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Wal-Mart Lindows PCs Selling Well
andyring writes "CNN.com is reporting that sales of the $199 PCs have exceeded expectations. Although CNN terms them "full fledged, if low power," it seems customers don'd mind all that much if their computer does not run Windows and doesn't carry an Intel processor. Slashdot covered two reviews of those machines July 4."
but I bought one of those boxes because it was cheap, formatted and stuck a pirated copy of windows XP on it. I wonder how many other people have done the same thing.
I just bought one of these for my dad. I installed redhat 8.0 and he loves it! He doesn't know the difference between it and windows. It is fun to watch is use mozilla for web browsing and mail. If microsoft disappeared off the planet I really think desktop computing would go on fine at this point.
But my other question is this: I wonder how many of the computers have copies of windows installed on them by the end user? Be it transfered (old PC doesn't work, so put Win95 on this new one) or coppied.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
it seems customers don'd mind all that much if their computer does not run Windows and doesn't carry an Intel processor
Is having an Intel CPU still that big a deal to the average consumer? I know they still blow a ton of cash on advertising how a P4 will "make the internet faster" and the like, but does your average consumer care? They obviously care about Windows, not because it's Windows but because Deer Hunter 8 or 3D Home Recipe Book VI won't run on anything else. But the CPU?
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
... how can this be anything but good for Linux?
Consider - the biggest excuse that people have used about Linux has been "nobody uses it, so nobody writes software for it."
Well, people are using it, now. This is the opportunity for Linux to show that it is, indeed, useful for everyday users... or not.
Face it - this is going to be Linux's baptism by fire. Let's try hoping that it survives, instead of making half-witticisms about Wal-Mart shoppers.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
These things don't come with monitors, modems, etc. I'd be really surprised if novices are buying these things. I guess they might be if they are getting the "extra-price-items"... like a monitor.
These seem like geek toys. Or maybe as a CPU upgrade for those with old PC's.
Sex - Find It
Take a reality pill. How many of the people buying Lindows PCs are actually leaving Linux in place? And how many are taking their bootleg copy of Windows 2k (or whatever) and installing that?
Would be great... Because leaving Lindows to Linux newcomers is really the worst thing that can happen to them! 1) proprietary stuff everywhere 2) using the system as root = welcome to viruses in the future and so on.
Users need a real and *easy to use* Linux system! A pre-installed Mandrake Linux (8.2 or 9.0) is in my opinion the best system they can be offered. It's real Free Software, it's secure, it's fast, it's reliable, and there are many many software available for it.
Lindows' success is the result of it's CEO's address large book really a bad for Linux because it's just an attempt to provide a *very badly designed* system that looks as closely as possible to Windows.
This isn't the future of masses computing in any way in my opinion.
My grand-dad went to buy a computer at a big chain store. He just wanted to look around on the web and email some friends/family. The sales droid tried to sell him a P4 2Ghz with all the bells and whistles. I ended up putting to gether a Duron 1.2G for $250 that does all he wants to do. Unless you are a big game freak or a geek (like most of us), people just don't need that much computing power.
Michael Loves Me!
Actually that would be $199 before VAT (which averages about 22%). Also the higher costs of doing business in Europe mean that prices should be a little higher (snobbism costs money).
I think this is further proof that PCs (hardware and software) are becoming commodity goods. Customers don't care about bells and whistles, they just want to browse the web and do email. The really scary thing is, people are starting to realize that you don't need expensive hardware and software to do the basic things most people do.
I think this is an excellent opportunity for small PC manufacturers, and maybe even OpenSource projects, to get their feet in customers' doors. And big vendors (cough Microsoft cough) should be afraid. Very afraid.
---
Open Source Shirts
and I have a large penis. See there's a direct correlation there. Lindows is cheap and easy just like me!
And, for better or for worse, despite the carping of usability engineers and the whining of Microsoft zealots, if they run Gnome/KDE, Mozilla, and OpenOffice on it, end users will have a software experience not too different from Windows with Microsoft Office.
I dont think 22% is "a little higher", but thats the problme many people have they never stop to look at how much more they have to work to support a government..
I bought one in September to eval.
The 800 Mhz Via CPU is roughly equivalent to a 400 Mhz Celeron.
I popped in a 1.2 Ghz Celeron for $62 and it runs Much Better.
