Slashdot Mirror
How Do Small GNU/Linux PC Vendors Survive?
garananda asks: "In spite of being one of the very few sources for customized PC laptops pre-installed with various flavors of GNU/Linux, Qli Linux Computers is closed as of March 15th 2004 after serving the community for six years (thanks for all of your hard work). It is becoming easier to get Linux computers from some of the big vendors, but usually this means no hardware choices and no choice of preferred GNU/Linux distribution. Is any small company providing this service and succeeding (lots of hardware options for desktops, custom laptop options, multiple GNU/Linux distributions, and no mandatory 'Microsoft tax')? How do they do it? Given the low margins in the PC market and given the variance of component quality and component vendor reliability/prices, how would _you_ do it?" When one asks "How does one sell Linux", it's only fair to point out what you don't do. Beyond that, what are other recommendations do you have for putting Linux out there for consumers, in the hopes it will sell your hardware?
I'd look for a niche.
It's hard to get MythTV going, for example, and the technology is genuinely useful, so a company that sold prerolled myth tv boxes, with working remote controls, the ability to send video out to a normal tv, support for a home video lan, and all of that, would probably find a small enthusiast market. I think you could probably charge a little more too -- there's a kind of gadget freak who would buy it and not mind an extra hundred or two for something that was well built, from a company with good support.
I think that trying to sell cheap linux pcs to the general public is probably a losing proposition. I don't know how anyone can stand up to those $500 wal-mart HP Windows boxes.
Well, there is one significant advantage the little guy has if he's linux savy. He, knowing the hardware he chooses really well, can roll his own very tight linux distro, compiled to be optimized on the hardware he sells, with a very sharp KDE desktop, and all kinds of eyecandy.
Furthermore, as popular packages he includes are updated, he can offer them as binaries, for new and old hardware, as well as take requests.
If he uses his own product, a lot of that would be time he lost to maintaining his own system(s) anyway.
Offer the occasional weekend class, free with new systems. Hosting easy screenshot tutorials for things like configuring your internet connection, and mail. It starts to be a pretty low risk proposition for the customer.
Perhaps this thread presents an opportunity to the Slashdot editors to interview someone from some of the companies that are successful? Emperor Linux (linux laptops, many models, choice of distro) and of course Penguin Computing both spring to mind.
Eschew Obfuscation
Have you looked around. People want mplayer already installed. KDE 3.2 already rolled. They want it pretty, bulletproof and idiot-proof. They want to have their box work like they knew exactly what the hell they were doing. The people who know exactly what they want, and how to get it. Few and far between. People who know what they like when they see it, a great many.
People don't want a 3-pack of discs with RH Fedora C 1 scribbled on it with a sharpie. Some might be happy most won't.
As someone in the process of experimenting with linux, let me just say, a lot about it sucks ass. Hairy ass. Someone who knows what they're doing, setting all the eyecandy in place, and providing screenshot tutorials to the people who buy his product could do alright.
It says a little something about the community that they tell would-be member that nobody wants those things, and if those people do want them, they're not wanted.
Keep in mind, this adds exactly zero steps to someone who's going to do whatever they hell they want to with the hardware and their particular flavor of linux. But it does make it much more accessable and convienent for those who aren't quite so inclined (either in the technical or masochistic sense). Even if one is so inclined as to roll their own, there's somethings to be said for not having to wait for everything to compile, and close enough.
It's not a Do-It-Yourself world. That's always and option, of course. But that's not what the vast majority people want. And the market bares this out, they sell pre-cooked bacon for Christs sake.
Create a relatively high end Linux PC that anyone would love to own. Test hardware combos till the cows come home to be sure you have the best possible setup. Pick out everything -- choose one model of every type of device.
:) Or hopefully inspire more than one person to do so -- competition in this market would make everyones' systems better!
Negotiate with the makers of said hardware. Insist on a volume discount on products that will not include their Windows drivers (unless the manufacturer contributed to Linux drivers).
Create a custom Linux distribution that is very specifically taylored to said hardware. Have everything work perfectly out of the box. Make an install CD that will restore it to the factory defaults.
Load said distro with every single piece of potentially useful Open Source software. But be sure it all works. If you can't get something to work nearly perfectly, don't include it.
Include custom documentation. Lots of it. Sure, some people don't like to read docs, but if they're good, they are very useful. And some people like to page through manuals on their rocking chair. Document as much of the software as you can. Taylor the steps to your specific computer setup where applicable.
Heck, even include some programming tutorials, probbly using Python. Computers used to include that kind of stuff. They don't anymore, which is why few users know squat about programming. This should not be required reading, of course, but it should be there should a customer (or his 8 year old nephew) wishes to try their hand at it.
Basically, include enough documentation about interesting things to keep the user hooked for a long time!
Let the computer and distro be ready for an LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) implementation. And, of course, sell the terminals pre-configured. So tell people they can buy one monster box from you and a few cheap terminals for everyone else in the house!
I seriously wish I were in a position to start a company to do this. But I'm not, so I'm throwing out the idea in the hopes that it will inspire someone else to do so.