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Mandrake Hits Wal-Mart (.com)
caveat writes: "The Register is reporting that Wal-Mart is shipping PCs with Mandrake preinstalled. 'Prices range from $391 for a 900MHz Duron machine to $648 for a 2GHz Pentium 4 with CD-RW.' more power to them." So now walmart.com customers seeking a pre-installed Free OS aren't limited to Lindows. I wonder if any Wal-Mart manager is brave enough to actually set up a few machines in-store. Update: 07/15 15:35 GMT by T : As many people have pointed out, the systems running Mandrake -- just like the Lindows machines on offer -- are only available through Wal-Mart's website.
Yes you can.
My other sig is an import.
I think it's great to see machines running Mandrake. They will be great for yonger children learning to use PC's, and a cheap alternative for writing school assignments, listening to music (mp3's/cd-audio), and web browsing.
everytime this comes up, be it lindows on wal*mart pc's, red hat or mandrake, or just plain old no OS, someone forgets to mention that this is an option for PC's bought off of walmart's website, not somthing you can drive down to and pick up from your local walmart. have you ever seen a PC for sale in a retail walmart store? i sure haven't.
as a result, people still have to buy a windows/mac PC (or at least borrow someone's internet access) and get online to order, let alone discover, that walmart sells PCs sans OS, or with linux on them. kinda defeats the purpose, hunh?
moox. for a new generation.
The caption text for the cheap one is: $391.00, Availability: Usually takes 1 to 7 business days to process before shipping, 128 MB memory, 40 GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, Ethernet connection, 56 Kbps modem, Mandrake 8.2 Linux OS, Monitor not included
Mainly the difference seems to be the processor speed and the memory included, all have 40 gb drives and no monitor.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I generally try to avoid Walmart if possible; the way that they treat their employees is unforgivable. As they continue to drive out competition, they make it harder and harder for people with grievances to do anything. Witness their union-busting practices.
I can't believe it's not lard!
For one, these aren't aimed at the 'Redneck' as you put it. They are only available online, so to have made the purchase, you would have to know a thing or two about computers. (well, debatable, but at least know how to basically operate one)
They are also not marked ambiguously as 'Cheap Computers'. They are under a clearly labelled 'Computers with Mandrake Linux' section. Right next to a 'Computers with Windows' section. IIRC from the site, you don't even discover that these machines are cheaper until you go into the mandrake section. So they are probably not going to be easily confused.
Now, if these were offered in store like the editor suggests (with big 'CHEAP' labels on them), you might have troubles when 'Redneck X' comes back into a computer store with it saying 'I want to upgrade the hard drive, y'all!'. (Can you imagine the faces on the so called 'techs' when they boot it up?)
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
The parent was posted one minute before the first wal-mart link post. Check the post time. While the second post shouldn't be modded up, it shouldn't be modded down to -1, either.
They are diverse enough that loosing wouldn't kill them.
"Loosing"?! "LOOSING"?!
Loosing means the act of letting fly, the act of letting loose, or the act of relaxing. I'm not sure what they're loosing in your sentence, but it doesn't make sense.
Unless you meant "losing" as in L-O-S-I-N-G, which means "the act of failure, or being brought to destruction" - which would make sense in that sentence.
Now I'm sorry if English isn't your native language or anything like that (although with a ".us" domain name, it probably is) but there are so many people here - and on the Internet in general - who spell "LOSING" with a second "O" that it does not have!
Oh, and apparently you're an idiot for thinking that Walmart has a vested interest in improving Linux.
However, I think that you do have a point - if Walmart thinks it'd be cheaper to improve the Linux product to increase their sales, they well might decide to roll their own or make deals with Linux vendors to improve the existing Linux distros. To people who say that Walmart is "just trying to cut costs," remember that bringing costs in-house - growing "horizontally" - has been used in the past by big buisnesses (Rockerfeller, Carnegie...) to help increase profits by removing a middle-man from the process.
Since I don't have a clear financial view of how much it would cost Wal-Mart to help with Linux as opposed to leave well enough alone, I can't say whether or not they will - at this time, I expect that they will not and simply pump cash into the Linux distros they sell through licensing expenses, and maybe request improvements.
Of course, the flip side to the coin is that they may be simply using this as a barganing tactic to get Microsoft to lower costs. In which case it still may be in their best interests to improve Linux, or at least threaten to do so. It's hard to say without knowing the exact costs as well as having market data to help predict the costs and benifits to trying to improve Linux compared to letting the distros evolve naturally. Time will tell...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
That situation was partially responsible for the death of BeOS. OpenBeos will not have those problems!
$399.00 Microtel 1.3 GHz Duron No OS
$399.00 Microtel 1.3 GHz Duron Lindows OS
$428.00 Microtel 1.3 GHz Duron Mandrake Linux 8.2
$499.00 Microtel 1.3 GHz Duron Mandrake Windows XP Home Edition