that Wal-Mart is embracing something other than Windows, instead of being so damn smug. Get off your high horse and join the movement, or shut the f*** up.
That's all I have to say about that.
*** Stop trying to be cool. ***
I think some of you are expressing concern because you don't want the mass public using anything but Windows. When everyone starts moving in on your elite OS, it no longer is the cool thing to use, so you must find something else to move on to....
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
"To think of the legions of rednecks who could now possibly be running Lindows instead of Windows..."
It sounds funny, but just wait till they buy and try to install something made for Windows. Much to their surprise, it won't work, and they'll be calling up Wal-Mart asking them what kind of shinanigans they were trying to pull.
Now I haven't seen the packaging for these Lindows PCs, but I'd be willing to bet that some people COULD be confused into believing they're in fact buying a Windows PC. When they do discover their error, they'll think they were suckered into buying some kind of like a cheap knock-off (don't have the exact appropriate Simpsons quote).
If that happens, it's probably not the kind of PR that Lindows is looking for. Both Lindows and Wal-Mart have to be very careful to make sure the differences between Windows and Lindows are clearly explained.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Selling people Linux machines with Wine isn't a win for Linux. You still have to shell out probably more cash for Office than for the machines themselves, and it's probably not going to work very well, turning even more people away from "things that are different".
Sure this might be a loss for Microsoft, but it's certainly not a win for Linux.
Looks like windows, kinda feels like windows, stable, UNIX based, runs most of the big important Windows programs...
We're talking Mac's with OS X, right?
The angel in the oatmeal.
about the uptake of Linux to the desktop you wouldn't think there would be so much negativity about this. Walmart is a huge retailer who is willing to preinstall a version of Linux that is actually usable to most people and still you complain. I hope this gets modded up because this negativity is quite disturbing. What a great way to get application/game devs to port their stuff. Do you people know how many people actually shop at Walmart. And suffice to say they are not all rednecks.
MS whores? No, the posts in here have been from Linux elitists. "Down with Microsoft, but screw the non-technical users, we don't want them" has been the general gist of the comments so far. No wonder Linux hasn't gotten much market share in the desktop market - the people who write it don't WANT average people to use it.
As far as I can tell this new promotion is like the OS-less PC promotion. It is being offered online only. You can not go into a Wal*Mart store and buy and OS-less PC. I doubt you will be able to go into a Wal*Mart store and buy a Lindows PC.
So, who has access to the Wal*Mart website? Those people who already have a computer. Who goes to Wal*Mart.com to buy a PC? Outside of those people that want an OS-less PC to install Linux on, probably not a large number of people.
This isn't going to convert unsuspecting people to Linux users (a dangerous thing to wish for at any rate). It isn't going to spread Linux to the mass market. It isn't going to steal any appreciable market share away from Microsoft.
It's noteworthy for the fact that a major retailer has thumbed their nose at Microsoft. But, that same major retailer is only thumbing their nose while behind a box in a locked room with the shades drawn so that the world can not really see that they are doing it.
If other major computer resellers follow suit (which I doubt they will), then this will become interesting. Now, though, it's nothing more than YALPOS (Yet Another Linux Post On Slashdot)
If it was darn easy to plug into a phone, subscribe to an ISP and get browsing and email, it may have a chance, then the genuinely interested users can start up the learning curve and enjoy a crash & virus free existance.
Personally, I've avoided helping out home users with all their GD windows problems for years, as I'm not about to waste my time working free tech support for multi-billionaires, but if I meet someone with one of these it'd be fun to talk shop with them.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
what kills me about the Linux crowd, please excuse the generalization, is that there is absolute belief in the superiority of the platform, and absolute obsession with the lack of respect it gets in the mainstream.
But what makes this observation interesting is that their is also an undercurrent of clubiness (sic?) about the whole thing. The idea that the masses could actually start using Linux is troubling to this group, as it would dilute the cachet of the club. This is bizarre to say the least, as mainstream adoption of Linux would only serve to achieve the first point, respect, and of course the other obsession, deflation of microsoft.
