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More Cheap Linux PCs
prostoalex writes "The low-cost Linux PC market so far dominated by Lindows got a new entrant. According to News.com, Linare plans to sell a $199 no-monitor model with 1GHz VIA CPU, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD, KDE, OpenOffice. An extra $50 would get the user upgraded to a 2GHz Athlon. Company is located in beautiful Bellevue, WA, which, as News.com noted, is quite close to another Seattle suburb - Redmond, WA."
It's only right that if they make money off linux, they should donate to those who work on it. If they would advertise it, I'd be more likely to buy from them.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
lindows still has the market on cheap linux laptops though
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
What about the video? Is it on board or not included or what? I think not included would be better myself.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
you can get your "Linare" upholstered with fine Corinthian leather.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Gee they tout linux, but their own web menus don't work in mozilla?? What gives.?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
'Linux != cheap' in the minds of the (m)asses.
I dont see how they can offer twenty four hour support for $19.95 (price of OS if purchased with support option sepearate from computer) .
I just called the number, 1-877-77-LINUX, and apparently there's one person who knows the technical specs on the PC, and he was away from his desk!! I was curious what (if any) dvd/cd drive it had, what graphics card it had, if it came with a floppy drive, and if there was any ethernet option.
I'm about to leave work, so someone else try calling and finding out =)
~Berj
Add $70 or $134 for a 17 or 19" monitor, respectively. So, it's really $270 to $370 dollars for a full system (of course, people need not buy monitors if they already have one).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
It's a PC that's got Linux on it.
Clear enough?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I would be concerned about the quality of a $200 PC.
I'm currently looking for a cheap computer to use as a router/firewall/internet gateway for my home network. This looks like a good solution; just bang in the spare wireless & ethernet cards sitting in my bits box, bridge them together, and then hook in my USB ADSL modem. Stuff on some iptables rules and some intrusion detection, and I've got just the setup I need. Best bit is, I won't be paying for the two expensive things I don't need: MS Windows and a monitor.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Linare provides home users a more user friendly and a reliable operating system
I love statements like that, More friendly and reliable than what?? A TRS-80?? Mac?? Silly marketing
I weigh 130lbs, thank-you-very-much
...can I get GNOME instead of KDE, too, so I can actually spend time using it and not just configuring it and figuring out the menus? :P
The Free desktop that Just Works
Is this the same VIA chipset that can be used to make a TIVO replacement? Anyone happen to know what the computers look like, if they happen to have an extra PCI slot, and if they are fanless?
You're about two feet tall, right?
The so-called Mini-ITX servers, which have possibly already been mentioned on Slashdot, are one way to go if this is what you're looking for.
They're like a regular PC, but in a much smaller box (perhaps the size of two 5.25" CD-ROM drives stacked on top of each other), and are often fanless (no, that doesn't mean they overheat, it means they're designed not to need one...), resulting in much less noise and much less power consumption. Many are cheap, and they make ideal Linux/BSD boxes for all kinds of things - web/mail/dns/anything server, backing up your data (or each other), monitoring security cameras for movement, etc. Here's a few examples for more information:
Here, here, here, here, here.
Some of them do actually officially support Linux/BSD AFAIK, such as the OpenBrick and LinITX.com.
-Andrew
A 2Ghz Athlon computer for the price of the processor?
Nice. I'm in.
Is anyone else tired of low end machines that have an excessively fast processor with way too little RAM? Sure, you can always upgrade, but since this machine is destined for non-techies, it should work well out of the box.
I'd rather have a 600 Mhz machine with twice as much RAM so that KDE doesn't run like a slug.
Maybe 128 MB would be excusable if they turn the anti-aliasing and other shiny eye-candy off by default.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
The more of these dime companies release crap boxes, the more Linux will be thought of as a crap OS, the kind of thing your redneck friends buy at Wal-Mart because they can't afford a real PC from Dell or Gateway with the "good" OS.
Sounds crappy, but that's where I see this going. Keep it up.