The 10 GB drive is also Very slow.
I could have built a much better machine for a little more money. Still, it isn't a bad deal.
I booted Lindows and took a quick look before blowing it away. It was really cheesy, with major pieces requiring additional purchase.
No, you're supposed to be mad that Walmart sweat shop goods are made by companies offering wages at higher than local scale. The fact is that if sweat shops disappeared, prices on goods would go up and wages in these countries would go *down*. That's just plain inhumane.
With apologies to Hanna-Barbera...
Lindows
Meet the Lindows
You're the modern Wal-Mart family
Prices
Are bottom rock
You're making Linux history
Let's force
Microsoft to retreat
This cheap
PC is so 31337!
When you're
Using Lindows
You can play all your Windows games
It still looks the same
You drive Bill Gates insane!
Constitutionally Correct
What does, concern me, however is the security of Lindows boxes. Most "average" users, while not complete idiots, don't often understand concepts behind the "root" user, security exploits, etc.
Hopefully the default Lindows install has been secured reasonably.
The problem exists with Windows machines, as well.
However, if a major security hole is found and exploited on these Lindows machines, Microsoft's PR department WILL use it to try to destroy the credibility of Linux as a whole.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I'll bet 70% of the people buying the WalMart machines think they have Pentiums in them!! After all, they've been conditioned to accept that all computers have Pentium processors... it's only if you explicitly say "this does NOT have a Pentium" that you get those funny looks and people start to doubt. Most people think Macs have Pentiums - go ahhead and ask!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Congratulations, you are not in the target demographic for this machine which is non-computer savvy tightwads who want basic computer functionality.
I bought one when my AMD K6-2 450 finally died and it's case was donated to my cats (they love old cases). Anyways, I just wanted a cheap system to turn into a simple home server. It works perfect. I've got it running RH8.0, Samba, a firewall/gateway setup using IPTables, DHCP server and I'll soon be adding some MP3 streaming so I can listen to MP3's all over the house. It has yet to dissapoint me, despite the lag when I'm on it (since I'm only actually on it 4 hours a week or so for tweaking). All in all, it's a great warm body machine (for when anything w/ a pulse will do).
DONT PANIC
In response to a few criticisms of Lindows proprietary software:
Quite frankly, I think Lindows is the best chance to topple the MS empire, because of the software itself and the business plan/model behind it. Once people are using Lindows, its a few steps from there to more traditional GNU/Linux distros.
Lindows is, quite frankly, very easy to use -- even for newbies. You can't underestimate how important that is for the typical user. Remember, your parents even have a hard time using Windows or MacOS!
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
It will be definately interesting to see how well these sell, and more importantly, what the sell-to-return ratio is after Christmas. I expect a lot of people are saying "hey, cheap computer!" and putting it under the tree.
Heck, for some guy buying a computer for his almost-never-used-a-PC-before granny/mother/aunt/etc this is a great present. Cheap, goes online, runs a word processor. They're not super-fast, but they're not retarded-slow either.
I doubt you'll see many gamers buying these, but for those who are just trying to get some letters printed and emails sent, it's a good deal.
I see a lot of people suggesting that it's likely that most of these cheap computers end up getting wiped clean and having Windows installed. However, I'd like to point out that most computer manufacturers and resellers are locking themselves into really bad situations with Microsoft only because they believe they can't sell these computers without an OS or with an OS other than Windows. Wal-Mart is proving otherwise. So, even if these computers get wiped clean, perhaps other major computer resellers will take note of the fact that they can sell their quality computers without having to lock themselves into the Microsoft trap. If you think about it, this could dramatically alter the way computers are sold in the very near future.
I think the premise is that the majority of users will want the ability to send and receive email and to be able to surf the net. I belive the more a person does the above activities, the more they will want to try other things such as installing new programs or games. Then they will be rudely awakened to the fact that the programs by and large won't install or even be available. When they realize they aren't getting the same user experience as their friends and neighbors, the public outcry will start.
Tons of different meanings on that one. Decide for yourself which way you want to take it.
....they should really look at this and attempt to partner up with Wal-Mart and produce a Linux version of AOL. They're desperate for revenue right now, and appealing to the $200 PC market would be a good niche to get in on. They could have sold a $250 version which includes a "free" year of AOL or something. Still not a bad deal to the price-conscious shopper.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
OK, I'm a physician, not a techie (I read slashdot because it's so hard to find anything else intelligent to read). So perhaps I can provide the "Joe Schmoe" perspective.
