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Lindows.com Hypes An Upcoming $199 PC

Posted by timothy on from the low-end-of-whatnow dept.

prostoalex writes "After having struck a deal with Walmart on $299 PC, Lindows is planning to introduce $199 PC. ExtremeTech has the story, the official message from Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows, is posted on Lindows.com. Robertson claims that "for under 200 dollars, you'll be able to browse the Internet, check email and run a variety of software products for far less than the price of most handheld devices! A certified version of LindowsOS will come bundled with the PC"." I wonder if such a machine would fare any better than Larry Ellison's ThinkNIC.

8 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. CUT THE HYPE. by Vengie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, i often get sick of seeing this. 199/299 is not the FULL price. There's no freaking monitor included in this system. OK YES -- Its still 199/299 for a box, which for most of us is all we regularly upgrade, but for joe public, A MONITOR IS NECESSARY. "You can browse the web, etc etc /snip/ for $299" -- no you cant! you need a monitor. Jesus....what people will write just to get onto /.

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    When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
    1. Re:CUT THE HYPE. by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Y'know, if you're so strapped for cash that you'll buy a $199 computer, you're strapped enough to buy a monitor for five bucks from a thrift store or a garage sale. That's where I've gotten my last three, and I have no complaints.

      --

      You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

    2. Re:CUT THE HYPE. by hendridm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let us not forget the $99 membership to the Click-n-Run warehouse. Without it, it takes away from the appeal of Lindows.

      That is how partially how Walmart sells a $299. They almost automatically are gaurenteed another $99 upon booting the thing up. What newbie can live without the Click-n-Run Warehouse? Or maybe they just have really good source code compiling instructions?

    3. Re:CUT THE HYPE. by dmarx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because Joe Sixpack never sees computers without monitors. He thinks "computer=box with that TV-like thing attached to it". If they're trying to sell this thing to the general public, they must understand how the general public thinks.

      --
      "Do I dare disturb the universe?"
    4. Re:CUT THE HYPE. by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OK, for $199, you'll be capable of browsing the internet, reading email, and run a variety of software... BUT the following items are required:
      • a monitor
      • an internet account
      • power
      • schooling to learn to read
      • food
      • water
      • shelter

      ALL of these items are necessary, where do you draw the line?
      You draw the line after "internet account" and before "power". Anymore stupid questions?
  2. XBOX by thelinuxking · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The xbox would be a better choice to get...costs the same price, and hopefully the linux kernel will be fully working on it soon. Also, it has an excellent video card...the lindows machine probably has a really crappy card. Also, you could even use the xbox with your tv, so you don't really have to pay for a monitor like you do for the lindows pc!

  3. Re:Robertson's looking for information? by reallocate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Half those companies don't exist, and the products haven't been marketed for years. Even if documentation could be found, Robertson's real interest is probably in the cultural and historical record and the interplay between those windowing products and Microsoft's. One way to break Microsoft's stranglehold on the word "Windows" is to demonstrate that Microsoft brought no new concepts to the mix, only its own particular implementaton of an accepted and common interface.

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  4. Monitor too heavy to ship cheaply. by rapidweather · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You'll get a better deal locally on the Monitor. The stores get theirs shipped on pallets, much cheaper than one-at-a-time on UPS. You can pay anything you want for a monitor, say $150-1000+ I got my monitors for $20.00 each. ADI MicroScan 4V, at a salvage store. I got lucky. A lindows computer is still Linux, and a "hardware modem" has to be installed, included in the $199 price. The hard drive has to be at least 20GB, so you could install Redhat too if you wanted ;-). That reminds me. Do you suppose they don't have a CD ROM drive for $199.00? That Warehouse setup Lindows has will be a download off the internet deal, not an "install via cd". I have installed Redhat without an "installed" CD ROM drive, but I have a $50.00 one that I temp-install until not needed, then I unhook it. The typical user of a $199.00 box might have only that one machine, however, and no spare cdrom drives, etc. Can't wait to see how they are going to market the $199 box, but looking at Lindows website leads me to believe that they will sell it direct, now thru Walmart.
    Their legal dept is gathering info on the use of the term Windows before 1985 or so. I emailed them just now about the Coleco ADAM, with 8086 processor, than had ADAMCalc, a spreadsheet program, very nice, and no toy, that used Windows. You set up one window where you entered spreadsheet data, and another one down at the total's area. You could set up several. ADAMCalc was very very good for it's day, and considering that it ran on an ADAM, with no hard drive. ADAM's had two tape drives, and a floppy drive, and you could add more RAM. I had about 120K in mine, and had a nice chess game that required more RAM than the stock 80K. Any of you that has any information on the ADAM, might consider emailing the Lindows folks.
    They did make about 200,000 ADAMS, and at one time, there was quite a following.

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