Last time I looked at Walmart's site at the Lindows PCs I noticed they had inexpensive computers preloaded with SuSE 8.2. I don't know if the sales are competitive with Lindows, but its good to hear that another Linux desktop option is out there.
1Ghz via? Probably a VIA ITX box so no you cannot upgrade the CPU do your research please...
I tried that and it sucked. Maybe I did it wrong. I'd ask for a ram updgrade if I were ordering one of these.
Obviously you haven't been there. It's suburban hell with blonde soccer moms in SUVs.
This sounds really sweet for a low-end computer user. I know a couple of people I'm going to recommend this to. They will probably blow away the OS and use Windows on it, though.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Who among us buys the cheapest ??, always and expect quality
Its the quality that counts for most people. The after sales service had better be spectacular
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Hell, the OS alone will cost more than the hardware required to run it soon, at this rate. That's certainly the case with the Windows Server versions (although frankly if you spend more on licensing than hardware, you're going to be unhappy...).
I didn't see any mention of yearly subscription fees ala Lindows. This may do well in the low cost desktop arena if they have a 'Click N Buy' analogue without the fees.
This could be Mom's new PC =)
"Linare" sounds much too close to "Windows", and consumers are certain to be confused! Microsoft will have no choice but to litigate to protect their brand.
http://www.linare.com/linos.htm
Is it just me, or did someone in Marketing get mixed up?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Do I buy a $3000 G5, or a dozen 2Ghz Athlons loaded with ClusterKnoppix?
Are Windows2000 Pro drivers available for all the components?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
These types of systems will be great for many people who are trying to get invlolved in the Linux community who are either a) afraid of attempting an install (afraid of losing any other OS's on the system) or b) just want a second system to play around with Linux on Also, even if you ARE going to use M$ why not just spend the $250 and install a pirated copy of win2k?! The same system with winXP installed would probably cost you a few hundred dollars more!!!
I'll be interested to see what this segment of the market looks like in a couple of years.
I picked up one of the cheep $200 Lindows PCs mentioned in an article here last monday to play with. When it arrived on Friday the modem card wasn't installed correctly (it was screwed into the case but not actually in the PCI slot) and the HD was dead. I'm waiting on a replacement HD. (I'm still hoping it will make an ok toy.)
Based on the photocopied sheets in the box I assume the DOA percentage of these machines is pretty high. I would hope that increased competition would have a positive effect on this, but at these low margins I won't bet on it.
The thing I really wonder about is whether anyone will still be selling Linux PCs at $199 in two years or if they will move slightly higher to be able to afford some form of quality control.
Not only are Redmond and Bellevue one of the largest suburbs in the area, they also border each other. The MS campus is so close to Bellevue, you could throw an old copy of Microsoft Bob out the window and it would probably land in Bellevue city limits.
But come on, just because MS has its headquarters here doesn't mean there can't be a unix/linux presence. Sun has one of its regional offices in downtown Bellevue. IBM is across the lake in the 206.
From the source of their site:
Something makes me think the site wasn't written using a Linux app.
They already licensed it from SCO
Well according to this page, their email client is KMail, the increasingly popular Outlook -styled-email.
While I applaud their efforts, and I am sure I am nit-picking, wouldn't it be like a Eudora-styled-email-client, or at least an Outlook Express-styled-email-client? I mean Outlook is more like a complete Personal Information Manager (PIM), for better or worse...
The sort of people who are going to be attracted to a low spec, cheap PC with an easy to use OS will want a monitor.
Why is no one doing a complete PC, with decent RAM, video and so forth for, say $400-$500 range?
Dont these cheapo Linux PC just cheapen the image of Linux?
Must be depressing to sell an OS by putting together code developed by other people .... hey ... wait a moment ...
wednesday might as well burn some karma..
from terraserver.com/includes/provider_stats.inc
conn.ConnectionString = "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Persist Security Info=False;User ID=terraweb;Password=1mag3s;Initial Catalog=tsv6;Dat a Source=terradb01"
now I just need a few terrabytes of space..
