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Fry's Electronics - Selling Linux... Or Not?
TheMadPenguin writes "For those of you who may not be aware, Fry's Electronics has been selling a Linux desktop PC loaded with ThizLinux for quite a while now. The question is, are they really selling it? The answer is a definitive no."
They had one of these machines at their store in Houston. I fiddled around with it for a second and came to find out that the root password was blank. I told the sales guy this and he just asked me, "what's that?" I just left.
Do they sell linux?No
Oh, ok move along nothing to see here....
He would make for a poor Soup Opera writer.
fry's is a great place to find cheap odds and ends and assorted hardware. Of course they compensate by not hiring anyone who knows anything. Fry's is the candy store for someone who knows what they're doing. Why would you expect more?
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"Thiz Linux is not for sale."
5.) You want to "Think Different" without looking queer.
4.) You need an OS as unreliable as your '83 Ford Fairlane.
3.) It'll help you get a job. Oh wait, nevermind, it's not 1999 anymore.
2.) You have an extra $299 from your unemployment check.
1.) You want to make uglier friends.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
These people will not be getting my business. I insist on the ability to get a full refund from Red Hat if it comes with an OS I intend to erase anyway.
Hmmm, Doesn't this feel a bit like they're trying to sell you a OS-less PC? Either to appeal to people buying this, and throwing a pirated copy of Windows on it, or to sell the customer a copy of Windows along with the PC...
For those of you who may not be aware, Fry's Electronics has been selling a Linux desktop PC loaded with ThizLinux for quite a while now. The question is, are they really selling it? The answer is a definitive no.
First of all, their sales staff has no idea how to run Windows, let alone Linux. In reality, I didn't expect anything less from that caliber of employee. What are you going to do? Let's put it this way... I live in Las Vegas and have been to that Fry's location on more than one occasion and stood by while a salesman, approached with questions from a customer, stuttered and spit trying to come up with answers. They usually just end up blurting to the customer that the machine is "just NOT Windows". Nice sales pitch.
To top that award winning sales pitch off, the customer is staring at a KDM login screen which has it's default language set to Chinese. Don't get me wrong, Chinese is a fine language, but hardly appropriate sitting on display in the Las Vegas branch of Fry's Electronics. Not only did the whole Chinese thing confuse me, but the fact that it was running an obscure Linux distribution that nobody has ever heard of really did the trick. Check out their web site and tell me what you think. Where is the support? Even if you visit their 'English' site, it is a bit confusing to the average computer user.
To make things even worse, the distribution is old. It is running kernel 2.4.18 with KDE 2.2.2 as its default desktop, and their Xfree86 version is 4.2.0. It isn't even the latest release of ThizLinux. This is software more apt (no pun intended) to be used on a server system... not on a consumer desktop. Why not use one of the better desktop distros such as Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Libranet, or even (please forgive me for saying this but I have to) LindowsOS? They have better support and usability, are more appealing to the eye, and are far more likely to be accepted by end users than ThizLinux.
What really set me off was my visit to the Las Vegas store this evening. I was simply going to purchase a few peripherals and wandered by the lonely Linux PC in the corner. Sometimes the normally $299 unit goes on sale for around $100. Sure, it's a pretty cheaply built box, but would make a nice toy for such a low price. What caught my eye this time was the addition of a new placard placed squarely on top of the PC chassis. It read something like this:
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
I found that completely unacceptable for two reasons:
They are immediately telling you that the machine is no good. Insinuating that it's in the best interest of the customer to remove the current operating system and install Windows is ridiculous. Even though the sign does not come right out and say "This OS is a piece of garbage", the sign conveys the message loud and clear.
They are offering to charge the customer more money to fix a product which they are selling as 'broken' to begin with. Nothing like wearing your soul on your sleeve. Actually, this way of thinking is pure Microsoft. Since they are selling a product they know is garbage, why sell it at all? To be quite honest, as a Linux user I frown upon the insinuation that my chosen OS is somehow inferior to Windows 98.
Maybe I shouldn't care... and in reality it isn't going to make a difference in my day whether they sell those boxes or not. It just bothers me that Linux is being portrayed this way to the general public. My message to the people who run Fry's Electronics (and any other outlet who may sell Linux PCs) is simple: If you are going to sell Linux boxes, please educate your staff on the subject, rather than allowing them to sound ignorant in front of your customers. It is an embarrassment to you as much as it is to the Linux community. Since you are selling Linux boxes, please make sure that they are set with a langua
And can explain how they came to be selling THIS machine? I mean. I totally understand how you can staff clueless people as most electronics store employees are pretty clueless or just FUD-injected. But who made the decision to sell this unit? Seems pretty poor to me.
If you are going to sell something, it needs to be a quality product. This goes for anything. I just don't understand how a big retailer like Frys can end up with something like this on their shelves.
A decent box running a current popular distro advertised as a cheap webbox could certainly sell IMHO, but not this.
HOW DID THIS GET PAST THE PHB?
- Linux is the stolen property of SCO.
- Sales of stolen property are null and void by law.
Q.E.D.taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
The thing that really scares me after hearing this is that the rest of the computer sales world is, by and large, well below Fry's in terms of knowledge and selection. The Fry's I frequented in Sacramento was full of people who could tell me the average failure rates of the brand name RAM vs. their generic stuff, whether a 5400 or 7200 RPM hard drive would make a difference, etc. When I moved to Washington, DC and found that the best computer store around was MicroCenter -- a horribly overpriced, understaffed, and generally terrible store -- I about cried. More to the point of this story, though, if Fry's is this clueless about Linux, I hate to see the rest of the computer stores out there attempting to sell it. Heaven knows that may cause a step *backwards* in terms of adoption by the general public!
How To Get Humans To Mars
I dont think it's the OS mostly though I would of preferred to see Redhat or SuSE installed. The hardware of the machine is subpar to the extreme IMO. But what can you expect for 200 dollars which is the common sales price for that PC.
I hate to knock fry's since I'm a regular at the new Irving TX store but Wal-Mart ships better Linux pc's.
I'd rather see PC's shipped without a OS installed and leave it up to the consumer. However there needs to be a few desktop app's that are not on Linux at the moment such as out of the box DVD playback (Even if it's commercial).
2) I suspect the point of the "Windows can be easily installed..." sign is not to enrage you by dissing Lunix but to attract the borrowed-or-warezed-Windows-CD crowd.
3) The claim that WalMart is "doing an excellent job" seems odd given that their Linux boxes are catalog only. I think what they're doing is great but if they were selling them on the floor between bottled water and Barney coloring books, I wouldn't expect brilliant presenattion from them either.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You can go about your business. Move along.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
At least you know the hardware is compatible, since it is running kernel 2.4.18. Just install the Linux distro of your choice and you are good to go.
For those of you who may not be aware, Fry's Electronics has been selling a Linux desktop PC loaded with ThizLinux for quite a while now. The question is, are they really selling it? The answer is a definitive no.
First of all, their sales staff has no idea how to run Windows, let alone Linux. In reality, I didn't expect anything less from that caliber of employee. What are you going to do? Let's put it this way... I live in Las Vegas and have been to that Fry's location on more than one occasion and stood by while a salesman, approached with questions from a customer, stuttered and spit trying to come up with answers. They usually just end up blurting to the customer that the machine is ?just NOT Windows?. Nice sales pitch.
To top that award winning sales pitch off, the customer is staring at a KDM login screen which has it's default language set to Chinese. Don't get me wrong, Chinese is a fine language, but hardly appropriate sitting on display in the Las Vegas branch of Fry's Electronics. Not only did the whole Chinese thing confuse me, but the fact that it was running an obscure Linux distribution that nobody has ever heard of really did the trick. Check out their web site and tell me what you think. Where is the support? Even if you visit their 'English' site, it is a bit confusing to the average computer user.
To make things even worse, the distribution is old. It is running kernel 2.4.18 with KDE 2.2.2 as its default desktop, and their Xfree86 version is 4.2.0. It isn't even the latest release of ThizLinux. This is software more apt (no pun intended) to be used on a server system... not on a consumer desktop. Why not use one of the better desktop distros such as Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Libranet, or even (please forgive me for saying this but I have to) LindowsOS? They have better support and usability, are more appealing to the eye, and are far more likely to be accepted by end users than ThizLinux.