I don't take particular offense to the redneck comments, but you would really have to be an idiot to think that only rednecks shop at Walmart. I mean, christ, they have over $200b in sales. I guess the only thing that would make you a bigger idiot is to not understand how many personal computers are sold in the US annually, and how many of them go through channels like walmart.
aren't they afraid of claims for 'not functioning like windows
It isn't windows.
If what you expect Genuine Windows then BUY Genuine Windows.
Hopefully the good differences will be better than the bad differences, but there is a difference. I've never used it, so I don't know if it's "ready".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
To think of the legions of rednecks who could now possibly be running Lindows instead of Windows
Could you be more condescending?
~jeff
fat, dateless, acne-scarred men
I resent that!...I don't have acne scars, ha!
Don't think the 'mechanic' analogy holds up though.
The types of people who where Engineers who designed cars in the 50's are still designing cars and getting good paychecks of it (not as good as management, but still significantly above the national average).
The types of young kids who simply goofed around with the cars were never on much money, they are akin to script kiddies and warez doodz who don't make any money now.
Real Engineers are still Engineers and are as such worth money no matter what industry they are in (Automotive, Aerospace, Telecomunications, Computing).
There is a difference between being able to fix or tinker with a car (or computer) and knowing how to design a car (or a computer). 'Mechanics' and 'Engineers' are not the same thing.
People who write software, or maintain corporate networks or computing faclilites are in a whole different world for a guy who can mearly 'build his own PC' or 'install Linux'.
When red necks and trailer trash start writing their own software at home, and parking rusty PC's out side their front door I'll get worried.
I think the most interesting part of this is that now other stores selling computers will have to find ways of competing with these insanely low priced computers, and I think the first thing they'll do is throw out Windows. Although alot of people will disagree, I think ESR had a good point when he said that microsoft would be doomed when the cost of PC hardware dropped below that of Windows, and we're almost at that point already.
Except that poor "culturally deprived" whites aren't the oppressors. They're just as much disenfranchised "victims" as poor "culturally different" [sic] blacks.
/individual/ without making one a racist.
Frankly, the usage of "redneck" in this case is classically racist! The author has no knowledge whatsoever of the individuals purchasing these computers, and is making broad generalizations as to what types of people shop at Walmart. (I suppose the "niggers" shop at K-Mart, eh?)
It would be more appropriate and acceptable to yell "Fucking goddamned nigger!" at a baggy-pants black youth crossing on a green light. Or if it was a dumpy white lady, "You fucking fat-ass bitch!" Or an Asian, "Me rikey you go faster, cross walk long time!!"
Cultural hot-words can be used to express displeasure with an
However, the article summary's use of "redneck" lambasts the very market most Linux zealots pretend to want to conquer -- the common working man. And it appears it was done merely as a way to demean other people via the use of a loophole in politically correct dogma.
heehheeh lomaolf!!!!
#19845
Hey, I'm not going all "PC" on y'all (pun intended), but instead of "redneck", think "your grandmother and/or your mother". I know Walmart is a popular hangout for the bumbles of the world, but they have a really long reach in terms of mass-market retail access. They are, for all intents, the Sears Roebuck of this generation. Everyone goes to Walmart at some point. If you want our favorite GPL operating system going to the masses, this is the way to make it happen.
Now, if Target would just do the same thing with a slightly upscale ($50 increase), neatly-designed case in the fashion of most of their homegrown goods, we'd really be in business.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
Not everyone has a double standard here. There's plenty of negative comments about Wal-Mart and I, for one, do not see this thing as being a victory of any sort for Linux. Wal-Mart is simply using the cheapest (as in beer) product that is available. There's no regard to the actual useability of the product. Chances are that 80 percent of these machines will be running a bootlegged copy of Win within 48 hours of purchase.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
I doubt the target audience for these machines is shelling out $$$ for Office. I'm sure they'd love to have a cheap computer that will run a "borrowed" copy, though.
Help fight continental drift.