I have a suspician based on the successful sale of these low-cost, Linux based PCs. The PC market has been stable for a few years now, since the failure to drop prices below $500-700 means that a large segment of the population effectively can't own new home PCs. With $200 PCs available that are relatively useful, the market is expanding downwards to include a new class of computer users: the working poor.
What this means, I think, is that we're starting a new generation on cheap PCs that will be more maintenance heavy than Dells and Apples. This will have the same effect that cars have had over the last forty years: since new cars are so expensive, and the only option for the poor to own one is to get a used one or an extremely cheap one. There's a pool of talent/skill that gets built in the lower classes around practical maintenance.
In other words, the same way that my brother's Lexus is worked on by someone with a high school education who tinkered a lot with cars, the sysadmins of tomorrow will generally come from blue collar backgrounds, while the white collar users will move further out of the ability to generally maintain computers. In a business, the IT department will become less educated overall, while having a much stronger base of practical skills.
I'm already seeing this at my workplace, a manufacturer of household commodities. Lots of the factory workers ask if they can buy/have old PCs that we're getting rid of; several have built their own from old pieces they scrounged. We have a developing pool of computer knowledge that comes from nothing but the tinkering of people who can't afford to do otherwise.
While I dislike the possibility of computer expertise segmenting along economic lines (for social reasons), I do see some benefits: clearer cut job descriptions and areas of expertise, and increased adoption of open source software simply because of the price. To get to that $200 price point, you need Linux (or BSD...)
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
...exactly what does she have to do with the systems that they are selling?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously, the hardware seems OK - the salesman said that they had sold a lot of this model (totally made in China, with a Chineese Linux that immediately got replaced with a fresh SuSE install) - and no returns so far.
Anyway, I love cheap commodity hardware! That said, I wouldn't mind a dual G5 system.
-Mark
Why is the pic on the Linare PC page a Mac?
http://www.linare.com/linpc.htm
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
I'm in the UK. Computer components cost more here, yet I could build a perfectly fine PC for under $200. I actually keep tabs on how much it'd cost me to get a basic rig up and running for, incase my machine explodes, whatever, and I need something to tide me over.
You can build a regular Duron 1.3Ghz box including case, keyboard, mouse, 30GB HD, 128MB RAM, and using onboard video, sound and LAN for about £140 including the 17.5% sales tax.
Generally US retailers bizarrely don't include the tax (even though you're gunna pay it anyway), so deduct 17.5% from my figure, that's £119.15.. which is just over $190.
These guys are in the US, and they're trade.. so they're getting their parts at well below $200, and probably have a margin of 50%, excluding labor, which, admittedly, could be the deal breaker in the bloated US salary market.
Linare is located on 156th two blocks south of the Microsoft campus.
Ummmm... is it just me, or does it look like they ripped off a bunch of Apple's cases? Take a look at the Linux PC link... Maybe that's why they can sell it for less... they got the cases at a 5-finger discount?
Greatest PC ever: not a chance. But really good for $450, and I think meeting your specs of "decent" quality.
Why do they have a picture of a Quicksilver Mac on their home page with Linare PC in the same graphic?
...
Seems a little dodgy to me
The real question is... Do we trust a manufacturer of Linux PCs whose web page has drop-down menus that aren't compatible with Mozilla?
At least, it didn't work on my machine. I'm using Firebird 0.6 on KDE.
g4y.
it includes the WineHQ software for the running of the Windows on Intel Systems? *smirk*
For great justice take off every sig.
SCO sues Linare Corporation.
This is the box to be bought on newspaper route delivery money. Back in the day I was able to buy and solder together a 'computer' and then add the options like address display LEDs. I cannot even remember the name of the company that pushed these out via small adds in the back of magazines but I learned the basics and it was the total package available from one company. This is a great idea and with just a few kids getting this machine for and on their own we will get the next generation off to a good solid start in the basics. Two 1802's up.