What really set me off was my visit to the Las Vegas store this evening. I was simply going to purchase a few peripherals and wandered by the lonely Linux PC in the corner. Sometimes the normally $299 unit goes on sale for around $100. Sure, it's a pretty cheaply built box, but would make a nice toy for such a low price. What caught my eye this time was the addition of a new placard placed squarely on top of the PC chassis. It read something like this:
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
I found that completely unacceptable for two reasons:
They are immediately telling you that the machine is no good. Insinuating that it's in the best interest of the customer to remove the current operating system and install Windows is ridiculous. Even though the sign does not come right out and say ?This OS is a piece of garbage?, the sign conveys the message loud and clear.
They are offering to charge the customer more money to fix a product which they are selling as 'broken' to begin with. Nothing like wearing your soul on your sleeve. Actually, this way of thinking is pure Microsoft. Since they are selling a product they know is garbage, why sell it at all? To be quite honest, as a Linux user I frown upon the insinuation that my chosen OS is somehow inferior to Windows 98.
Maybe I shouldn't care... and in reality it isn't going to make a difference in my day whether they sell those boxes or not. It just bothers me that Linux is being portrayed this way to the general public. My message to the people who run Fry's Electronics (and any other outlet who may sell Linux PCs) is simple: If you are going to sell Linux boxes, please educate your staff on the subject, rather than allowing them to sound ignorant in front of your customers. It is an embarrassment to you as much as it is to the Linux community. Since you are selling Linux boxes, please make sure that they are set with a langua
Well maybe this isn't new as I'm fairly new to the Linux scene, but why does everyone seem to think Linux is ready for the average consumer? I don't have a problem with selling Linux computers, but you can NOT expect them to sell well. Seriously, the average person is the root of the tech jokes about the "any" key and the white-out on the monitor. Linux is becoming very nice, sophisticated, etc. but it just is not there yet.
The guy needs to loosen up. Looks like he felt insulted with the placard placed squarely on top of the PC chassis that read :
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
I am happy to that they atleast have an option where one can skip the windows Tax. Thats not all too common to find, yet.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
... it's how you say it. The sign over the display PC reads (paraphrased by article's author):
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
Had they said that it's running ThizLinux and could be changed to any PC OS, I might be a bit more understanding. But they're just trying to sell computers without the MS tax, and increase their OS sales.
The text showing up in Chinese could be the result of someone messing with the computer, rather than Fry's setting it up badly. OTOH, the author does a good job vilifying the Fry's staff.
Cheap boxes are good for small standalone terminals and for Joe Sixpack checking his email. Cheap boxes that make Linux look as awful as the article states are not helping our cause. If it were a single store, I would suggest a user group get involved. Being a chain store, the manager may be unwilling (or unable) to improve things.
Fry's will sell just about anything if you can get in to the right people with little regard for quality. This just emphasizes that. If it is something they think will move, they'll try it.
You also have to be careful, because Fry's will take an item in as a return from a customer, and will shrink-wrap it and put it back on the shelf. Supposedly with a label, though I've bought shrink wrapped items that did not have a label and were obviously somebody's returns.
I returned a web-cam that did not work, and they put it with stuff to be "returned to shelf". Moral here, if you see a lot of items with "return" labels on them, outnumbering the non-returned items, avoid that product as most seem to be returning it for whatever reason and Fry's is just putting it back on the shelf.
I also purchased SuSE 8.0 Professional the weekend it was on the shelf, only to find out one enterprising person stole the CDs out of the box. I get the box home, open it up, and no CDs or DVD. I had to fight with two store managers and threaten public disclosure (hint: asking them for their first and last name and for them to spell it for you will often make the managers nervous) and who knows what just to get them to exchange the product so I could get disks. [The first box had no signs of tampering.] I opened the second box in front of the manager before leaving the store just to make sure I got the disks that time.
As a customer of Fry's I have had to return about 50% of the computer components I have purchased from them. Either they were DOA, they did not work reliably if they did work, or they would fail within about 48 to 72 hours. [Just to be fair, others I've talked to have not had the same experience, however I shopped at 2 different Frys in the Bay Area with the same results.]
The SuSE incident is also the last time I shopped at Fry's for anything other than a cable.
I'm also about to find out how well they honor their "extended warranty". I bought a five disk DVD player for the house (my wife bought it as an anniversary gift), less than a year ago, and now it failing too.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
In either case, it should be Microsoft that is upset, not Linux people. Something stinks.
I've uploaded a mirror here.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
The fry's in san diego sold out of their Thizlinux boxes quickly. One of the local LUG guys bought one, struggled with the interface (he couldn't find the counsel) then stripped the OS and installed RH. He was very happy with his ~100$ box afterwards.
"How completely shocking, that $7-an-hour floor sales staff at a discount warehouse store aren't very savvy about technology!"
Yeah! How dare a company that sells technology have knowledgable staff?
"One would think they'd hire 20-year industry veterans and experienced Unix sysadmins to tell people on what aisle the mouse pads are, right?"
Don't worry. With the economy tanking, the next words out of your mouth will be: "There over on aisle 12".
Most of the people who use linux are technically apt enough to build their own machines. The reason lindows is such a big deal is it is for the very poor people who could not pay the windows tax. But once you get to a higher powered machine, most linux enthusiasts would rather build their own or use a pre-existing computer.
The article isn't about how Fry's doesn't offer computers with Linux, it's about how nobody will actually *buy* those machines becasue the Fry's staff doesn't know squat about Linux and they're including ThizLinux, a distribution that is labelled on the company's website as an "Environment Tailor-made for Chinese" and is set, by default, to the Chinese language. Personally, I think the article is worth reading - it shocks me how little Fry's works to make Linux accessible. I mean, really, to put a sign up next to the machine offering to set Windows up on it - come on!
:)
At any rate, please read the article before you complain about how worthless it is.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
It probably wouldn't sell much if they just had a black console screen with root password prompt. Maybe a dozen bored teens might try to guess the name of the floor lackey's kitty, then move on. Probably very few fully-functional tax-paying adults would say "Gee Marge, look at that, an elite system with a 'root' password prompt. We gotta get one of those!"
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
First off, the article is very uninformative and contradictory. Its more of a rant than a news article. Look at the first paragraph. It states they've been selling Linux PCs for a while but then asks the question: "Are they really selling it?"
I'll assume that what the author is asking is: "Are they really trying their best to educate the public about the advantages of Linux?" Why even ask that question when you already know that their staff is technically incompetent?
Or what they're saying is: No one here is tech savy enough to go into the details of why Linux will do most of the things Windows will do but we have these cheap PCs that came with some weird Linux distro. If you have no idea what Linux is, yeah we'll throw Windows on it but you'll have to pay us to do it.
I'm not trying to defend Fry's (I've never been in one) nor am I saying Windows is the best OS ( I use OS X on my Mac and Debian on my laptop ). But what was the author expecting?
In the UK here we have PC World, a chain of large out of town stores owned by the wonderful Dixons Stores Group (who also own Dixons, Currys and founded Freeserve).
Anyway, the staff in these places are generally pretty braindead. There are exceptions - two friends of mine currently work in our local branch and they do know their stuff, but most of the staff just read whatever it says on the card next to the PC. Their technical support staff in the little in-store kiosks are usually dire. They know next to nothing about maintenance. I worked for a local company doing much the same thing, and we saw many a PC the guys at PC World had 'repaired'. One they deemed totally dead, never to work again actually turned out to have two bent pins on the hard disk. PCW kept it on a shelf for about 2 weeks before saying it was kaput.
This isn't to say PCW are totally bad though. They've lately started stocking a lot of OEM kit, and case mods. Their prices are coming down, and the range of kit they sell is pretty good. Rough with the smooth I guess.
Has anyone seen the PCs or Thiz Linux? The PC makes an e-machine look like a super computer... it's absolute crap complete with a Cyrix chipset. As far as Thiz Linux goes, it is also crap... If SCO wants to go after Linux, we ought to feed them Thiz Linux as a diversion. It's a stripped down e-mail, word processor, MP3 Player, and cheesy Web Browser. That's it! I hear users still preferred their speak-n-spell over Thiz Linux.
During the Vegas Fry's grand opening in Feb, these were on sale fr $99. Specs: 30gb, 128mb, 56k, 10/100, C3 733mhz, 52x, keyboard, mouse. Seems like at least $100 worth of file server hardware to me. I tried to leave ThizLinux on it, and configure Samba and all that, but in the end it was a huge headache, and no matter which panel (of 3) to configure the NIC, I still couldn't get online with it. So, I put Win2k on it, and used the included driver disk to get everything running. The driver disk installs all the drivers and handles all the reboots for you. Couldn't be easier to convert to WIndows.
I think that is the purpose of this machine. It avoids the Windows Tax, and introduces people to Linux, which is far from user friendly. As for the decision to include this distro over others, who knows? Maybe Thiz gave them a better deal on media? Maybe they gave more support for creating the install image (not that it did any good). I don't know. It's still a pretty kickass machine for 1 bill.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
.
