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Mandrake to Come Preloaded on Wal-Mart PCs
surfimp writes "Here's a story from NewsForge: 'MandrakeSoft CEO Jacques Le Marois confirms the news this morning, and company spokeswoman Margaret Waters says, while a contract with Microtel has not been finalized, the company is working on getting Mandrake certified to run like clockwork on the Microtel systems. Waters is hopeful that the dotted line will be signed and PCs up for sale by the end of next week.'" Update: 06/20 17:21 GMT by T : Ooops! The Mandrake spokeswoman's name is Margaret Waples, not Waters. Apologies, and thanks to Todd Lyons of Mandrakesoft for the correction.
Why so much stories on that same topic? If it's a really important topic, give it a category so I'll be able to filter them!
There's been plenty of retailers shipping PCs with Linux (or OS-less). None of the size of Walmart, I agree. But I don't know much people looking to Walmart for PCs. Neither I know people going to Walmart for a dishwasher of a freezer. A PC might have become a commodity, but there are commodities better handled by more knowledgeable businesses. And they usually have a larger selection to boot.
</RANT>
Just a slight correction to the previous stories about Lindows being pre-installed on Wal-Mart PCs, people on HardForums claim to have seen the Lindows machines IN STORES>
If Walmart struck a deal with AOL to develop a Lindows friendly version of AOL (or a Linux version) and preinstall it on their machines. The cheapest Walmart.com PC is $299. With those prepaid subscription rebates Walmart and AOL could give these machines away.
'Same speed C but faster'
I don't really think that WalMart cares if its customers are getting a choice. I think what they are trying to do is to figure out wether or not they can make higher profits by avioding the MS tax(I know, I know, that term is getting old). If people will buy a PC w/o Windows and Walmart can keep some of the difference then you can bet they will stick with it. If not they won't keep linux around just to give a choice to customers.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
When the customer buys the PC and goes to the computer software section and picks up MS Word for their kids, cause they need to type up papers (or games to play, etc...), and it doesn't install on their new shiny boxes, what are they going to think?
When they want to get online, and put in the AOL CD they got in the mail, and nothing happens, what are their impression of Linux?
Software is what makes windows big. Its how they stomped Mac. Is your average Wal-Mart shopper going to be able to know to pick up linux software, and will they be able to install it by themselves?
I'm not going anti-linux, pro-ms, I'm just getting you people to think before patting yourselves on the back.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The Walmart marketing staff undoublty saw the huge Linux user base and are marketing to it. But the reality is we all like to build our boxes are convert an old one when we build the 'master of all boxen(every 4 months). So at least their choice generates much talk on /.
Well the good thing is this:
When a lower income person has an intelligent child and they wish to purchase the system, they can get one with Linux. The box will have sortsa games and goodies for them to play with. They will be intrigued, and since mom cant fork out for new games (and the lack of games in linux) they will start writing their own, learn gimp, learn the OS in and out) And they will be kept out of the windows world because they will not be able to run burned games from their friends.
All of my frinds who are coders I respect started in this manner. They had a Vic 20, C-64, TRS 80, something low end instead of an Apple // which had tons of wares and did everything for you. If you look at your friends(I mean people who are now in their 30's, people who remember the real Wolfenstein, not the PC 3d crap) you will find this true.
I see this could lead to a new generation of great coders and admins cuz they were not polluted with other OS's from the get go.
When you don't got much, you make what you got do wonders.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
One stop shopping - go to Walmart, buy PC with Linux and The Sims preloaded, go home, plug in, have fun.
Sweet!
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
So, who's going to be the first company to make up CD's full of click-to-install games and applications for Mandrake, to be hung on a peg next to the $300 computer at $15/ea?
Seriously - Why not?
And I think Joe Consumer will be willing to put up with the diffrence between OpenOffice and MSOffice for the $x00 dollars price diffrence. Hell, they're shopping at Wal*Mart, for crying out loud - You KNOW they're looking for a bargain!
Damn straight. But then again, you know Linux, don't you? Ever thought of adding Lindows(tm) Consulting/Support to your shingle?
As you point out, you won't be competing against Wal*Mart, and I'll bet Microsoft has already warned every large consulting/service organization not to even think about offering Linux(tm) or Lindows(tm) support, or they can kiss their Microsoft Certified Partner designation good-bye.