SolarPC
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Linare is two blocks south of the Microsoft campus on 156th. Microsoftee's drive by it all the time on their way to lunch at Crossroads.
This is an interesting insight, and it's sad to think of things being drawn along economic lines like this.
However, on the brighter side, there's another group of pessimists that have believed we'd have a technocracy, where techies rule the world (scary thought with plenty of jokes), and the non-technical ignorant masses left to collect minimum wage by flipping burgers. I've always considered this view to be too extreme. There are many fields that have technical aspects to them. Ever listen to the gibberish that car mechanics spout? They may not be nerds, and may not have college degrees, but I'd argue that they're extremely technical. Those same skills - especially troubleshooting and understanding how little details make a bigger thing work - are the exact skills that everyone needs, from programmers to network administrators.
I know a car mechanic who's picked up on the computer stuff to the point that he asks questions about trade-offs and disadvantages of PPPOE, DHCP and static IP addressing, and understands the difference between bandwidth and latency. I know many IT professionals that don't have that kind of knowledge. Of course, I know many IT professionals that became so because it was the cool career field, not because of an interest in computers.
In that sense, I think it's a very positive thing: the world now knows you don't need to be a wiry, pasty-faced, greasy dork to be good with computers. The thing that might be scary to those of us (you know who you are) who really just want to hide out in a glass room until we vest in our 401(k), this could be scary, and certainly should be taken as a wake-up call. Most of what we do with computers in the business world is inherently practical. We can draw all the cute diagrams and use the latest buzz words, but the core value we add is primarily through practical construction of some simple, maintainable systems. Fancy Visio diagrams don't change that.
As another aside, a couple years ago I was amazed to overhear conversation between two gentlemen behind me in line at Best Buy. They were the standard fare burly rednecks, with unkempt beards, in camoflage coveralls, but what they were discussing was rather different from the stereotype. With missing teeth and bad grammar, one was educating the other on why he should upgrade his video card, discussing details about how the amount of RAM as well as the RAMDAC spped and features such as T&L affect frame rate. And the other redneck dude gave all impressions of understanding the conversation.
In conclusion: the world is changing, computers aren't only in the hands of the "have"s, and in my opinion this isn't a completely horrible thing.
Thanks for listening. ;-)
If it is OTG techies on the phonelines, then it will cost them more in the end. But if it is the usual $6/hr script-reading monkeys, outsourced as usual, then their final cost is known and already factored into the price.
Most people I know got a computer sometime within the past 5 or 6 years, and they still have it. It costed them plenty 0 bux, it still does what they want it to do. I know quite a few people still running win95, let alone 98, it's patched, updated whatever, they live with any other inefficiencies, because it still surfs, does email, plays audio whatever and that's it. Most folks don't build their own or run out every 6 months to a year and buy a new computer, not when the old one is working and they got tons of other bills. Lot of folks are feeling that pinch now, a new computer falls into the unnecessary toy category whern they already have one they paid 1500$ for or something and it ain't broke. That's one of the reasons for flat sales. I'd like a new one,but not even gonna pay 200$ for one though, What I have works just fine and it's 6 years old now. If I had a need, for a tool, of course, but I don't do photoshop editing or anything like that, this old box still does what it needs to do, and with modern OS like linux on it, it will probably keep doing what it needs to do for awhile. I ain't askeered of it or being "left behind", and I still only got half the ram loaded that it will take, so if I *need* an upgrade, I'm one stick away-cheap in other words.. I figure I can hold out with this one for another one to two years, by then, 100$ will get ya something spiffy(er). I've had computers since the late 80s, not like I haven't spent some cash on them, just a plateau of sorts was reached a few years ago with computers in general terms, the *need* is falling now for the latest and greatest or even the cheapest. It's like some other toys, I've been through a few cell phones, I still don't know, care or use 3/4ths of the stuff the phone is capable of, and don't seem to miss it. I don't own a PDA yet, don't seem to miss it. When they get to under 100$, or even down to 50$, I might buy one, but not today and not for 500$. I like gadgets and tools, just have a different set of priorities, like right now I need a new chainsaw more than a new computer, I'd rather drop 2 to 500 clams on one of them-if I had the "spare" cash, heh. I'd rather get a new bumper winch for the jeep rather than the newest PDA. I'd rather get a half dozen more solar panels than a new "game" machine. Shoot, I'd rather pop for a couple of gold eagles before I popped for a 6-700$ new pretty specced decent whitebox. Different strokes. A lot of people are that way, I don't think it's all that unusual either. I guess people with really a lot of cash like to always upgrade every year or every other year, but nowadays there isn't that much more oomph - need to justiofy it unless it's top to your main hobby or it's required for your business, then it's swell, seems like some good deals out there. Like the new G5, heck ya I'd like to order one, ain't happening though. When you do physical labor for a living, you think of what stuff costs in terms of pain and sweat and bill paying priorities, 3 grand is a chunk o change, and a lot of sweat. 200$ for a very basic semi new machine is more like it though, I'm glad to see more reasonableness and wider choices in the market. Now if it gets to laptops that cheap....THEN you're talking, you'll get my attention then. I'll find the scratch qucikly.