I wanted to confirm what people are saying about the average Joe Schmoe not needing computer power. I'm still running an AMD K6 200 MHz processor from 1997. I have a DSL connection and Win 98SE (shudder). I surf the web with IE6, run Yahoo! Messenger, and check email with Eudora, typically all at once, often while also playing bridge on M$N Zone (sorry, M$-haters, it's the best free bridge I've found!).
I couldn't sell this box for anything, let alone $200, yet it does everything I want to do. Sure, it slows down a bit when I use everything at once, but not enough to go out and spend money. If you're a Joe Schmoe like me.
So you're right. The common man doesn't need a monster CPU, etc. That being said, don't forget that usability is key. Most people will be completely unable to surf the web and send email if they have to do too much more than plug it in, turn it on, and follow some very user-friendly instructions. If the Lindows box can't do this, it's not going to do very well.
So, can it? I hear people saying that it doesn't even come with a monitor?
Pricetag outside matters more than Intel inside.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I bought one. I'm a programmer, with most of my work on UNIX. I, however, have to get to the UNIX box through a MicroSh*t Windows box, and have to also use Word and Excel. To be honest, I'm sick of it....
In all honesty, I'm not so thrilled with Lindows. There was no documentation, they did away with man (although most everthing is there in their "documents" tool), and promised software didn't seem to be installed. No biggie, I went and got it for free from the 'net.
I will probably end up putting Mandrake or Red Hat on it when I've got more time...
The big thing was I needed to set up a home network with printer sharing and it would have been more of a hassle to try to upgrade my Pentium 150 so that I could load a Linux Distro and all the hassles of dealing with old, proprietary Packard Bell components.
This thing got me up and running fast and cheap. I'll by the speed demon PC later....
BTW, there's no way in Hell I'd put a pirated copy of XP (or Me, 9x, NT) on this computer. It is blissfully MS free!
~whidbey
Another target user would be the low-budget buyer who isn't willing to put out the extra $100 for an MS license and sees that the boxes do what (s)he wants.
The third would probably be someone with enough money that 'blowing' $200 to find out about Linux seems entirely worth it.
I've generally been of the opinion that one of the biggest barriers to general Linux acceptance is the difficulty in finding a box with anything other than MS pre-loaded. Although I find Linux installs easier than Windows installs, it's still a pain in the butt. Most users aren't willing to buy a bare bones system w/ a separate OS and then waste their time on an install while risking being blocked by some odd incompatibility (e.g. not being able to differentiate hardware failure from installer error).
These Wall Mart boxes are pretty much the first mass-market over-the-counter Linux boxes for the masses. I may have misgivings about Lindows' software practices, but it's definitely nice to see Linux bozes in the aisles this Christmas.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Gary Elsasser, vice president of technology at eMachines, said that consumers wanted to be able to run any software and find computer help easily. Linux makes that hard to do.
Typical. People saying that the software that is available on windows is not available on linux. Yes, this is true that a lot of the same software is not available on linux, and sometimes it is not easy to migrate new users... but people will do it... I run a dual boot system on my laptop 'just in case' I have to use windows, but honestly I can't remember the last time I actually NEEDED to use windows. I honestly will be interested in seeing how many businesses migrate to linux for some of their applications once OpenOffice and similar free/open source office projects become available. I believe that we will see (and have already started to see) Microsofts battle against open-source, and it reminds me of the way that MaBell used to battle local telcos, undercut the competition by lowering your price. In this case, they have to undercut it to the point that they are giving it away for free. There have been several slashdot articles on this reccently, and coming from an educational institution, and talking to IT people at other educational institutions I know that Microsoft offers lots of 'perks' to institutions, including free/cheap software and the Microsoft Academic Alliance (for students) to not only get them to use MS products instead of looking for or adopting alternatives, but also to get students used to and familiar with Microsoft Products instead of products from the competition (CS students req'd to make sure code works in Vis Studio before turning it in, intro to computers or other general courses focusing mainly (if only) on MSOffice). I was going somewhere with this, but I lost track. I guess I'll just end in saying the battle with Microsoft has only begun, you might even argue that the first shots have yet to be fired...