DALLAS, TX - November 3, 1998 -- The call came in sometime after midnight. As soon as COO Kersten was informed that Fry's Electronics was calling, he rushed to the telephone.
"I immediately sensed the limitless potential. My own customer experiences with Fry's were so excruciatingly painful that I was overwhelmed with the possibilities of a relationship. They are truly Jedis of Customer Disservice", from whom I could learn much," Kersten stated.
Kersten was flattered to learn that Fry's was calling to talk business. Company President John Fry wanted to purchase APATHY Demotivators(tm), thousands of them. He had seen the design during a visit to his local post office, and felt it perfectly articulated their own indifferent sentiments towards customers. In completing the transaction, Fry's became the largest single customer of APATHY poster outside of the government sector.
"It is a wonderful irony that the company that turned Customer Disservice into an artform has entered into a relationship with the company that turned it into artwork. We couldn't be more flattered, offered Kersten on the purchase.
In reply, Fry offered, "This will keep our employees from losing sight of what is important. -- Nothing."
At one point, during a conversation with Fry, the notoriously unemotional Kersten found himself choked up with tears. His personal secretary and confidante of ten years, "Hey You", later commented that they had revealed some radical new techniques for Customer Disservice"; they intended to test in their Dallas store.
Kersten declined to reveal details, saying only, "How much does body armor go for these days" This led some to speculate that Fry's may be considering shooting customers at random to gauge subsequent buying patterns.
Fry's legendary indifference to customer service, although occasionally drawing criticism and media scrutiny, has only led to increased loyalty amongst their customer base and continued explosive growth. Analysts theorize that Fry.s customer base, heavily skewed towards poorly socialized, pure geek demographics, may actually derive some erotic gratification from the masochistic purchasing experience.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
ThizLinux is absolutely the worst Linux distro I've tried and I've tried a lot of them (over many years). Worse is that these machines seem difficult to get working with other distros unless your really know what you are doing.. making them a poor choice for average Linux users that just want to buy a cheap box and reinstall with their choice distro. However, if you can get them working they aren't bad for $100. They won't be playing any cutting edge games but they really work okay for basics.
:)
ThizLinux ranks along with Lindows in my list of distros that are giving Linux a bad name. Lindows at least is improving though.. so ThizLinux gets my top spot of shitty distro. I don't know why Fry's uses it except for the fact that these machines are probably made in some 3rd world country and the Chinese-lang install is possibly easier for their employees to install.
I wonder if Fry's would let the local lug group (LVLUG in this case) pass out Knoppix cd's and business cards (with the lug's contact info) with each of these machines.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I'm not surprised, really, I'm SURE he's observed the Customer Disservice first-hand on a periodic basis- considering that they've been in the Dallas area for some time now (And just opened the store in Irving...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Do you mean selling as in beer?
I bought machine from Frys with ThizLinux around one year ago. Back then it was pretty decent small linux box for very cheap price (around $400). It was cheapest PC they sold at the moment and I needed new small linux machine.
:)
The fact that it runs some linux distro was imprtant for me that hardware is compatible with Linux.
The first thing I did was to reformat it with RedHat Linux
Machine works perfectly and I am very happy.
I bought one with the SiS chipset and 1.1 GHz AMD Duron processor for $229. The hardware works, but you do get what you pay for.
The first thing you absolutely have to do is expand the memory. 32 Mb of the RAM is used for video so expanding it from 128 Mb (96 Mb useable) to at least 256 Mb (224 Mb useable) is mandatory. KDE barely loads in the original (128/96 Mb) configuration. I'm using 256/224 Mb right now and it is much better.
There is a reason why the KDE menu includes uninstall instructions, as does the manual. ThizLinux is a piece of unmitigated garbage and even they know it. It looks like a bastardized version of RedHat 8 converted to a combination of Chinese and English (Thiz is based in Hong Kong). Fry's probably receives these machines as-is from Hong Kong or China.
Now, as far as Linux distros that work on this machine, I'm typing this on my Fry's machine running Slackware 9 right now. It seems to work fine. RedHat 8 also works OK (as well as RH8 has ever worked but better than ThizLinux).
Mandrake 9.1 is a problem. The sound doesn't work (ALSA driver problem? It works in Slackware and RH8 with no ALSA) and neither does the wheel in the mouse (but it does see it as the middle button). Everything else seems OK, but I don't recommend Mandrake for this machine. It may be useable, but it shouldn't require this much work.
The SuSE 8.2 Live-Eval CD doesn't work with this chipset either. Don't even bother to try it. X won't even start. I tried installing it 4 times and it never was functional. That doens't mean a "regular" SuSE install won't work, but I don't have the full distro so I haven't tried it.
I haven't tried Debian, RH9, FreeBSD, Gentoo, or any other distro. They may work or they may not.
Same with any version of Windows. I would guess that at least Win98 would work. Based on other "odd" hardware I've tried to install it on, Windows 2000 might be a problem, but I haven't tried it on this box since I don't have it.
Overall, my recommendation for this cheap hardware is Slackware 9. This machine should only be purchased by those who can install their own OS.
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.
Thats more like a Lemon Jelly good show rather than Chicago... Oh woo oh oo oh baby please don't go
WalMart's description of Suse notes:
True windows does not do playback off the bad.. MP9 may do it but I dont have it handy.
However the average user installing Xine and the plugins required to get it running is just way too much for them to do and get it to work off the bat.
Also you'll notice that RH9 Mandrake9 Rpm's dont exist.. and I think recompiles of the src's failed on redhat 9 at least.
For me to say out of the box even if it's download then it has to be 1 self executing RPM.
Advertising and getting included on home computers is key .
It's gone now... Offers to log me in though!
What wrong with that?
It happens all the time the other way and MS get's money they didn't earn, Second the guy might already own a copy of Windows so have the clerk transfer it seems ok to me.
Help fight continental drift.
That's a sorry way to look at it. Where I grew up, electronics stores were the incubators of electronics geeks, hardware and software hackers. Young geeks would drool over the possibility of a job at the local A1 Electronics where there were plenty of opportunities to get their hands on stuff they, otherwise, couldn't afford. These kids were real experts and were quite willing to work for peanuts just for the chance to be around a place like that. After a tenure at one of these stores, many of them went on to become engineers or software developers.
Why Fry's isn't mining such resources for employees now is a mystery to me. Did the geeks go somewhere else or are the store owners just too dumb to spot a fantastic resource?
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Godwin's law states that any usenet flamefest will eventually degenerate into comparisons with Nazis, or something to that effect.
Have we replaced Nazis with SCO, such that any slashdot discussion will eventually end up with comparisons to SCO?
I like it!
Infuriate left and right
i worked for fry's at the palo alto until last week...the working conditions were horrible. The co-workers are ok for the most part, but management is just straight up retarded. I am not surprised that they would bundle a funky distro of linux instead of something normal like redhat or something like that. At work i would ask myself "what on earth are they thinking!?" probably 15-20 times a day. No Joke. Anyways, i quit fry's last week since i'm heading back to BYU at the end of the month anyways... the bottom line is, they pay everyone $8.00 an hour (except for management or higher who get a salary) and for 8 bucks an hour, what do ya expect? they don't even train the employees, so whatever we knew, it would be from what i learn from being interested in computers as a hobby... so expecting the salespeople at fry's to be familiar with linux..just isnt going to happen on a large scale. fry's can't retain knowledgeable people cause it's such a shizzy place to work. and as for their thinking in bundling "ThizLinux" ...yeah, like i said, "what were these people thinking??" pretty much sums it up.
PEACE
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
Saving sig aborted.
Reason: Your subject looks too much like ascii art
The guy that started the electronics store is the son or grandson of the founder of Fry's Food Store, but they were never under the same corporate "umbrella."
Fry's Food Stores are now owned by Kroger.
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.
I had an experience at Fry's recently that changed my view somewhat. I had purchased one of those ECS K7S5A Pro mobos with a bare Athlon CPU. I've set up the K7S5A a few times before so I know what to expect. This one had some serious problems, and rather than do some CPU swapping to see if it was the mobo or CPU I just took the whole thing back.
The person I dealt with didn't ask me what was wrong; he just printed off a return/restock label and proceeded to give me a refund. I said, "Uh, there's something wrong with this particular combo. It had [description of actual failure mode] and should be tested before returning it to stock." He then printed out a different label indicating testing required and put it in the other bin. I asked him what they'd do and he said it would indeed get tested.