I guess it's funny, there's such a widely diverse market, and it's happened so quickly. Nearest I can recall is how fast portable "transistor" radios caught on, one year, nada, next year a few, at 50 to 100$, which was serious money then, within a few more years, everyone had one, cheap as all get out. What are they now, a dollar a piece in small quantity wholesale lots? computers now are the same deal, so many out there that work well and only run 50$ used, I think that's where a lot of the sales are going. Or people get them given to them. I have a stack of older pentiums I fool with, I bought a whole pallet of them for really cheap, with a ton of other doo dads thrown in, like another stack of ibm clickers, heh. PCs are cheap now, that's why the flat new sales, there's no absolute "need" for millions of people anymore.
Hmm, I have YET to make a "cluster" hmmmm.....
Im wondering how long this machine will last.
What ever happened to Tux2?
Regards.
But what if, for $200, you get a computer that you can take out of the box, plug in and start surfing the Web within a couple of minutes? In short, what if the computer works as advertised and gets you doing what you want without any fuss?
I'd imagine that if Joe Public wanted a machine that could send email, and if that's what he got for his $200, he'd be happy enough. By and large, the operating system would be transparent and irrelevant to what he was doing.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Interesting about the Xine and XMMS "mix-up", but of more interest is the lack of any mention of a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive to actually play music or movies on ! If it doesn't ship with at least a CD-ROM drive, then this is one cost-cutting exercise taken way too far (after all, how am I supposed to wipe off their distro and put Red Hat on instead ? :-) ).
I hope someone sets up one of these machines and posts the software for everyone to use. Yes, I could do it myself, but it would take much less time starting with a tested foundation.
Just for laugh...will it install Window 2000 or XP on that machine?
http://www.linare.com/alliance.htm
is a word-for-word ripoff of:
http://www.suse.de/en/partner/become_partner/
Let's hope these folks stay in Bellevue. There seems to be something very bad in the water in Redmond.
-- hgc
Linux: There is no infringing code.
even trolls laugh at your week attemts at ascii art.
However, don't count out the value of getting more "desktops" out there in the hands of ordinary users! Every system sold (assuning these boxes are reasonably well built, and configured with software that works well together so the whole thing doesn't just backfire) is another new Linux user. Every new Linux user is another step towards the kind of market share that will get the attention of real, honest, money making businesses. And, if you get their attention, they are going to start looking for Linux developers to build things for these boxes.
It might not be money in my pocket now, but it's more likely I'll have a fun job developing real stuff for Linux and OSS in the future...
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Try the Dell TrueMobile 1184 wireless router. It has five ethernet ports on it, a prism2 wireless adapter, oh and did I mention it runs Linux and Dell is happy to give you the source for the GPL components?
Spin your own firmware and have a Linux router with several 100Mbps and one 802.11b interface all for less than $75.