I think that Wal-Mart just wanted a throwaway OS to mount on these machines. I predict that 80 percent of them will be running a pirated copy of Win within 48 hours of purchase.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
What I'm curious about is the tech support issue. It seems to me that by offering a Lindows pre-installed PC, it's now in Wal*Mart's interest to see Lindows be as stable as possible and as compatable with Windows applications as possible.
Does anyone suppose they plan to help out Lindows development if, say, the next version of some popular Windows software doesn't work with Lindows? Now that would really impress me. (And then I'd think about buying one of these boxes.)
You're assuming that the EULA is actually valid and that the clauses contained with it are actually legal in the first place. Neither are by no means certain, and if they were enforced there would be a pretty good reason to go after Microsoft for violating the Sherman Act on yet another count.
My friend, it's amazing how completely off target you are on your response. You addressed a statement that was never made. The post to which you responded never said that walmart didn't use a lot of technology, it said walmart was not a company who made all it's money selling PC's. You however decided to jump the gun and write a wonderful rant about walmarts internal IT structure, however that was nowhere near the discussion. The posters point was that walmart could afford to go out on a limb like this because they make a lot of money selling OTHER products.
This sig intentionally left blank.
for those of you who dont know walmart is a company that spawned from arkansas. the same place who brought you bill clinton. while i'm sure many of you are enjoying yourselves making fun of the ``rednecks'', consider the following:
many of you shop there.
currently the waltons (son's and daughters of sam so to speak) have more money than gates and ellison combined.
all this was made by a redneck without a college education. hell i dont even think he had a highschool education.
it's nice to see that by getting educated and growing up in a civilized society you all (y'all if you like) have become tolerant understanding people forgoing prejudice towards your fellow human beings.
-- john
One of the fundamental principles of software
develpment is that you can't find all the
sticky problems until you get real users
using the thing.
Consider Mozilla: progress was slow until
the 0.9.x milestones, then all of a sudden
it was good enough that a lot of users who
tried it liked it enough to start using it
as their regular browser, and whammo, the
bugs started dropping like flies, and it
shaped up incredibly in just a few weeks.
Same thing with Linux. Technical excellence
aside, it was nowhere near ready for the
typical end user until quite recently, but
as the user base spreads beyond developers
to end users, amazing strides are made in
its _usability_ for end users. There's a
breaking point somewhere, where enough
users adopt a piece of software that the
bugs show up and can be fixed. You don't
reach that point without early adopters.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> now mechanics are a dime a dozen, and near the bottom rung of the social ladder, in most places.
This is not true.
One of my best friends in college made $50k right out of school, and was making a six figure salary at age 22
Though this is not the norm, it isn't bad for a two year degree. Mechanics earn a lot more money than the old days, partly because now you need to know what you're doing, but mostly because there is a shortage of mechanics to fill positions. Not exactly a dime a dozen.
Bullshit attitudes like yours towards mechanics are among the reasons why I am no longer a mechanic myself. Yes, there are some weasels out there, but saying that mechanics are rednecks, is like saying that all programmers are pizza faced, mountain dew drinking, slobs who don't shower. Take a moment to step off your elite pedestal and try becoming informed.
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....
I think that this is the real reason. They don't want to catch 10 kinds of hell from MS about selling "naked" PCs, so they throw Lindows on it instead. Net cost to them? Nothing. Bitching from MS about selling naked PCs? None. Net loss to a consumer who wants a naked PC in order to install a pirated copy of Windows? None. Bitching from MS about selling PCs with a competitor's product? None, if MS doesn't want to put a neon sign over their collective heads that reads "illegal use of monopoly power".
Besides, what likely is going to happen is that a user will get it home with Lindows, find out that it isn't Windows and it won't run whatever game they want to play, and then they'll come back to WallyWorld to buy a full copy of Windows XP. That's a bigger sale to WalMart and a bigger sale for MS. The only people who really have anything to lose from it are the Lindows folks who stand to gain a fair amount of negative press if they piss off consumers. Instead of looking like a company that is trying to bring Linux to the mainstream user with an easy-to-use compatible Windows-like interface they run the risk of looking like someone peddling a cheap knock-off that is trying to trade on Microsoft's name.
