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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.
..the condescending remark about Walmart customers this time! How are we geeks supposed to maintain any self-esteem unless we can pick on someone else the way that we were picked on at high-school?
I doubt if Dell is wondering anything. Dell and Microsoft both know perfectly well what happened...
... *.45 revolver cocking*
Dell: Linux is starting to get popular, so lets offer PCs with Linux preloaded, just like Windows!
Microsoft: I don't think that's such a good idea
Dell: Ummm... maybe you're right, Linux might not be ready for the mainstream yet...
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
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So the German soldiers can march in the shade.
Danke Schoen!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Many people here are too young to remember the earlier days of personal computing. When a Commodore 64 with a tape drive was considered a luxury item. With Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM, and others competing for the same (relatively) small market share, there were many options for those that wanted to buy a computer.
When I would walk to the local book store to look at the software (on a shelf with a box of floppy disks that cost more than some CPUs cost now), I would see different sections, with signs like Apple or Commodore or IBM. Most of them had the same games available, too.
Asking my mother for a new game for my birthday didn't involve going with her to the store, writing it down, or ending up with an Atari game for my C64. Without ever touching the computer, she knew it was a Commodore 64, just like I knew that my dad drove a GM station wagon, even though I wasn't allowed to drive it.
Every kid I knew with a computer was able to get the correct kind of software. The small computer lab that we somehow ended up with at my elementary school ended up with the correct software. I never even remember hearing of anyone that had any confusion about the type of computer they were using.
Now, some might say that computers are a commodity item, a mass market item, something that every home needs in the same room as the TV. I have no problem with that. I think it is great, as it will drive down prices for all of us. Let the masses have their Microtel computers.
But when they try to install Windows software on their shiny new computers, we should laugh at them. The same way that 'hillbillies', as people have called them, would laugh at you if you put the wrong fuel mixture in your chainsaw. Read and learn, or be a fool. There is no excuse for ignorance, and it doesn't take much brainwork to figure out what kind of operating system you are running. Read the fucking manual.
What this really boils down to is the fact that todays publishers simply have no backbone. What makes this especially depressing is the fact that the "censored" companies involved are themselves giants. They should be able to survive the negative effects of not being sold in Wal-mart for a month.
Time is certainly big enough to tell Walmart to "bugger off". Yet they choose to bow and scrape for a relatively small proportion of their total sales. The problem here is not that Walmart has power to abuse. The problem here is that our so-called journalists are actually whores that will sell out at the drop of a hat. If they are too frightened to stand up to Walmart, whom else are they not bothering to "stand up to".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.