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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.
I'm personally going to Wal-Mart in the next few days to see if A. They're actually carrying them and B. How long the returns line is because C. after they have a return rate of around 90%, Wal-Mart will stop carrying 'em. I give 'em about 2-3 weeks. Wal-Mart doesn't waste time with products that lose them money.
Has everyone seen this?
/. geeks (with conscience) will find shopping there morally reprehensible -- in-spite of its "support" of GNU/Linux here.
PS. To would be Walmart-Sympathizing-Moderators: I think most would agree the *type* of entity WalMart is COMPLETELY relevant to this discussion
Walmart and its misdeeds is a favourite topic of mine, and I believe most
Also, ive got maxed karma, anyone modding me down will waste their points -- ill repost at 2 again. Just because you cannot compute morallity with regards to $$$ dosnt mean everyone else is incapable of complete analysis.
Call it the Dale Earnhardt OS and you got yerself a sale! That man was a saint!
Here is a token +1 insightful and a +1 funny for you :)
prisoner# msce18xxxxx. Currently planning my escape.
I live in the armpit of East Tennessee: the Tri-Cities area about an hour north of Asheville, NC. Indeed the company I work for is located *behind* the local Sprawl-Mart Supercenter. So everyday I'm treated to legions of shoppers who believe the epitome of the American Dream(tm) is the right to buy 25-foot-long garden hoses, all-cotton shirts, clock-radios, and stainless-steel frypans all for $9.99 each - all made in China.
2
Nevermind, the cost externalities of this relationship: the phenomenal rates of environmental destruction/pollution, and systems of factory wage-slavery in China or in America the resulting elimination of the working middle class that is turning small towns across the country into rural ghettos where the only opportunity for employment for blue collar laborers is working for $6.50 an hour at, you guessed it, Wal-Mart!
The simple fact of the matter is when someone shops at Wal-Mart they're voting with their dollars about the type of society they want to live in. 70 cents of every dollar that Wal-Mart takes in goes back to the parent corporation in Bentonville, Arkansas. That's money leaving the community that under a local business would've been reinvested in the community - money used to maintain a historic commercial building, to sponsor a little league team, or pay their employees a "living wage".
So don't think for one second that just because Wal-Mart.com offers machines pre-installed with Linux that they're any less of a threat than Microsoft. Indeed Wal-Mart is now number #1 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest private employer in the U.S. providing over one million low paying service jobs. 5 of the 10 richest people in the world are heirs of Sam Walton. S. Robson Walton, with an estimated new worth more than $65 billion, surpassed Bill Gates in 2001 as the richest man in the world.
How Wal-Mart is Remaking our World
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=1296