I had forgotten to bring in the cables that came with the bundle, tho; took that in the next day and found the same guy who did the return. His jaw literally dropped when he realized I came back in just for this; he thanked me profusely and went over to his supervisor to show him and point me out (I had already walked away). I thought for a minute they were going to hoist me on their shoulders and parade me around the store.
So I think Fry's has created a problem with its liberal return policy; people must just want them to take the stuff back, so they don't volunteer any information that might endanger that. If so, I lament this "lowering of the bar". I just did what I thought was right, and clearly that's not what most people do. Bummer.
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
About the only thing that we can really know for sure is that reality in consumer electronics stores is about as rare as finding platinum dust in a supermarket bagel.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Gotta buy your Linux boxes at the store that also sells guns and frozen chickens... Wal-Mart!
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
It is generally believed that working for Fry's is asking to be insulted, daily. Not by the customers (although there are certainly some) but by the employer; Yes, Fr'ied pays their employees minimum wage, treat them like subhumans and presumed criminal (the door gestapo were there not so much as to make sure that you have paid for everything in the bag, but to make sure one of their clerks doesn't give you an unauthorized deep discount because you might know him/her.)
Now, what self-respecting geek would want to work in such a hostile environment making minimum wage?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I've only ever purchased one item from Fry's and it was a return ($5 cheaper - why not?). It was a D-Link DI-624+ 802.11g cable/DSL router. It had the little sticker on it saying that it was missing the ethernet cable - not a problem. I got it home and, after poking around with it for a bit, had to ask myself what its previous owner was thinking! Its configuration was _really_ screwed up (wireless was disabled, DHCP disabled, the thing had no apparent IP address on either interface, and a variety of other problems), and had I not known to hold the reset button down for a minute or two to clear it out, it probably would've gone back on the shelf for some other unsuspecting customer to pick up (and wonder why it didn't work).
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
Oh, sorry. That was me. What else is there to do in Fry's but fiddle with the stuff they're selling.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Only item I ever purchased from Fry's was a SCSI CD/RW (this was several years ago). I went through 3 before I found one that worked. Two of them had been ruined by people jamming IDE plugs into the SCSI port, pushing the pins out or breaking them off. So basically I lost a lot of time and Fry's lost a good deal of inventory. It's nice they take returns without question, but I wonder just how clueless the customers and salespeople are, the SCSI drives were 4x as expensive as faster IDE drives, you would think they would ask why and learn that the cheaper one is more likely to work in their machine.
At least here they use Red Hat Linux 9 in the computer they sell in mass market discounter store, ~$465 USD for that configuration, 3 years of warranty included.
First, my neighbor bought one of their low end, very cheap PC's loaded with ThizLinux.
What total crap. ThizLinux is sucky at best.
We'll skip the bottom of the bargain barrel PC and get to the Linux.
I went over and took one look at ThizLinux and popped in a Mandrake CD. Problem solved.
Fry's does NOT support Linux.
They sell it but they do NOT support it.
I've been in Fry's *many* times and the knotheads that work there can't find their own ass with both hands and a flashlight.
However, in the software section they did have SUSE 8.2 and Redhat 9 for sale.
**--BUT--**, they had ALL the Linux boxes in the section displayed as "UTILITIES"....
That was right next to the display "OPERATING SYSTEMS" that was loaded to the gills with XP boxes. So, they are misleading people by the way they present the product. People that have no knowledge of Linux, and most people fall into this category, would not look at the Linux boxes because they are mislabeled as "utilities" rather than as a operating system, which it *IS*..
Fry's is guilty of something here, I would wager that they did this under the direction of an M$ memo... I pointed out the misleading displays to a manager and got a shrug and a dumb look. A month later nothing had changed.
If you want to buy a machine without M$ on it from Fry's you have to DEMAND it, they will resist but they will cave in if you hammer the shit out of them. They'll give you ThizLinux, you can Thiz it out the window or Thiz it across the room into the circular file and load a good distro of your choice. But don't let them BS you into XP..
And if you want a boxed, retail distro, get Suse or Redhat there. I just wish they would put Mandrake on the shelf too, I would buy it.
I'm not sure why it's news to anybody that they're not selling and supporting Linux well. They don't sell and support ANYTHING well. Fry's is great if you know exactly what you want, it sucks if you want advice or support.
I'm also not sure how this article asserts that they are not selling Linux - they are clearly selling Linux, they are just diong it the same half-assed way they sell everything else.
For those of you who may not be aware, MadPenguin.org has been serving an article about Fry's Electronics having been selling a Linux desktop PC loaded with ThizLinux for quite a while now. The question is, are they really going to keep serving it through a slashdotting? The answer is a definitive no.
Do these guys ship ? Unfortunatrely I dont live anywhere near a fry's and I cant find this machine on their website.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
I called my local Fry's curious if they had linux PCs. They did. A 733mhz Cyrix based system for $300. That's nuts. It tells me these PCs have probably been sitting on the shelf a long, long time (even walmart's $199 PC has a 1.2 gig duron).
Trouble is, they jumped the gun releasing linux to the masses. It wasn't till kde 3.0/gnome 2.2 or so that linux was good looking enough to sell to the average joe. Really, I'd guess they intended all along for end users to replace the OS, and simply included linux as either a) a bit of added value or b) an excuse to keep Microsoft off their back.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The article's attitude bewilders me. Fry's is doing a good thing by distributing Linux-based machines, and letting people avoid the hidden MS tax. Why slap them in the face?
It's true that these boxes come with a lot of prominently displayed info on how to erase Linux and install Windows. So what? Let's be realistic -- Windows has 98% of the desktop market.
The article gives the impression that ThizLinux is a totally crippled OS. Well, I'm currently running FreeBSD on both my Fry's machines, but I did play with ThizLinux for a little while when I got the first machine. Everything was in English, not Chinese. It seemed like quite a nice system for somebody naive about computers. You could surf, send e-mail, word-process, and play games. Guess what? -- that's all your typical home user wants to do with a computer! It's true that the ThizLinux web site seems to be only in Chinese, but I'm sure plenty of people in China use Linux distros that have English-only web sites.
I've been very happy with these machines. For $150-250 (the prices fluctuates based on the phases of the moon), I got hardware that feels essentially the same as my wife's $2000 new iMac. I've never had any hardware problems at all. My only complaint was that some of the hardware documentation was a little skimpy and/or incomplete. I did have to buy an external modem for my home box because it apparently came with a Winmodem. Also, they seemed to have changed sound chips between the time when I bought the first machine and the time when I bought the second one, and I was never able to get sound working on the second one -- maybe someone with a little more savvy would've been able to solve that problem.
The Walmart Linux boxes seem to get all the attention, but I'd recommend the Fry's machines to a friend instead. For one thing, you can buy them in the store, which saves you money on shipping, whereas AFAIK the Walmart boxes are only available online.
Find free books.
Come on, delete all the url except the domain after reading the article (https://madpenguin.org) and you are promptly presented with their ensim site configuration tool. Since when was it good practice to not even move this from the root of the domain? Come on, this is stupid. The Fry's in Austin, TX not only sells these boxes well, they can answer the questions. One bad experience because of a poor sales staff, ok he gets his opinion, but really, can't we get at least competent geeks giving their opinions here? Don't scrutinize companies for giving their customers what they want if you aren't going to manage your own business. At least what they're selling sells.
Microcenter is as good as it gets in Minneapolis, and I think it's pretty good. Before Microcenter your choices were CompUSA and BestBuy, and neither one of those was very good.
Microcenter actually sold motherboards and other build it yourself components, while CompUSA and BB, IMHO, have become appliance stores.
I've gotten burned doing work in our remote offices and have been saved by Microcenter -- how many places can I find a toner, cat 5 jacks, a CD jacket and a 68 pin to VHD SCSI cable in one store?
I went to the Fry's in Orange County. It was amusing, but I'll trade their weird pricing, weird return policy and even weirder staff for slightly higher prices at Microcenter any day.
I got the same hardware a few weeks ago for use as a test system (128MB, SiS chipset, 1.1GHz Duron), and have had no problems running RH8, W2K Pro, and W2K Server, after adding memory to make it 256MB.
I also spent a couple of hours poking at ThizLinux, but removed it in favor of RH8 for convenience.
I think this is a convenient option for someone needing a generic PC box that can (or needs to) install and configure their system.
"doesn't fry's sell cases,motheboards,cpu's etc? why would you have to DEMAND to get a machine w/o windows?
:-)"
That's for people that buy machines already assembled. I've never bought an assembled PC.
also, a true linux zelot does not notify the manager about the misabled display, he simply fixes it himself.