Except that if the blue collar moves into the IT positions, there will be corresponding drop in wages because businesses will get skilled workers cheaper.
I saw this happen with CAD back in the early 90's for a bit. A bunch of schools offered CAD training and lots of people flooded into the CAD workforce. Correspondingly the wages dropped off; it appeared for a while that CAD had become 'just' a data entry position of sorts. After a while, many companies started to realize a draftsman with experience in the field who used CAD was more cost effective than someone who figured out the etch-a-sketch. Corresponingly the wages went back up over time.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
The irony :D
(for those asleep, relate back to Linux Router Project closing up shop last week)
He might also be 7 feet tall, linux programmers also come in the freakishly skinny variety.
From the web site:
Linare provides home users a more user friendly and a reliable operating system to realize a digital world possible with computer and the Internet.
This is the operating system home users have been looking for which makes the home users life easier with desktop and many other open source application.
Sounds to me like this came straight from the bablefish translation of the original taiwanese press release.
All your base are belong to us!
I really cannot tell if that first picture is a mac or not. It could be any beige box styled after a mac if you ask me. But that second picture is most definately a Dell. Really strange. Could Dell be their OEM and this company just slaps their name on it? Wierd. As another poster said: seems dodgy.
What the hell can you do without a monitor?
http://www.linare.com/consulting.htm
.
Excerpt:
"Linare is the worldâ(TM)s premier technology system integrator for Linux solutions in the enterprise."
I wish them all the luck in the world though
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
156th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98007
It is basically just next door to Microsoft's main campus. If it sucks as much as Lindows, I think we can assume it is a plot by M$ to discredit Linux.
Newman's Own pledges to donate all profits. If they can do it with all sorts of commodities, couldn't it work with linux?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
What do you do if there is a serious bug or deficiency in the software? I've gone through several cheap routers (netgear, SMC) that had serious problems the manufacturer was not interested in fixing.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
For those hardware specs, I'd hardly call $199 cheap !
Also, $50 extra for an athlon 2000 is no bargain - that's pretty much what they go for retail anyway.
So, add the $50 and another $100 for a decent monitor, and you've got the price of pretty much any low-end "entry level" PC.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
And Opera is really fast. Though, for some reason I have all 512Mb of RAM filled up :-\ (no, not much in buffers).
IBM/Dell gets it for $10-20 a licence.
They're actually about ten blocks from the entrance to MS campus, not one town over. They're across the street from a Taco Time.. kind of silly.
The building that they're in houses many MS contracting companies. I live just down the street from all the madness, and wear my Linux related clothing all over town. So far, only the Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Acura driving crowd seem to target me on sidewalks.
If you're ever in the area, take a wifi drive through the MS campus and spend some time on their network.. its weakly protected. Enjoy!
They are on 156th. Which is literally a stone throw from where MS campus begins ...
On a more serious note, I'm all for inexpensive PCs but Linaire is a little too light on the details about their hardware and software. I'm afraid I'll have to put them in my 'I will believe it when I see it" file.
The thing that irks me the most about discussing such technical topics around the technically literate is that they don't see the one factor that makes the product. Usability.
;)), but because of their ingenious in integrating it into their business model. They want to give you a computer that gets things done for less than $300. If that's not a truly samaritan business model, I don't know what is. All I know is that business models like this succeed when there's actually a message behind it.
;)
;)
I personally could give a shit less about 128 megs of ram here, 500 Mhz here, 5 FPS there. The one thing I care about is getting things done. If a computer is capable of doing such, then it is good. Anything actually capable of getting things done is worth the price in my mind. If that price is $200, then hell yeah!.
Notice that this is coming from a teenager who counts fps and mhz, relevates it to the available RAM, etc. I still could give a shit less, as long as it gets it done in a timely (meaning not taking half your day, not compiling a kernel in 1.4 seconds) manner.
I'm willing to bet an extreme amount of money that these things get the job done, and get it done in a timely fashion. For the average Joe-Sixpack, what more do you need? In all honesty, nothing much.