Yet if Wat*Mart sells it, you know there's gonna be a market for technicians to service it....
Wal*Mart may be a crocodile, but as any plover will tell you, there's food in them there teeth.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Ok we have seen a pretty consistent stream of articles about how Walmart/walmart.com have taken a decided interest in pushing non-MS OS machines (be they Linux based or clean).
/. Interview! I'm sure it would go over huge.
But the 10k question is: who is behind this? I mean, this isn't like some normal free or open software guru we've known for ten years. Somebody at Walmart must be putting their John Hanncock on this.
Personally I'd like to get to know a little more about them (to congratulate them at least). Even more so I'd like a little more insight in to what got them started on this and how it all went down.
Short take of this Post: I wanna
To me this seems to be one of the first mainstream (outside of the IT industry and for endusers) acceptances of things most geeks hold dear. Who wants to miss this part of history?
What is music when you despise all sound?
Could it be that consumers shopping Walmart.com, where these machines are being offered, are not as dumb as most /. respondents seem intent on making them out to be?
Remember, the systems are being offered as "fantastic low-cost alternatives to models that are preloaded with Windows". There's nothing ambiguous about that statement; these machines DO NOT COME with Windows, and thus WILL NOT RUN Windows applications.
In fact, what I think Walmart is really trying to do here is not necessarily directed at the home user market. I suspect that many of these systems are being sold to technologically-savvy small businesses, the same sorts of people who might go to Fry's to purchase some low-cost computer equipment to help meet a need in their office. At $300, these things are a steal. Whether or not they end up with pirated versions of XP on them is not something that I think Walmart is concerned about, but by selling them with Linux preloaded they can escape from the "aiding and abetting piracy" whines that Microsoft was laying on them when they were selling these machines with no preloaded OS.
However, the fact that Walmart is selling PCs with Linux preloaded is a huge opportunity for Linux to make inroads with all sectors of consumers, and I'm glad to see that Mandrake is proactively pursuing this by agreeing to provide their distro for these machines.
If you consider that these systems are going to be offered with Mandrake preloaded, and then take note that you can download Evolution and OpenOffice (assuming they aren't preloaded), then you're talking about a system that is pretty much there as far as Windows-land compatibility goes, from a home-user and small business perspective.
It's up to Mandrake, Lindows, and Walmart to see to it that their users' experience with this software is all that it can be. And I'd also like to forward the notion that anyone who's genuinely interested in seeing Linux gain desktop marketshare consider helping out some of these Walmartian newbies when they invariably start showing up to the message boards and newsgroups. After all, that's what the spirit of the OSS movement is all about, right?
I've actually suggested this exact thing on the Mandrake Forum.
Mandrake could increase market share by offering other resellers a "branded" OS, while making money on the support of the machines and the O.S.
Take Mandrake 8.2 and brand it to say, WalMart.
During Boot-up, Walmart gets screen space. They get a link on the desktop to Walmart.com. And Mandrake gets 30 bucks or so to do tech support for the OS.
If the big retailers pick up on this, Linux will be poised for a several percentage point growth. Combine this with an AOL client for Linux, and this could easily propel Linux into the mainstream desktop.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Well, apparantly, the contents of the cover isn't so important to the publisher that they can't at least stick an extra page on the front to cover up the offending cover for issues sent to Walmart. Walmart isn't censoring the content of the magazine, which is really what the magazine is about anyway. Walmart isn't the one "not buying" the offensive covers, it's the shoppers, the family-values crowd. They aren't as small a minority as you might think. They are the 15% who don't buy magazines (TIME, Rolling Stone, whatever) that offend them.
(Please, Rolling Stone? It may be mainstream but I wouldn't let my hormone-ridden sons have it.)
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
> Walmart isn't the one "not buying" the offensive covers, it's the shoppers, the family-values crowd.
Kind of hard to prove that if they dont actually carry them, now, isn't it? For that matter, that *nobody* ends up carrying them?
I don't really care about reasons or excuses; only that magazines willingly admit to changing their covers (content-alterting self-censorship is more common in the news biz, true) is due to one retailer, in what some people insisnt on holding up as an example of a functioning free market. Please! If people wont buy it, they wont buy it. Walmart seems to think that you are incapable of even *viewing* a potentially controversial cover and making a decision whether or not to buy it - they make that choice for you! Since you dont know what the pre-Walmart-Approved covers are, you're in no position to evaluate whether they are censoring material you deem censor-worthy. Alas, as usual, since they are successful and wealthy, people are all too happy to assume (envy?) that they must be the poster child of how to run a retail conglomerate and that all is good in the world.