I did last week. I took boxes of Linux and sprinkled them all through the XP display. I put them in front, in back, in between the XP boxes so that as people take down XP boxes they would reveal Linux boxes behind. I put at least a dozen and a half like that then left.
I'll be back there in a few weeks and I'll just do it again. And again. And again..
This is war baby!
You also have to be careful, because Fry's will take an item in as a return from a customer, and will shrink-wrap it and put it back on the shelf.
IANA Fry's employee, but I have asked about their policy. Apparently, if something is returned once, they put it on the shelf. If it's returned again, they RMA it (or whatever). (My inquiry was made at the Sunnyvale Fry's, but I assume the policy is the same at others.)
Given the number of clueless users, and the number of clueful users, maybe that's a good thing-- see the reply about the router. Maybe the first customer was an idiot. But if I didn't live so close to Fry's, I'd probably be singing a different tune.
As a customer of Fry's I have had to return about 50% of the computer components I have purchased from them.
I only shop at Fry's if I'm prepared to return the item. I'd say about 50% correlates to my experiences too. I'd never buy anything with subtle or catastrophic failure modes from them-- RAM, CPUs, tactical nuclear weapons, never from Fry's.
or, in my case, a definitive 404 not found
These boxes were terminally "on the way over from China" during the time I was at Fry's in Computer Accessory Sales. I didn't get a chance to get my paws on one.
If Fry's was truly serious about selling a Linux box in their stores they would have loaded it with a better distro. I think that Thiz is used to QC (ha!) the boxes before they get loaded into the containers for the long journey to the Bay Area.
BTW the boxes are crap too...PC Chips motherboards. They really could have done better with a true EPIA-platform setup but instead these VIA CPU machines are the worst of both worlds. If you want something like this that will run Linux until the cows come home and fit in a space the size of a looseleaf binder, get an EPIA-M Nehemiah in a Cubid case. VIA is not great for making chipsets for other processors, but they do just fine with their own.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Let's read between the lines, shall we:
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, warez monkeys. Here's a cheap and reasonably fast box you can rebuild with that Devil's 0wn copy of Windows XP you've had stashed in your bedroom since you leeched it from that Russian FTP server. We won't ask any questions, even though you don't have a beard or sandals. ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The requested URL
About a month ago, I bought one of these for my mom, to replace her ailing early p2 machine. I must say that I was taken aback when I read the manual to the machine. It described how Fry's explicitly does not support linux. The next page after that contained what the default password to the machine was. And that was where the Linux instructions ended. After that followed 5-6 pages detailing multiple methods to remove Linux and install Windows, and then explaining that they only had tech support for Windows on these machines if you called them.
I dunno, but I was pretty sure that if you sell a computer loaded with one operating system, they should support it.
Oh yeah, and they don't even explain the undeniable fastest way to put windows... delete the partition information and make a new fat32 entry into the partition table... duh
CoyboyNeal is God
No, all you need to do to buy an OEM copy of XP Home or XP Pro at Fry's is to buy a hard drive or a motherboard+CPU or a barebones system. I don't know if they even enforce those requirements anymore...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Irritating as I find the "out of store check", I dislike shoplifting even more. The stores wouldn't do it if it didn't keep down their costs. I'd rather go through such a check than pay a 10% premium on everything, you know?
The real solution would be flogging for shoplifting, but I'm sure that'd never go through. Then I wouldn't hae to do the check *or* pay the premium. Singapore has it knocked.
May we never see th
That would be way easy because right now they are running on Netware. Novell is pushing Linux as an alternative system to run Netware on. All the point-of-sales and lookup boxes are basically diskless netbooting Netware terminals. Moving over to Linux should be a breeze for them.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Nope. Clone shops and swap meet vendors sell you a shrink wrapped Windows that you can install yourself. Recently from $49 for Win98 up to $129 for WinXP Pro. The Microsoft license is good for new computers and upgrades, the latter only needing a hard drive or motherboard to qualify. At the local swap meet vendors were getting a little lax and selling the OS's all by themselves for a little while until the MS reps that wandered through informed the lawyers. Then the vendors became careful about the hard drive or motherboard purchases. Of course one vendor had a stack of 540M harddrives, yes Meg not Gig, $5 as is, no returns. He also had a stack of WinXP OEMs that the $5 hard drive qualified you for.
The only big-ticket items I usually buy there are disk drives. When Fry's has them on sale, the prices are usually pretty good. The only reason I buy anything else from them is convenience; the store is a mile from my house and on the way home from work.
>Plus, I hate stores that make you "clear customs" before you can leave
Just walk on past them and out the door. It can be hard to do in the smaller Fry's stores where the sheep are all lined up waiting to be allowed to exit, but it's easy in the larger ones. Even in the smallish ones I can usually "excuse me" myself past the line and the inspectors. They've never hassled me when I've done this, though I sometimes get a dirty look. But even some of the folks doing this job at my local Fry's (Sunnyvale) seem to realize just how stupid it is.
On a side note, I actually encountered a helpful Fry's employee last week. He climbed up and down ladders and dug through several pallets of disk drives to find two unopened boxes with the drive I wanted. Then he even opened the boxes and check to make sure the antistatic bags were still sealed. I was astonished.
You know, I found it vaguely irritating back when people posted full text from somewhere like CNN in the article ("in case the article got slashdotted"). However, the article is dead. It's an entirely legitimate bit of work he did. I don't see the problem with him reaping a bloody three points of karma for doing this, you know?
May we never see th
I've only experienced the Fry's in Burbank. Pretty much, if you talk to a salesman, they want to sell you the most expensive thing.
:)
I looked at their Linux machine in the past. I managed to find it on my own, but when I approached a salesman to ask questions (like, how do I log in), they were quick to push me to more expensive machines.
I'm never really happy to shop there. They do have a decent selection of cat5 cable and fiber patch cables.
I went to look for a stereo receiver there a couple months ago. They annoyed the shit out of me. I had an old Sony receiver that was way behind the times. I wanted another Sony as a replacement. They were hell-bent on selling me another brand. So I told him, "take out the books, and let me compare features", since their feature list is really just what's on the box, which was almost nothing on most of the boxes. They wouldn't do it. I warned him that he was loosing the sale if he couldn't give me an accurate feature list. I ended up going down to Circuit City. They had the brand that Fry's was hard-selling me on. Ya, it was more expensive, but the Sony was better, especially for what I wanted.
We went to Fry's to buy some parts for my friends new computer. He had bought some parts already, and needed a few final parts, including memory. He wanted it done that day, so we *HAD* to get at least some memory for it, and then ordered name-brand memory online. I opted for 256Mb of cheap memory. It was like $69 for the cheap brand DIMM. The salesman was trying to fast-talk my friend. The salesman offered him 2 128Mb DIMMS of what he said was a better brand for $69 each. Since none of them were name brand, it was all shades of crap.. I asked a few careful questions, being very sure to include verbage that had no way of being mistaken. He *SAID* my friend was getting both 128MB DIMMS for a total of $69 ($35.50 ea). He verified twice, and then rang up $138 ($69*2). My friend wasn't reading the nasty monochrome terminal screen that they work on, but I'm an asshole like that, and stopped him in mid-order. Like, WTF, I told him cheap. Cheapest you have, he's only using it for a few days til good memory comes in.
BTW, my apologies if I got the prices or sizes wrong on that last example. It's the general idea that they were doubling the price on him.
Generally, if I can make it through the store without talking to a salesman, it's a relatively pleasant shopping experience. I find it best to walk around with a "I'm going to kill you if you approach me" attitude, and growl if they ask "Can I help you." That actually works in most stores.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Alot of people gripe about buying items from Fry's. You just simply have to learn how to shop their. Here is quick rule of thumb.
For every item you want or are specificaly going to Fry's for, plan on 3 trips.
1. Trip #1 is to buy item.
2. Trip #2 is to return #1 item and get what you really wanted.
3. Trip #3 is to return #2 item and get one that works.
Did you see the recent story where XP was only slightly easier to use than KDE? Which means KDE is likely easier to use than Win95/95OSR2/98/98se/me/nt 4.0 etc.
In other words, usability is at least as high as what linux has been compared to for years.
My boss's boss, not a propeller head, just bought a used laptop with a linux distro. She couldn't recall the name, but it works fine for her.
Primetime, baby.
I really hate the fuckers that have something break on them, buy a new one from a retailer (say...a PS2), and then keep the new one and return the broken one in the box. People like that should be casterated. It's a complete and utter pain in the ass for everyone else involved.
May we never see th
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Absolutely. It's bad enough that some hardware vendors (inluding Plextor and LiteOn, IIRC) won't sell their products through Fry's anymore. They were just getting too many returns from clueless Fry's customers and weren't making money through that channel.