We finally (yes, at 17 I said finally) live in an age where function is over fashion. This age is maturing into something a little bit more than that, where efficiency is actually a variable in the thinking of the average customer. Computers like this (which I'm willing to bet get things done timely) are actually a wanted commodity now.
I expect this company to flourish, not only because of their mission statement (you get the jist of it after awhile
Think HP, when they were desperately looking for investors. Think IBM, before they got their IPO. Think Sid Meier before CivII; think even of BMW and VW before WWII. These people have the right idea in mind. Make a usable computer available to the public for the same cost as a (gasp!) video game system.
I don't know about most business analysts out there, but this company hit the market where most of the future market comes from, the teens. They relevated the cost of a good working (and unique! Teens love unique) computer for the same cost of a Playstation 2 or an X-Box.
With all do honesty, probabbly around %80 (from personal experience anyway, don't take this data to heart) of all teens recognize the importance of Internet access and a working computer. I'm willing to bet that almost all of these teens would rather take the computer
Meaning what? That this company has finally done something that only Microsoft (with it's multi-billion marketing dept.) has managed to do once in their almost 30 year history of existance. It hit on a rather large demographic, the American teen.
Expect this company to be around for awhile, people, I do
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
But if you wanted 3 NICs (so that you could have a Red, Green and Orange zone) you'd be out of luck as there's only 1 PCI slot.
Linare will try to offer better technical support than do current $200 PC makers by outsourcing technical support to employees in India who don't cost as much to hire.
Yeah, but have you ever called the tech support line for a company who does this? I don't know about you, but I can hardly understand what the techie is saying. I mean no offense to the Indian readers of Slashdot, but some of the accents I just can not understand. I think there are a lot of people [in the US] who are the same way. For this reason, I think the hopes of this company "bringing Linux to the common man" are misplaced. If a common guy (read Windows user) can't understand the guy who is trying to tell him how to configure his Linux box, then he'll just get frustrated, damn Linux to hell, and go back to Windows.
One more thing if I may. There was a comment made about these guys [Linare] making a donation toward Linux, and another one made about how they won't be able to do that for the price they're selling the systems. Well, I used to work for a computer distributor, and this is absolutely true. Manufacturers sell machines at a very low profit. What most of them count on is the profit they will make from the tech support. It is common for small distributors to charge $40-$60 or more just for a diagnosis of a problem. Now, if Linare is planning on outsourcing their tech support and doing it really cheaply, perhaps they can make some money there. It all depends on what they charge the customer for it.
I believe that this is the VIA M10000 Mini ITX Mainboard
It has got a lot of cool stuff crammed into a 17x17cm mainboard, like USB2.0, Firewire, 10/100Mbps NIC, s-video out, digital sound and much more.
Only one PCI-slot and one DDR-RAM slot makes it less versatile, but it is a cool, low power consuming computer, performing at a level you would normally expect from a PII 450.
Sure... and one might hire a less-educated but really cheap techie from India to do phone tech support, but nobody would assign him to programming. (oh...wait...)
World's seven most expensive cities -
The study by Mercer put London at 1.3% more expensive than New York, which itself is significantly the most expensive city in North America.
Where did you bought that?
Does the store have a site?
If that first image is indeed a Mac (which is hard to tell) it is also a very, very old one - looks like an early-90s Quadra or LC.
Pathetic.
Wouldn't this machine be totally useless without at the very least a CD-ROM drive or NIC? Sure, you could plug in an external (assuming it has FireWire or USB), but without it one or the other, what are you going to do, download everything via Dialup? Sure it's more expandable, but out of the box I don't see that it would be much more useful than a WebTV.
Isn't this kind of like selling a car with a gas tank port but no gas tank? (But it comes pre-loaded with a quart in the fuel lines!)
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Just get a 4 port PCI NIC. You don't need multiple PCI slots to have multiple NICs.