Oh, and way to keep the lid on your sons' hormones! Heaven forbid they should learn that tool of the devil, masturbation, nevermind potentially read about musicians! *guffaw*
"Old man yells at systemd"
> And how do you intend to enforce a "right to be free of undue pressures to self-censor"?
.. )
.. I dont want this to go furthur to the point where I feel my ability to enjoy and access to my culture is being opressed.
Thats pretty easy. Make sure nobody can get super big. I think that the concept of economy of scale has costs that are both social and cultural. Yes, many people will laugh at me for worrying about social and cultural consequences of fostering pure economic goals. I dont care anymore, because it seems to me that the advertised ultimate goal of free-market capialism is to help people attain wealth in order to foster cultural and social health, safety, etc in addition to spurring technological development. (Although, with technology, whats the point of keeping people alive and physically safe if the social and cultural things one requires in order to enjoy life are sacrificed to attain it? I'm not anti-technology, but I think people lose sight of what the purpose of it is
It just seems silly to me to encourage attaining massive amounts of wealth and economic leverage if it has negative consequences on the advertised goal of the system in the first place. And just because you or I dont want to see those covers doesn't mean that it doesnt make a lick of difference to me that my neighbour, who would like them, cant. My potentially laughable form of altruism is simply a way of paying my interests and values forward
"Old man yells at systemd"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What they really mean to say is that they worship at the cult of baby and don't give a rats ass what the single/childfree people with disposable income want.
*********
I.e. - a significant portion of their customers.
As a parent, I don't want my child seeing racy stuff just walking in a store. I'd like to be able to _shop_ without having to explain why such material is indecent. Therefore, I go to Wal-Mart. It seems that a lot of people have the same idea (notice the number of children walking with their parents in walmart). These people constitute a _market_, and a large one at that. The beauty of capitalism is that the market decides. If you aren't a part of the mass market, don't go to mass-market places. It's that simple.
Is there nowhere else to find porn? I mean really, if blockbuster doesn't rent porn, find someone who does! It's not the end of the world. It's not like Ma and Pa Video requires a different kind of VCR to play their tapes.
It's not like buying at Target all-of-a-sudden makes your stuff incompatible with the rest of the world. It's not like Wal-Mart lies and cheats it's way to the top. They are what they say they are. The market likes them.
Engineering and the Ultimate
you really don't get it.
No, *you* really don't get it. Walmart is preventing you from getting an alternate product somewhere else, because the alternate product DOES NOT EXIST. Walmart prevents the alternate product from ever appearing on any store shelves, so there's no reason to shop elsewhere, because you can't get anything different anywhere else.
The argument here is that Walmart shouldn't get to decide what the public gets to see, but they do. They're enforcing censorship through monopolistic tactics. (Walmart isn't exactly a monopoly, but they account for enough sales to bend manufacturers/publishers to their will.)
I'm not for censorship -- I'm not an idiot -- but if we had to have it, I'd *much* rather see it come from the government. I at *least* get to vote for my elected officials. I don't get any say whatsoever about who's running Walmart, and Walton's heirs aren't accountable to me in any way.
People just don't seem to realize how insidious all of this really is. Yes, it's entirely within the rules. So was what Arthur Anderson was doing with Enron. Just because it's "within the rules" doesn't make it right. Just because you don't see it happening doesn't make it okay.
I admire the amount of effort SirSlud has put into this thread. Too bad it's falling on a lot of deaf ears.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
So WalMart should be forced to carry everything under the sun, no matter how dangerous or objectionable? You want unlimited individual freedom, but want to force large corporations' behavior. You can't have it both ways. Freedom of choice must be protected for all. Besides, we may have the right to freedom of speech, but we don't have a right to be heard.
<SARCASM>Really? Then how are babies made?</SARCASM> Like I said in my previous post: I could care less, I just won't buy the stuff. I'm not asking anyone to make any sacrifices, just let corporations have the same freedom of choice you expect yourself. And my life is rated PG (besides the bathroom & bedroom).