[Note: this is coming from an avid Red Hat user, so this certainly isn't a Gentoo troll].
Red Hat tries to sell up2date service with their distro -- it's one of the few ways they can make money off it. The problem is that up2date utterly sucks. It's slow, flaky, lacks features, and nothing but the stock Red Hat software is available via it. It's the single worst thing in Red Hat. Everyone using RH that's serious about automated download and install uses apt or (better, IMHO) yum. The average person using RH would be much happier using synaptic with a few preset distribution sites and a wide range of software than they would with the existing, rather lame package downloader and small selection of software.
May we never see th
>I would wager that they did this under the direction of an M$ memo...
Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by plain old ignorance, which is plentiful at Fry's.
Last time I looked through their music section, I found the Pink Floyd CD's filed under F.
You want a LUG to get on their ass? Are you *daft*?
Let's see what they're doing. They're making it easier to use Linux than to use Windows (solves complaint (a) of Linux folks, that Windows is "preinstalled" everywhere so people use it instead). So there is a chance that the person will end up using Linux. Suppose that person chooses to install Windows instead. There's a reasonable chance it's pirated. Ah hah! Big Bad Microsoft gets shafed on a license fee! That means smaller war chests to attack Linux, their primary competitor, with. We win *again*.
Now, is this as good as it could be? Of course not. But it's a win-win situation for us.
If Linux is really so much better than Windows (and I believe it to be) then it's inevitable that it will push out Windows. It may take a bit, but these folks are helping spread it around. Sic your LUG on someone that just sells machines with Windows installed.
May we never see th
Isn't this a dupe? We already knew Fry was being cancelled...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
next time perhaps just say the cd doesnt work in your machine, and you need another? surely they take back faulty software when the media is bad.
explaining the situation (well its got an online key that is unique, and i have to activate it online, and its already been used) is just going to get you dumb stares from most store employees ime...
E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
Fry's is a place to go when you know what you want and you know how to use it. Never expect an honest and/or correct answer from a Fry's employee. The honest comes from the fact that it's a retail outlet, and the correct comes from the fact that they pay as little as possible. That is why, on average, 50% of the employees of any given Fry's store will be asian girls. They have small fingers which are good for hitting the buttons on cash registers, and no one expects them to know anything. (Whether they do or not, well, that's up to you, but none of the ones I've talked to at any Fry's have known their ass from... what's that round thing in the ground over there?)
However Fry's can be a great place for you to pick up items on the cheap if you are close enough to get their sale circulars. They are definitely one of the stores with the least clue about the internet, they owned their domain for YEARS before they did anything with it, even a phone numbers/locations page, and their locations don't map or anything. They do some online sales through outpost.com but that's guaranteed to be their least exciting deals because you know they wouldn't bother putting anything with a lot of price fluctuation online. If you go to Fry's once a week, or read the ad circular, you WILL end up seeing a ton of items for good prices. These items will never be a motherboard, memory, or a CPU, unless you end up with most of a system (needing drives and video for example.) Their video cards are also always horrendously overpriced, as are cables, which is no shock.
(A word on cables: Always buy cables over the internet unless you know someone at a computer store who will get them for you at cost. A cable that costs $25 at fry's will cost you $5 via mail order, this is literal, I just got the cable in the mail, and it's a 6 to 6 pin 6' 1394 cable.)
In general I have had little trouble returning things to Fry's (I've never purchased software there though - at those prices? ha ha!) but I have definitely noticed the problem you describe where people return things broken and they just re-shelf 'em. What's really amusing is that people are constantly returning boxes with the wrong (old) product in them, and THOSE end up back on the shelf. Once I purchased a LVD SCSI controller from Fry's and got it home only to discover that it had an ISA Fast/Narrow SCSI card in the box. Needless to say I was pretty pissed and I took it back and I was pissed enough to where they didn't argue, in fact they gave me $20 off the better SCSI controller I ended up purchasing because the card I bought had gone off the market. Well, the card I thought I'd purchased, anyway.
So, to make sure you don't get ripped off, open everything before you buy it. Shit, I've been known to open spindles of CDR media while standing in the aisle to find out what color they were, back when that mattered. Anything that looks like it might have been tampered with gets opened up and rooted through and if I don't like it, it goes right back on the shelf like that, fuck 'em. That's what they get for not running a tighter ship.
If anyone is wondering what Fry's IS good for, besides returning your bad hardware in the box for some other, probably newer hardware, and getting a free upgrade; They often have sales on CDR media or assorted home electronics like DVD players. Their open box deals (this only helps you if you live close and go often) can get you some great stuff; I passed on them like a dolt but they had two $300-retail progressive scan dvd/svcd/vcd/mp3/photocd players (a real brand, not apex or something) for $99 each, I should have bought them both and then taken back whichever one was wonkier. And when they have a sale on cases, that's a good way to get a case at a good price without paying sales tax. They're also a reasonably economical and convenient way to get electronic components, heat shrink tubing, and so on.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Who do they think they are fooling? This machine is built to 'avoid the windows tax' so that people can pirate copies of windows for it. Sell it ultra cheap without the OS 99% of people want, and then let them get a copy from their friends. Nobody wants to run a lame Linux distro on it. They want to steal windows.
yeah, I stopped by Fry's to look at the $229 linux box while I was picking up some other things, and decided to get one. It was running an obscure asian redhat 8.0 knockoff, which was for me merely proof that it could run Linux - so I bought the box, along with a 512 MB RAM module and took it home.
I popped in a spare GeForce 2 and LinTV video capture card and installed RH 9 - everything was recognized, and worked fine. After grabbing some extra packages from freshrpms, I was recording TV shows, playing Q3A demo, and generally having fun.
The box is surprisingly good quality. The chipset is all sis, video, ethernet, sound etc. I haven't had any trouble with it at all, except for one oddity - when you press CTL-ALT-BKSP, the machine shuts down - some weird BIOS thing I guess - but other than that, it's good piece of hardware for running a full blown linux workstation.
As for the Fry's crew, they were absolutely clueless about computers, and especially about Linux. It was sad, really - they had no idea what Linux can do.
haha true!
stop going back to their store!
don't give them your business!
E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
I go to frys for cheap readily available stuff, not for technical knowledge/support.
Yes, I have bought two of those PCs, thaey are currently branded under the "Great Quality" brand. I would review them as 'good enough for under $250'.
I have removed Thiz from both systewms (the configuration of the first system didn't/couldn't configure to the video of the box, and the second was better, but I want something with a more well known name behind the distro.) they now sit as either Win 98 or Mandrake PCs. They are no speed demons they use GigaPro (aka Cyrix) C3 processors which aren't very efficient and also are 686 wannabes (but aren't).
Like I mentioned befor the first one I got a couple years back was $250, the most recent one was under $200. I don't buy at that discount and expect the staff to have any skills except ringing up the price properly. In fact I rarly ask sales staff for any assistance or opinion as I find it is usually either driven by minimum-wage ignorance or commission driven opinions.
I get my real answers usually from the newsgroups and places like Slashdot.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I bought one of the Fry's ThizLinux boxes about six months ago to use as a server for our company intranet. Since I didn't know much about that particular distro, the first thing that I did was to load the current Redhat distribution on it. It has been running with no problems and performing its function well since then.
I do not consider the policy of putting returned products back on the shelf to be a problem. Just the fact that a particular product has a large number of repackaged items on the shelf is my cue to avoid that particular brand.
I have had mixed results with products bought at Fry's, but I have never had a problem returning an item. I have even returned a CD Writer that offered a rebate starting the day after I bought it. I just told the person at the return desk that I wasn't satisfied with it because I needed a receipt with today's date on it to send away for the $40 rebate. No problem, they gave me a refund, and I picked up another unit on the way out of the store.
Where's the source code distributed for ThizLinux? I'm sure I've just missed it somewhere. Anyone?
I'd be pretty pissed off at you if you recommended I buy a machine with a nonfunctional modem and no sound.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I spent 3 years at the Fry's Corporate Headquarters as a consultant doing various Linux stuff for them. Note that this does NOT mean I worked for Fry's in the sense that I'm a drooling moron who can't tie his shoelaces without instructions. Actually, even that description is a bit inaccurate; Fry's has a videoconferencing network set up where vendors give technical product information to the sales associates so they at least have some foundation of knowledge with which to answer technical customer questions. I suspect that the popular perception of their associates comes from the fact that retail shops only exist because people want to feel superior or special somehow, and the folks on slashdot are at some extreme of the personality spectrum where they feel some overriding need to talk down to people at Fry's, or something. The associates in Fremont and Sunnyvale (the highest grossing store in the chain) actually know stuff like whether a motherboard will take DDR or what this onboard IDE raid thing means, for example; they're not all complete morons, especially now that they're picking up semi-technical people who got hit when the bubble burst.