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
- WalMart does not sell PCs for a liiving. It's jusy one of many products.
- If this product tanks WalMart will not be hurt at all.
- WalMart does not need Uncle Bill's blessing to make money (see first point).
- These are bare-bones, bottom of the pile PCs that are selling because they are cheap.
This is not a revolution in PC sales. This is a huge desicount chain selling a second-rate computer at the lowest price they possibly can as a side project that isn't even worth putting in their stores.Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Makes a change from "Slashdot posted the same review of these machines twice on July 4."
It's the same mentality though as the Ford Pinto (remember, the car that would explode?) It would have cost Ford roughly an 11.00 part to repair the problem with the ford pinto, but that would have put it over their magical 'final cost price' of 2000.00
They are marketing these PC's at a certain price level... that's their magic number... They don't want to go over it.
They probably don't have a modem, because the ethernet controller was probably already on the motherboard. Now, what they COULD do, form an alliance with some modem manufacturer and offer some sort of rebate on an external modem...
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
I wonder noone mentioned the poor public education. $200 per box? It's a perfect price for schools! I am going to talk to the principal - my kid complains they don't have enough computer classes b/c there is not enough of computers. ... Jeez, is it 21st century or it's a middle age?
Less is more !
5,000,000 Slashdot geeks went out and bought them and immediately installed $LINUX_DISTRO on them when they got home.
Some even bought 2 or 3 and gave 'em to the kids.
Others turned extra boxes into home mp3 servers.
The VIA CPU is a reincarnation of the old IDT/centaur winchip. Via purchased both centaur and cyrix after they both flopped at making x86 CPUs.
The Via c3 has only one integer unit and one fp unit, coupled with a decent-sized cache. Architecturally, the via c3 is extremely primitive, worse than the original pentium. The c3 benchmark scores are consistently about 1/3rd to 1/4th those of a celeron or a duron at the same clock speed.
That tragic this is: putting an AMD duron in this machine would have tripled the performance, and would have costed only about $10 more. The $199 lindows box was likely intended to be a no-profit "crippleware" machine, to lure people to the $299 and $399 models.
One thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned here is the importance of a sub $500 PC on who buys computers. Back around the time of the Commodore Vic 20 and 64 you had a huge number of parents buying dedicated computers for young children; and poor people buying computers for themselves. Since the death of the Amiga 500 we really haven't had new computers that are cheap enough for people to casually buy them. The effects of adding say 10 or 20 million home computers to the market in terms of the spread of knowledge, broadband, games... could be quite profound.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
In the "consumer space" CPU brand, MIPS, Mega-flops, megs of RAM and gigs of disk space don't matter worth crap.
:-)
What counts is all on the bottom line.
M$ is kidding itself if it thinks people give a tinker's cuss about it's software. Most people never "got it" and haven't ever had a friggin' clue as to what all the screaming was about.
M$ Office in on the way out in the consumer space because OpenOffice is available for about half a friggin' grand less. M$ Windows is on the way out in the consumer space because Linux is available for a few hundred less.
What sells in the consumer space is whatever's "good enough" and "fast enough" (something M$ is definitely LOUSY at,) to do what people want.
The hardware is already there, has been for a couple of years. The software/bloatware is what's been holding up the works.
On the business front, as a software developer, I'd rip my own lungs out before buying Lindows for what my professional needs are, but the user work-stations (read that again "work" "station") and the MIS departments that have to keep the boxen alive are glad to have a cheap M$ alternative.
Rolling out Lindows boxen sounds like some MIS manager's big "I saved X-amount of dollars" bonus opportunity.
And at home Lindows'd be good enough... If I wasn't typing this on a slackware8.1 box and if I wasn't already a Mac maniac for my other machines.
My biggest challenge is teaching my techno-indifferent wife to use the Linux box. (She doesn't want to use the Mac either.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This may be off topic, then again ...
... which ought to be worth the $20 of Asian labor they're probably using on this. But then again it's $20 of American stocking/shipping labor for an outfit to send out separate parts ... so can we build this better ourselves @ this price point?
