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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."
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
to quote the article
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. It will also sell its products in India, not just to countries such as the United States, where Microsoft holds more sway, Sundaram said.
"Because we are going to keep the operating expenses low, it gives us a good profit margin,"
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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
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.
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.
Running X with only 128MB of RAM isn't the problem. I have machines that have run linux & X for years with much less memory than that. X isn't the problem. It's most likely KDE. I had it on a PII-450 w/ 128M and KDE was very slow. It was like being on a 486 again. Firing up Mozilla on a P-166 w/64M of ram was more responsive.
Unfortunately, the default environment for these machines is KDE. I'm not sure if the 1GHz Via chip & the rest of the system can compensate for the lack of memory and still provide a responsive machine.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I wouldn't call a VIA 1GHz processor excessively fast. I have a VIA C3/800 in my server. It runs at 28ÂC when idle, fanless with a big copper heatsink on top. That's the main reason why I have it. The speed? It's enough for an all-purpose home server (DNS/Mail/SMB/HTTP/Routing). File transfers via FTP go at 11.5MB/s with 10-20% load (using Intel 82550 chips though). A PII/400 is faster for floating-point stuff. AFAIK the older C3s had a FP unit running at half the clock speed. The newer Nehemiah type processors are supposed to have FP units running at full speed. However, in no way can VIA CPUs be compared to an Athlon or Pentium at the same clock speed and, given their power consumption, this is not always a drawback as I said above.
But still a valid point, 128MB seems low these days. I don't know how much a full-blown Linux desktop environment uses but I wouldn't want to run Windows with 128MB (that is if I actually wanted to run anything else besides the OS).
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
How about just buying a fucking router?
Because most routers I have come across have broken functionality, broken security, and don't have much scope for expandability. What if I want to use my router as a proxy web server too? Or as a DNS caching server? Or to host a website for my home network? Or as an NTP server so all my machines have their clocks in sync?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I have been using used Dell desktops from Used-PCs.com for routers, firewalls, etc. They are surprisingly quiet and cheap (sub $100 in some cases).
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Greatest PC ever: not a chance. But really good for $450, and I think meeting your specs of "decent" quality.
Why would that possibly be better? People using Linux, especially those using it on a $199 computer, don't generally need the latest-greatest in video support. There may be exceptions, of course, but these systems aren't catering to the hardcore gamers, CAD designers, etc.. On-board video should be more than adequate in most cases.
From the description it sounds like the $200 model uses a VIA mini-itx motherboard which includes integrated video and ethernet. I just puchased one to upgrade my FreeBSD box. The good news about these is that they are tiny (17cm X 17cm), have low power consumption and low heat output so they can be used anywhere. The bad news is limited expansion options (one ram slot+one pci slot), and a slow FPU. It's not going to win any performance awards but after all, I spent all of the last 3 years using a 350MHz Intel with few problems.
Isn't it misleading to say it's a "$200 silent PC" when their models at that price don't appear to include an AC adapter an HD or any other mass storage device?
- AlanH
Then look no further:e wItem&item =2738025507
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi
do an ebay search for 'compaq deskpro en sff', my personal favorite machine. That one is a PII/400 and can be had for $90. It has 128 MB RAM, CD (optional, worth $40 on its own; bootable), floppy, and two PCI slots (one shared ISA) *plus* onboard PS/2, serial, parallel, and Intel 10/100. It's about 1/2 the volume of a typical desktop--20-30% shorter on each side. Few things have a longer lifespan than a corporate Compaq.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
At home I have an SMC Barricade SMC7004VBR and a Siemens SpeedStream SS-2604 (Not a bad deal for $25 and includes a printer port). I have also worked with a few of the Linksys and Dlink models.
Making a port forward to another machine with them is often impossible.
I have not found this to be the case. Every one I have ever used has offered configurable port forwarding, port forwarding with a trigger port option and a blanket DMZ forward all rule (ouch).
A true firewall includes things like proxy services, if only to make sure your LAN isn't going to open your network up to the world, not to mention the possible performance improvements with caching.
I agree with you that home routers do not have these abilities, but I have never expected such devices to be able to do that, specially since they cost less then $35. I use my Linux machines behind the router for those functions. Why would you want your router to do those functions anyway? The less it runs the easier it is for you to keep secure.
Why people think a $100 or even a $200 router from a retail outlet is capable of being a bastion for security I'll never know.
Again these devices cost less then $35USD, not 100 or 200. They are much better then hooking up a pc directly to the wire and way more secure then an unpatched/uncared for Windows or Linux machines running the show.
They do have easy to use setup screens and do offer quite a bit of filtering, VPN, rulesets, and forwarding options but each has something the other does not. My main issue I have with these home routers is I have not seen one that defaults to deny and I have not found one that can block outgoing requests to specific ip addresses. That is why I still keep my floppy based Freesco router that runs on my old DX2/66 around, plus I can dial in on it.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
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.
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.