Obviously the Nauga is some sub-species of troll! And it looks like he's been in the drugs! Just look at those wacked-out eyes!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Let's not forget our old friend the USB port, USB ethernet adapters are cheap and plentiful.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, I much prefer the Deskpro EN SFF format, I've got an entire callcenter full of them, and they're tough as hell... except for those damn Fujitsu drives.
It would be nice to see a legacy-free Via CPU machine with say 2 free PCI slots on a mini-ITX motherboard, something thats much smaller than the ATX cases. If it had two on board ethernets to begin with, and 4 USB ports, but no keyboard, mouse, sound ports, the whole thing would be simplified much further(like some IBM aptiva cases). I think the cost could be brought lower by using Slackware or debian rather than lindows. Also ideally it would come with an external CDROM drive that wouldnt sit dormant for most of the time taking space.
Even in production environments, Ive tried to avoid cisco routers since the pentium1 system that people throw away beats the ciscos performance. It would be nice to see modular, possibly non-IDE (pcmcia flash drive) legacy-free x86 computers that are designed to run as routers using FreeBSD or Linux, hopefully in 1U form factor and with a CPU that can run under a heatsink alone (Transmeta?).
Now if they came with the server-type hot-plug PCI slots that are easily accessible with the useage of a large variety of tokenring, gigabit ethernet, voip, atm etc, we have something that can beat cisco easy in performance, price and market. There are just as many linux command-line gurus as IOS experts out there if not more and software that can emulate IOS on Linux can make its developers a fortune.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
You don't always get what you pay for - look at the cost of MS Office. But rarely or never do you get something for free.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
In NY State, the state sales tax is apparently 4%.
But pretty much *every single county* has an additional 4% - So everywhere in NYS, sales tax is 8% if you buy in a store. The only time you see 4% is if you order from a store in another county mailorder, and even then many will simply charge 8%. (Cornell's Campus Store was one of the exceptions, but it could have had to to with Cornell's academic/nonprofit status.)
In nearly all states, displaying prices that include sales tax is illegal.
Some states have exceptions for various items. Grocery stores in NJ have lots of fun with inventory because basic groceries are tax-exempt, but not everything sold in a grocery store falls in that category. So some things within the store are taxed and some are not. Add to that bottle deposits for recycling depending on the state.
New Jersey also has no sales tax on clothing. Which is why New York City often abolishes sales tax on holiday shopping weekends, because for major shopping trips, the savings on clothing sales tax offsets the tolls to cross the bridge over the New Jersey, and so NYC would lose all the major holiday shoppers to New Jersey businesses.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Reread my post. That was my point.
My 100 MHz 486 with 16 MB of RAM worked fine with Linux. I used word processors, GIMP and various development tools. Yeah with huge images or many images, GIMP would swap. That should be expected with only 16 MB of RAM. Mozilla took forever to start up, but it's a piece of shit. I liked to use Lynx anyway...until too many crappy sites started using tonnes of images, javascript and flash for navigation.
It's good to see M$ caught partly up with Linux. Now if they can just stop being jack-booted thugs, I won't hate them so much.
This is so short sighted. Why not invest in technology that will make it so no kids have to be terminaly ill (especially removing intellectual property on it)? Well there's a brand I won't buy.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Right on! my old pc runs win98, linux and bsd just fine. I spend my cash on things like seeking large Rainbow Trout, with a traveler sedge, or choronamid.
Much more rewarding than buying a p4 to find that windows xp sucks and doesn't flyfish worth a damn.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
i have a linux laptop, p250, 64mb ram running mandrake 9.0 and kde, and sure it takes a beat for apps to open, but it runs just fine, no problems...
U.S. War Crimes blog. Email for free Mandriva support.
I got my first personal computer in August '83, and it cost me (ok, my dad) $199. Sure, I had to go buy a disk drive later when I was writing codes long enough to be worth saving (I got it to further a programming course I took in VIC-20 assembly), but it was good enough to run commercial software on (cartridges) out of the box. It was a Commodore-64.
Now, twenty years have gone by and prices are back to where they were (I know, I know, inflation).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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