For those of use who might throw $200 at a utility box, can anyone recommend hardware (especially motherboard and power supply) that are of better proven quality than this WalMart dohingus, yet still come in with the same (incomplete) features for not more than $200? $250? Sure, we'd as soon screw the stuff together and install our fave distro
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
TigerDirect sold out of theri entire stock of 2000+ Lindows computers in less then two weeks... but then again, Slashdot readers wouldn't even know that they were for sale there!
If the chief advantage for windows in the consumer space is supposedly that consumers are not smart enough to realize that they can get a computer without windows...
Maybe they're also not smart enough to realize that they're getting a computer without Windows? If we don't trust the average purchaser to know that just because a P4 has a higher clock rate than an Athlon that it isn't necessarily faster, why would we expect them to realize whether the computer they're buying to send email has windows or lindows? To them it's a thing that sends email.
The average user probably views the OS and the computer with the same level of separation most of us assign to the transport and network layers.
Basically indistinguishable parts of the thing you use to get a web page.
paintball
The TigerDirect Lindows machine sold for $230.00 and had a 900 meg Duron CPU, 128 megs of RAM, a 20 gig HD, Modem, decent video, NIC, etc. They sold over 2000 of them in less then two weeks and have been out of stock for several more (apparently this machine was one of the biggest sellers in their history).
DMCA! DMCA! DMCA!
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
I said: I read slashdot because it's so hard to find anything else intelligent to read.
People replied: And Slashdot intelligent? Haw.... It's worse out there on the Internet than we thought.... Keep searching...
Wow, that was a robust response. No kidding, guys&gals. Without the time or patience to surf, I used to have to tolerate the big-media news feeds, who seem to think that Winona Ryder Busted for Shoplifting is big news.
Admittedly, to refine the /. content, I read at a +3 threshold with -2 for Funny and +1 for Insightful. I only lower the threshold if a thread interests me enough to consider replying (so that I won't be redundant). Try those settings for yourself; suddenly, /. seems pretty damn smart.
P.S. Sorry if this is offtopic; mod me down if you must. I know that those replies were just friendly jesting, but the topic touched a nerve. I hate stupidity.
My father is trying to start a software company, and I know for a fact that he could not install Windows. Heck, a friend of mine just graduated with a Computer Science degree from my university, and I had to walk her through installing Windows 98 (the only reasonable windows to install on a machine with these specs). I spent 2 hours on the phone with her, and she is to this day proud to have "done it herself". Installing an OS is nothing a typical user can do. Just because we have done it thousands of times, doesn't mean the "Average" user can use fdisk, format, etc. Never overestimate the user!
It's a good start into a market void, where we NEED a commodity device. Think about all the $15 - $50 PDA's. Sure they don't run palmOS. They can't do a lot of things a CE device can. SO? There's a market for them. How about those "laptops" for little kids? They're just toys. Some of them do a minimal amount of wordprocessing or calculator functions, or maybe they just moo and oink, who cares?
So there's a niche where a cheap as hell PC that does the stuff that a PC does, but is cheap as hell, would be very marketable. To all those folks who want a PDA, but don't want to spend the bucks for a Palm, and certainly not for something like a Zarus. Just like there's expensive phones and cheap as hell phones. Or cheap stereos.
There's a market for a cheap computer. If it does what it needs to do, software and file compatability be damned. There are a whole lot of people that, if they can't open a particular file format or view some funky proprietary content on the web, will just go "huh? oh well." and they'll get on with their lives! I'll bet if you had a few games for the platform that weren't on other platforms, they'd sell, too. And people would not be all that upset that Windows games don't work, provided you did not give them that expectation. People may not be knowledgeable, but they are NOT stupid. (I hail from a small town in East Texas, and believe I'm qualified to speak on that matter!)
I really don't think incompatability would hurt here as much as other people seem to think it will, and certainly not as much as Microsoft is betting it will. Do the people with $10 pda's care if they can't run palm apps? Do you really think the people with self-contained workflow are going to care whether they run Koffice, Openoffice, or word?
Microsoft, and all the software publishers (games mostly!) have created the expectation in consumers that "computer == runs windows software" but, I don't think that'll be terribly hard to break. Look at the console market, or any other product that has an aftermarket where accessories on one brand are incompatible with another.