One day at the corporate office when I was doing the ISP thing for them (John Fry had a hard-on for doing an ISP because he wants to be in some business with low-cost recurring service revenue, or something), they drop one of these boxes in my lap and said "give me your opinion of this thing". So I poke around and find out that it's a cheapo Asian Linux distribution with the then-amazing Linux port of PowerDVD so users could play DVDs on their Linux machine. Someone else and I grabbed a random sample DVD from the buyer's cubicles (an awful horror movie iirc) and tried to play it - worked mostly fine.
Then they wanted me to come up with installation procedures for Windows on the machines. I asked them why so I would have some context, and John did everything but say outright that they wanted to sell a machine that people could put their own operating system on. The reason why is because Fry's has this low price leader mentality where they feel something's wrong unless they have the lowest price on a certain product, and the Windows tax is applied pretty equally among the large computer manufacturers. The idea is that they could undercut everyone if they had a computer without an operating system... the fact that we were going to be supplying something with the machines (a set of instructions for installing Windows on the machines) demonstrated how important this was to them, because as a rule Fry's doesn't sell anything except what the vendor sticks in the box.
Regarding the posts about how there are people in the buying chain who understand Linux - yes, there are. There was a buyer who did do mainly Linux stuff, and had little stuffed penguins spread around his desk all the time. I was in there a lot asking about whether we would be carrying various things, or letting him know where he can get stuff from Loki to put on the shelves. At one point, they actually stuck the Wasabi distribution of NetBSD on the shelves, although it didn't sell very well.
Linux is actually pretty important for Fry's - at one point they were selling more of it than Windows, although I'm not sure that's still true now that the "hobbyist" feel is fading. The fact that Linux was outselling Windows was one of the main driving factors for Fry's to start sticking various infrastructure systems on Linux instead of Netware or Windows, which is what they've run in the past. They're still mostly Netware or Windows, but they're looking real hard at moving parts of outpost.com (their online sales group) onto Linux from Oracle/BEA/Solaris.
-- thalakan
broken links that open up other pages in the middle of a frame, they claim to support linux, even tho it appears they have no employees that speak chinese (for their version of linux).
also, could not find a computer for sale with linux on their site. which brings me to another point: who ever it was that designed their site should be taken out and shot. that has to be the worst designed ecommerce site, their outpost.com site that is. actually, all of their sites. links that dont work right, very bad descriptions. they dont say what OS the computers use at all, just XP in the title of the computer. this is the kind of crap you expected in 1998 when most companies were new to the web, but any company that has a site this bad doesn't deserve any business.
worst ecommerce site ever.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Oops. This is a war story, not an endorsement of theft. If you decise to (mis)use this information, you're on your own!
Rob, you gotta stop accepting stories from this idiot. He only submits them to promote his own site. Which I don't mind, except that his site isn't SE-effect-proof, and he always submits invalid links!
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Ok, lets clear a few things up.
I work at the new San Marco's Store north of
San Diego. I was there during the initial hiring
process before the store was opened.
First of no body probably hates the Fry's culture more than the Sales people themselfs.
The culture of Fry's is to find the cheapest possible way of doing things.. That means, we have no HR department, the sales people themselfs have to make all the friggin signs, the commisioned sales people find themself working in backstock, (mind you we make minimum wage).
Anyhow onto the topic, I am a commissioned sales person in the computer department. I fancy myself on being the most knowledgeable there. What does that mean to me? It means I make the least money out of anyone there.. Why? Because much of my time is wasted running between associates answering simple questions for THIER customers. Or when a customer finds I actually know what I'm talking about, I get stuck with him draining every bit of knowledge out of my head for over an hour.
I repeat I'm on minimum wage, so i'f i'm not selling, i'm not making money.
I'm not there to give newbies a crash course in wireless networking 101. That sounds harsh but it takes a lot of time and its NOT MY JOB to do that.
So hows this fit into the Fry's culture and hiring process? They see numbers, and the people with no computer knowledge generate more sales numbers than those do know stuff about computers.. See where I'm going?
Anyhow I could rant forever but I'll stop here and let everyone think on that.
"Maybe I shouldn't care... and in reality it isn't going to make a difference in my day whether they sell those boxes or not. It just bothers me that Linux is being portrayed this way to the general public. My message to the people who run Fry's Electronics (and any other outlet who may sell Linux PCs) is simple: If you are going to sell Linux boxes, please educate your staff on the subject, rather than allowing them to sound ignorant in front of your customers. It is an embarrassment to you as much as it is to the Linux community. Since you are selling Linux boxes, please make sure that they are set with a language appropriate to your locale. If your local to France, sell a French 'speaking' machine. It's that simple. One last thing: Load a distribution that is consumer friendly. This should have been consideration number one, but since you missed it entirely, I'm pointing it out now."
I agree with this, but I also realize that the people in these stores are not computer experts of ANY kind. They can't answer questions about Windows either, although they are more inclined to react to Windows questions with something out of their own experience.
One of the biggest problems with Windows right now in fact is that there is so little DEFINITIVE reference material on it from a users point of view. Microsoft stopped documenting anything beyond the APIs a long time ago and now everything your read about Windows is speculation. Diagnosing Windows problems has gotten to be a voodoo art more than a well defined process. All the more reason for it to wind up in the sh*t can of history where it belongs.
As far as the bad version of Linux this thing is running, I bet the hardware AND software came bundled to Fry's from China at a super bargain price.
On the other hand, if my intention was to buy a cheap machine to run Linux on, I'd feel a lot better about getting one of these than one of the cheap Windows machines. Chances are the cheap Linux machine has more generic components that will operate with ANY version of Linux, while the Windows machines are more likely to include some proprietary component to make you either dependent on the manufacturer, Microsoft, or both.
If I were in the market for a laptop right now I'd probably get one of those $700 Lindows version and then install Debian on it. I bet it would work just fine.
yeh, thanks. console. spell check anyone?
www.madpenguin.org
/home/virtual/site21/fst/var/www/html/header.php on line 188
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oops
This link the the article works
I used to work at Frys in the service department, we handled returns on all computers, these included. These computers are in the ad every other week for $189 or $199. We would return 60-70 a week with most of them going back to the manufacuter. But they were almost all exchanges so the customer still got a computer that had linux on it. Then there were the 30-40 support calls a day asking about how to use it or install windows.
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I took a look at this thing for a new computer purchase and the first thing I noticed was how slow applications took to launch. Insane to tolerate that on a 1GHZ+ box, I don't care if it's a celeron or a duron or what. I don't know if it's the OS or if it has a really slow RPM drive or what. I also saw that it didn't have an AGP slot and realized it was a bad idea to buy it.
I wound up buying a new i865-based motherboard w/PIV 2.4ghz (hyperthreading capable) and CPU cooler for my existing PII case (and some other things to round out the upgrade).
Interesting story about that was that the sales rep told me to buy the wrong CPU cooler so I had to go back and swap it for the right kind!
In the end I spent about $600 or so after tax and wound up with a much better machine (reusing my existing modern peripherals I had recently added to my old box to prop it up) than the Linux monstrosity or other "low-end" machines from eMachines or Dell.
And I wasn't left with a lot of redundant peripherlas afterwards like you normally are when you buy a new PC.
That message once again,
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
hehe.. I like this thread. Fortunately I haven't had nearly as many problems with the local Frys (Phoenix, AZ). Probably 10-15% return rate on the stuff I buy there.
Fortunately this location seems pretty good about labeling their returns. I don't think I have had an experience buying something that appeared new that was infact a return.
Though like the other Fry's, this one is very similar -- you cannot go in there without knowing what you want and doing your homework and knowing what products are good.
My BIGGEST gripe was recently. They were selling Western Digital 200GB drives w/rebate for $130 (after rebate). Stocked on the shelf were only returned drives with the UPC removed on every single package! Naturally, knowing my way around Fry's, I bugged a floor drone to go in the back and get me a non-returned drive, however, I feel for all of those people who go to the store, pick up a drive, install it then realize after installing the UPC was missing. What a joke.
In anycase, I never recommend Fry's to anyone unless they are tech saavy and do their homework. Atleast other places (the compusas, bestbuys, circuit city's, etc..) seem to stock better overall products (even if their prices tend to be a bit higher)
This is exactly what they are doing. I picked one these up for a buddy about a year ago.