It's sort of depressing to see just how elitist/bourgeois/classist many of these comments are, especially those concerning these so-called "rednecks" who shop at Wal-Mart. I mean, isn't one of the "great things" about Linux, and GNU in general, the ideal that operating systems, software and information in general "want to be free"? Or that people shouldn't have to pay $100-400+ for a modern operating system? Or that Linux and Open Source software is revolutionary, capable of breaking the grasp that Microsoft holds over the CONSUMER market? So now you have Wal-Mart, a major retailer, offering complete machines with an OS and a number of useful applications at a price that is lower than the MSRP for the full version of Windows XP Pro. And rather than cheering about how this could potentially be a major opportunity for a Linux distribution to make signficant inroads with the CONSUMER market (remember the revolution?), many respondents have sought to portray the people who will purchase these systems as ignorant, foolish, uneducated, and/or intellectually inferior. Wow, what happened to all the populist ideals above?
Actually, this is not a surprise. Think of stock car racing. It grew out of average folks with limited budgets buying commodity hardware and making it scream with a little tinkering. Today, NASCAR racing is big buisness and very popular with the Wal-Mart crowd. They are gifted with the hacker mentality.
Wal-Mart is just making it possible for the next generation of gear heads to soup up the next generation of hardware.
Think of this. So what if the hardware isn't on the high end. So what if all their Windows games aren't supported. I'd like to see people out there (eg. high school/trade school shop teachers/LUGs) showing people how to combine the power of their systems or tweak the shit out of them. Heck at $300 some folks would be willing risk gluing a refrigerator to their CPU!
The fun will come from racing the tweaked-out systems, bringing them together to render awesome graphics, or participating in multi-player games.
This is a HUGE opportunity to foster LUGs in places other than the "big city".
Good Luck.
I just cannot believe that you feel Walmart is doing this to "take a stab at selling Lindows computers." I'll tell you what this is about:
The almighty dollar.
Walmart does not care about Linux geeks clutching their little stuffed penguins and waving their "Open Source" flags. They do not care about someone who walks into a store to tell the tech department that they should sell machines with Linux on it. They care about money. They have always cared about money, and they always will care about money. They are the most efficient corporation in the whole world, and they are efficient because it makes money. Anyone who thinks that Walmart's #1 priority is not about money needs to take some courses in Economics, wake up, and smell the capitalism.
I've been working in the backstock rooms of Walmarts for three years now, and I've overheard the managers on quite a few occasions. Walmart demands cheap prices from their distributors. They're the #1 retailer in the US, so they have the power to do so. They lure distributors into their system by offering to sell thier product, then stab them in the back a year or two later and demand the product be cheaper, or they'll find someone else. This leads product manufacturers to use overseas labor and/or lower the quality of the product, all to stay buddies with Walmart. When you see the adds of Walmart lowering their prices, they can do so because its not their company that takes a hit in profits...it's the manufacturers that do.
I'm sure Walmart did the same thing with this Microtel company when they asked for computers. When Microtel was put under the gun to make a cheaper computer, I'm sure they cut every single corner. Just look at it from a $$$ perspective..."Hey Walmart, we got this OS that looks like Windows, runs like Windows, and can run %90 of Windows software, but we can put it on every machine for absolutely no charge!"...Walmart will say yes, because they now have a "Windows-ish" computer that sells for $100 less than the competition.
And for those of you who say that there might be a high-return rate? Walmart doesn't care. If people return their computers, all Walmart has to do is box it up and ship it back to Microtel. The only loss that they take is paying some 16-year old $2 to take the time to box it back up and stick it on a pallet. It's certainly worth their time, considering that these computers are %10-%20 cheaper than the competition. If it fails, Walmart returns the computers, Walmart dumps Microtel and finds another manufacturer, and Microtel goes belly-up, and Walmart leaves unscathed. If it's a success, Walmart gets the credit.
Wake up and smell the dollar bills.