Vacuum cleaner bags. They get it. I buy a Hoover, I need Type H bags. I buy a Eureka, I need type AA bags. I'll even bet some of them check the price, and they see if H bags are $3.00 and AA bags are $1.50, it influences their decision. But they get it, and they don't end up returning the Eureka because it doesn't use the Hoover bag.
Game consoles. Nobody has a problem understanding that Nintendo games don't fit Sony. And they're okay with that. Camera film comes to mind as another example, but seems somewhat anachronistic today.
So it doesn't come with Word? Well, that's a social problem for some people. The idea that not being able (or willing) to read a Word Doc might cost your job, etc.
Not everybody has their career resting on being able to open or save a powerpoint or a word doc.
Lots of us are in that predicament, but, we're not the ones buying a $50 PC, are we? (Yes I know the lindows box is more like $200, but, I'm seeing the possibility).
The main thing that distinguishes "Computers" and "Peripherals, Software" from "Vacuum cleaners" and "Bags" is that the retailers have thoroughly ingrained the notion that "Computer == Windows" into the consumer's mind. But guess what? They can STILL sell something else, as long as they don't instill a false expectation in that customer.
To be sure, there will be salespeople claiming that Lindows runs Game X, Application Y. There will be people returning these things, partly just because people return things to Walmart, and partly because it hasn't met their expectations.
There will be people who immediately wipe the disk and install windows on it.
And there will be people who use the system, never adding anything to it, happily emailing stories about the newborn poodle or how the floor of the shed needs to be fixed and can you pay the insurance on the truck this month to their kids and grandkids on the west coast. There will be a web resource here and there that won't load in opera or mozilla or whatever, sure, but if it *WORKS* and does what the customer expects it to do, it DOESN'T MATTER ONE BIT that it isn't Windows!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>90% of the US is on the streets while the top
>10% is easy pimpin' out of big suites and using
>the botton 90% as sex slaves for goatse
>experiments.
Uh, it *is* something like that. If you look at how well-off those 10% actually are, the difference between the living of the 90% and a herd of goats is statistically insignificant.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
That's why this is perfect, it's not a no OS at all solution, there is an OS on the machine. True grandma probably does not make a distinction between MS and linux, but her grandkids will and suddenly become aware that there are other things than microsoft in the world and that's a start... it doesn't really matter if they like linux. Linux is just another OS, they don't have to like linux, or BSD, just knowing there are other things out there is a start. Some will take the next step and play with them. Some will like them. Other's will like them better but not enough, contribute to something that already exists, or perhaps come up with something better.
I could never understand why people bitterly hate Wal-Mart so much. They are simply not a bad company. They provide reasonable products, pretty good returns, and pretty good prices. Yes, they beat a lot of competitors (and this is partly a result of these facts). But from a consumer's point of view, Wal-Mart is a Good Thing.
May we never see th
While having Wal-Mart sell Lindows is interetsing, I'm not sure how much benefit Linux will ultimately reap, because:
/. target, is all of a sudden one of the good guys. (The enemy of my enemy is my friend?)
1. People will not necessarily associate Lindows with Linux - more likely think it's a cheap Windows clone;
2. If and when Lindows doesn't run something, they'll assume it's Lindows fault, not that that's the price of running Lindows; so, If they do link Lindows with Linux, they assume it's an OS for cheap machines; and that Linux has all the faults and problems that Lindows has (i.e. not 100% Windows compatable) Never mind it isn't intended to be a Windows clone, any bad impressions of Lindows will reflect on Linux.
As a side note, it's interesting that Wal-mart, another favorite
Also, how well is Lindows complying with GPL terms? If they are successfull, they may be reluctant to give away what they view as the foundation of tehir success, and have the cash to fend off challenges.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I've never seen any of his movies, yet I hate the man. I've seen enough interviews and excerpts to know that he is the very definition of sophistry. He uses simplistic and shallow reasoning to demonize people for his own personal gain.
He reminds me of Noam Chomsky, in a way. The both take facts out of context and shine them in the worst light possible while completely ignoring any facts that don't fit their twisted world view. The difference between Chomsky and Moore is that Chomsky is extremely intelligent but literally insane, and Moore is stupid but crafty and devious. Moore knows exactly what he's doing by using only emotional manipulation for his movie subjects, but is too intellectually limited to do complete, in-depth analysis of his documentary subjects.
Regardless of whether you agree with his politics or not, that guy is the devil.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.