Funny thing about ThizLinux, in the kde or gnome start menu, there's a option "uninstall thizlinux". Nothing subtle about it. The little manual comes that comes with these machines even has a section that clearly explains how to install windows on these machines. If fry's really wanted to sell linux machines, you'd thing they use a decent distro, not one that's customized to easily be uninstalled.
One more thing, these boxes have an intergrated 3D graphics chip, that only does directX (no openGL drivers) and just 2D linux drivers.
Still this stuff doesn't bother that much since they are going for 179 or 199 at the fry's in phoenix, its still a great deal.
Not sure if the article points this stuff out since its slashdotted.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
I was there last night, and as I walked out, I noticed two huge goons with walkie talkies standing flat against the corner around where shoppers exit, no sooner had I passed them they sprang into action and immediately stopped a woman and had her in cuffs in seconds. They did a pretty good job, but they were acting like the powermad monkeyboys that they were, warning people to go about their business and there was nothing to see, etc...
So long as you get the source code with the binaries, or they give it to you upon request, they can set it up to expire. I could write a "30 day expiration" demo version of EMACS if I wanted to. Of course, you could just hack the source code to remove that restriction and distribute it. Or distribute the ungimped one I frustrate you into buying.
Lots of people mentioned the Sunnyvale Fry's... I just I'd remind everyone of the Palo Alto Fry's.
It has a "western theme". Lots of the "weathered wood" look. Low ceiling. There's a wagon wheel placed prominently. Obviously, NOT an old Incredible Universe location. Damn cheesy.
On the other hand, the Frys in San Diego that did take over the Incredible Universe location is a wide open warehouse... Some random neon signs, etc. Huge parking lot. Impossible to get to by public transportation.
Side Note 1 - Every single Creative Labs product I have ever bought at Fry's has been returned within 48 hours. Not sure whether to blame it on Fry's or not, but I assume it really the crappy Creative crap.
Side Note 2 - The main reason I like Frys-- They enabled my first "real" hardware hack.
One day I had to rig up a thing that allowed an AIX machine running PICK to print to an old Epson printer the kompany had laying around. Techtronix to Parallel conversion.
Anyway, I got the parts at Fry's. I made the thing, and it worked. Sure, I could have got the parts at Radio Shack or Joe's Computer Shoppe. But, I didn't. I got them at Fry's. And, so for that simple reason. I like Fry's
I bought of these recently, intending to wipe linux off it and install Windoze (a new computer for my boss). I booted it up once to take a look at the linux...and it has a "uninstall linux" option in the start menu. Just pick that and it erases the partitions and reboots the machine. Just have a windows CD in the drive and you're ready to go.
On top of that, in the documentation, they expressly state that there is no support what-so-ever for Thizlinux.
So this is just a way to sell an assembled, tested PC w/o windows. And good for Fry's, for offering a way to get around the "Microsoft tax".
However, in the software section they did have SUSE 8.2 and Redhat 9 for sale.
**--BUT--**, they had ALL the Linux boxes in the section displayed as "UTILITIES"....
That was right next to the display "OPERATING SYSTEMS" that was loaded to the gills with XP boxes. So, they are misleading people by the way they present the product. People that have no knowledge of Linux, and most people fall into this category, would not look at the Linux boxes because they are mislabeled as "utilities" rather than as a operating system, which it *IS*..
That's a problem with that particular store. I can tell you for a fact that in my store, all of our Linux/BSD stuff is sitting right next to Windows. I remember when I started working at Fry's almost three years ago, we had Linux on the utilities aisle with our "server operating systems", including Windows 2000 Server upgrades; they shouldn't be there now. That store probably never rearranged the shelves so they were in their proper place.
Fry's is guilty of something here, I would wager that they did this under the direction of an M$ memo... I pointed out the misleading displays to a manager and got a shrug and a dumb look. A month later nothing had changed.
Sorry, MS doesn't dictate any of our merchandising outside of maybe paying for product placement on an endcap. Our buyers and district managers are in my store every three months and if we were guilty of violating such direction, they didn't say anything to us about it, and beleive me, they would.
If you want to buy a machine without M$ on it from Fry's you have to DEMAND it, they will resist but they will cave in if you hammer the shit out of them. They'll give you ThizLinux, you can Thiz it out the window or Thiz it across the room into the circular file and load a good distro of your choice. But don't let them BS you into XP..
Um, all of our machines other than that ThizLinux box come preloaded. So yes, if you want something else, you're going to have to pay to have it installed.
And if you want a boxed, retail distro, get Suse or Redhat there. I just wish they would put Mandrake on the shelf too, I would buy it.
And I would sell it, but until I was out shopping today I had never seen a box for Mandrake 9.1 (the last I saw was 9.0); I'll inquire into it tomorrow and find out why we don't have it.
Jay (=
If you are capable of setting the time on your VCR, you might find Fry's to be really useful. They have an amazing selection of electronics for very low prices. But you have to know what you want without hoping for help.
As for the Mad Penguin article, they were upset that Fry's was offering to install Windows (for a fee) on the Linux machine they were selling. I think it is obvious what they are doing. They slapped a crappy distro on it so that MS doesn't come after them for selling a machine without an OS. They figure that those who want to pirate Windows can do so themselves and those who want to install another version of Linux can do so as well. For those who don't get it and figure that they'll save money by buying the machine, buying WinME in a box, and paying Fry's to install it, Fry's is offering that service. This seems simple enough to understand. Fry's is selling a box with Linux on it, but Fry's is not evangelizing for Linux. Do you really want Fry's to promote Linux anyhow?
Lasers Controlled Games!
> No person working at Wal-Mart would even KNOW what Linux IS
True, but most of them don't even know what a computer is, so their staff is OS-independent/incompetent.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Nowadays, you can get Linux, but usually only in boxes. I figure if I'm going to get something from them, I'm just going to buy the parts, d/l the ISOs for my favorite distribution, burn 'em to CD, and install my life away.
I mean, what's the big deal? It's no secret they abuse their employees, who aren't all that intelligent to begin with for the most part.
This sig no verb.
Ven Der Darl sez,
Ve ist der UNIX race.
Ve HEIL, HEIL
Right in der Darl's face!
Ven der Darl sez,
Dey'll never sue this place.
Ve HEIL, HEIL
Right in der Darl's face!
Now to love der Darl,
Ist a great disgrace,
So ve HEIL, HEIL
Right in der Darl's face!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I have all the Spike Jones CDs I could find. You have made my day!
Infuriate left and right
I actually like Fry's alot. If you read their weekly ads in the SJ Mercury news, which is a fun way to spend 5 or 10 minutes if you are a hardware geek like me, then you will find a handful of really amazing deals every week. Often there are free items, like the USB 2.0 card that I bought for my mom's computer last week. Or the Athlon motherboard/retail processor combo that I got this weekend. Didn't need the processor so I sold it on eBay and my net cost for the motherboard was only $20.
Anyway, about the door nazis at Fry's. They're so harmless it's ridiculous. I go in there all the time with a big, bulky backpack. Sometimes I buy stuff, sometimes I don't (I never steal), and I never stop for the door nazis on the way out. They don't even ask you to stop, you just ignore them and they ignore you. I have no idea why anyone bothers stopping for them. Actually I would enjoy it if they tried to stop me because I have several good comebacks just waiting for them, but have never had a chance to use them.
Now, the people at Best Buy in Manhattan (NYC) are a different story. They are super agressive. Unlike Fry's which hires the old and feeble to be their door nazis, Best Buy hires tough athletic teenagers. And they *will* try to stop you, with raised voices and quite agressively. The worst part is that it is embarrassing. I would not stop for them under any circumstances but I have been embarrassed on more than one occasion to think that the other customers around me are thinking that I am stealing just because I refuse to put up with being searched on the way out.
I said I didn't mind your promoting your site. But you're doing it backwards. First you get ready to handle the traffic, then you generate it.
Hey I will never expected to see ThizLinux in US. Not to mention it is an older version. Plus their target is asian chinese market. The major value of their distro compare with others are Chinese Fonts, Chinese Input, Chine Pen Input, CHINESE *** etc... if you think those are valuable to you that is cool.... and well they get LSB 1.3 ... does it mean anything to you? ... anyway at least you know there are chances to put linux in OEM or to even more general public ... Window get the current market by having people install window for free or downloading license from the internet... or even come with your hardware...
to make linux 1st not only we ( as a tech person ) know it is good stuff... but Joe need to get a chance to play with it without joining a LUG... of course Fly's putting a chinese distro in a US market is really .....ah Funny? ... whatever.... Happy Hacking