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."

Comments

heh

[Tirel]

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.

Re:heh

[Stonent1]

Plus, I hate stores that make you "clear customs" before you can leave. Geez, if I managed to sneak an article past the cashier, what makes you think you'll catch me? "No, sir, that's not a CAT-5 spool in my pocket... I'm just glad to see you".

I used to be a door nazi at Fry's. And the reason why they are the way they are, is that they get a commission on "recovered" items. I caught a woman who had a 500$ laser printer on the bottom of her cart that she neglected to tell the cashier about. When I told her that it wasn't on her reciept she argued with me. I said "Your receipt totals 100$ and there is a $500 price tag on the printer" So she turned around and paid for it and I got a 50$ commission. The loss prevention people are always at odds with the cashier manager. Because our commission comes out of there budget. I had been verbally assaulted by the cashier manager on several occasions because I was "costing his dept too much money" I said "well maybe your cashiers need to lean over the counter and LOOK in the carts!" Finally he made up a story about me refusing to help a customer carry something to their car (even though loss prevention is expressly forbidden to do so)It turned out the "customer" was another loss prevention person who was carrying something out for someone else and he thought they were the customer. The store manager tore me a new a-hole.

Finally they gave me the "option" to take a position in any dept of my choosing. I chose the computer service dept of course, as that was where I had been trying to move into since it was Incredible Universe. The store manager was fired shortly after I left.

Well, the name already spells it out....

[tsvk]

"Thiz Linux is not for sale."

Fry's vs. The Rest Of The World

[schnarff]

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!

Re:Fry's vs. The Rest Of The World

[NineNine]

Hang on for a sec... these kids are probably paid $8/hour, and you expect them to be knowlegeable on something as obscure and complicated as Linux? You're living with you head in the sand, buddy.

Re:No Suspens

[Anonymous Coward]

"He would make for a poor Soup Opera writer."

S1: Oh Asian Noodle, how could you leave me?

S2: You must understand Cream of Chicken, it's not because I don't love you but because...

...Another can bursts into the room...

S3: It's because I, Split Pea, am your identical twin separated at birth, drowned in the ocean and come back to life!

the new mindset

[redJag]

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.

It's not what you say...

[travail_jgd]

... 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 anything... dissastisfied customer

[linuxtelephony]

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.

Re:well, yeah. its fry's.

[James Lanfear]

Of course they compensate by not hiring anyone who knows anything.

Obligatory Fry's Application Form.

What really matters at Frys....

[pjrc]

Apathy.

.

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.

I bought one - Hardware is OK, ThizLinux is junk

[Baron of Greymatter]

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.

Re:Already dead - full article here

[goodie3shoes]

Um, you folks are missing the point. The whole reason Fry's is selling this box with Thizlinux on it is to avoid the M$ tax and be able to hit a low pricepoint without pissing off M$ by selling a box with no OS. A friend of mine bought one of these boxen. It did actually work, and I don't recall Chinese, but the functionality as-configured was minimal. And guess what - he put Windows(tm) on it. While Fry's may not sell a good system with Linux installed, somebody in the buying chain is certainly aware of the penguin. There's usually a decent selection of Linux distros and even apps sometimes - I've seen the obscure Xess on sale there, and stuffed plush Tuxes!