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Wal-Mart Sells PCs Preloaded With Sun's Linux
badboy3062 writes "Wal-Mart this week started selling Microtel PCs preloaded with Sun's Java Desktop System. Prices start at under $300 for a system without a floppy drive or monitor. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president for software, says this move is just another step in its plan to gain new audiences for its technologies."
No... must... not... shop... at... evil... Wal*Mart... must... stay... away...
It kind of pains me to see this. Why does a store that I hate have to go and do something that smacks of coolness? Why couldn't it be Target or KMart?
And isn't Microtel a motel chain?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
This sounds great at first glance but my gut feeling is that most of these units sold will be reformatted with Windows. That's the ugly truth methinks.
Trolling is a art,
Does Sun require an annual support subscription for these things, like their enterprise versions?
Because if so, there's going to be a lot of unpatched Linux boxes out there in a year or so.
Because you know that a floppy drive adds hundreds to the manufacturing cost.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
And here is the link to the accessory they recommend for this item (guess who).
I don't know whether this is informative or humorous. I chuckled and shook my head at the same time.
Microsoft Trackball Optical
HAHAHAHAHAH
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
From what I understand, It's a Linux system, running a modified Gnome with some extra nicely well done integration with Java's runtime. I think more accurately it should be called the 'C' desktop.
I wonder if it's bundled with 'digital ready' speakers.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
here you go
as low as $288
vodka, straight up, thank you!
If the goal is Linux to the masses, I'm sad to report that the masses are at Walmart.
"Sun has delivered the first viable Microsoft Windows alternative. The Java desktop system is a more affordable, secure desktop, designed to thrive in a Windows-centric world and run thousands of Java technology-based applications."
It goes on and on, including mentioning that it comes with StarOffice, it can exchange files with MS Office, it isn't prone to viruses, etc. They really are doing a good job at selling this to the average person and letting them know that there is a pretty viable option to Windows (other than mac of course)
But does it run Windows?
*groans* Now customers are going to call me... "How do I set up my server?" - "Sir, where did you get that server? HP? IBM?" - "Wal-mart!"
I can see it now
"Hello AOL internet support, how can I help you?"
"I just bought this PC from wallmart and I can't check my mail"
The Java Desktop is a subscriber product did Wal~Mart get a discount due to expected volume or does the end user have to pay an annual maintenance fee for updates. IIRC it was $50-$100 per year depending on if you got it during the big sale (possibly still in progress). Having to pay that sort of maintenece costs would seem to push users toward Mandrake.
I'm actually curious because I had the same idea, but didn't investigate it far enough to see if SUN was willing to cut OEM customers a break. It would be nice to advertise a SUN operating system that everyone is hearing so much about rather than the scary (to small customers) Linux.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
So, does this mean that wal*mart is going to start stocking software for linux as well? Or just the cool windows games as usual?
-- The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thi
This is a genius price, and wal-mart's massive distribution capabilities could easily push the desktop market dramatically in the direction of linux. How large is wal-mart? Let me give an example. There's the story of the local piemaker who won a contract with wal-mart to sell his pies. Wal-mart ordered 10,000 TRUCKLOADS of pies! If they can do that kinda volume on the linux machines, Microsoft's in for a ride. Fortune 500: Microsoft = #46, Walmart = #1. Walmart wins!
In other news, see my artist interview at fulcrum gallery.
stuff |
Selling *anything* at WallyWorld practically guarantees broad exposure in markets that a vendor might not otherwise reach. Imagine if - years ago - you could have walked into [that store] and picked up an Ultra 10. I use the U10 as an example because it is/was essentially a low-end, mass-marketed (sort of) item from the Sun line. Wal-mart would be unlikely to carry the Ultra 60 just like they are unlikely to carry gigantic plasma TVs: the clientele probably are not the ones to buy high-end merchandise (or at least not buy it there).
PS Microtel makes very, very small communications devices. You're welcome.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Wal-mart selling another distro of linux on "their" PC's. That's kinda nifty, but it does make one ask the question:
Could this mean they'll get a clue and make their music store compatible with the computing systems they sell?
(Perhaps maybe around the time when we see Mac OS X run natively on a Microtel PC).
I just had a client order a PC from Walmart 3 weeks ago, and I thought the cost (with Lindows, not the Sun offering) was more like $215, though that was with 64M RAM. I thought it was $265 after shipping.
Oh well. Still better than paying the Microsoft tax.
So, let me take a guess and assume that the primary user is running with root level permissions? That may not be a good thing given 99% of the people who would buy a PC at Wal-Mart probably can't manage/secure their Windows based PC let alone a Linux box.
I think USB keydrives are the floppy of the future, though admittedly they are really expensive.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
is the fact that you can't walk in to Wal-Mart and pick one of these up. They're only available online.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
I've heard really good things about Sun's Java Desktop Linux. If it's based on SuSE (9.0 is so !@#$ sweet it's not even funny), it's gotta be good. I've considered purchasing the $50 discount copy, but I still wonder what their server strategy is. I actually prefer linux on the server to solaris for a lot of reasons, as I don't do anything high level enough to require a sparc. I want an end to end solution, and Sun is making it difficult.
Basically, I like the idea of using the same distribution for the server and my desktop. I can install SuSE on everything from my desktop to the Dell blade servers that I install, and it just works. This is very appealing, since I can become familiar with the environment by using it on my desktop in addition to the server.
When I went to price out one of Sun's new AMD systems, I was somewhat disappointed. First of all, the website does not give the level of detail that Dell's does. I want to know everything about the system from ram speed, to hd speed, to bus speed, etc. Then, I want much more ability to configure scsi, ide, raid levels, etc. On top of that, it was pretty expensive. You can get a dual xeon dell with 2GB of ram, 15K rpm scsi for about $1,000 less than a bare bones sun with an amd chip. For what it's worth, IBM is much worse in this regard when pricing any of their systems online. I think they're even more expensive and the website sucks way more.
Then, you have the option basically for solaris x86 (32 bit) or supplying your own SuSE 64 bit (community edition, whatever that means), or RedHat enterprise.
My conclusion is that Sun is still not going after the low end. I don't know if they just can't get the economies of scale or what, but don't sell an entry level server and pretend that you're going to offer a "premium" entry level server when the website is worse, you have fewer config options, and the price is way more than can be justified.
That said, I hope they read this stuff and adapt. How hard can it be to provide an entry level server when plenty of white box places do it even cheaper than Dell??? I can't even imagine what you get for the premium price tag.
Still, I would love the idea if they gave me a Java Server system with Linux on the bottom of the stack with Java completely installed, configured, and supported, and the option for the Java Enterprise system on top of it. What's with their affinity for Solaris, especially on the low end servers? Even if it's better in some regards, it's not as familiar, performs worse, is difficult to get app support for, etc. Give me the real deal please, which for me is Linux.
I disagree. You now have two basic (non-tech) users- gamers and browser/shoppers. For the gamers the system isn't what they want- they'll beuild the overclocked AMD system from parts bought wherever. They may install Linux, but mostly likely it'll be windows.
For the browser/shopper the Linux box is almost ideal- no viruses, no un-necessary software and they can type letters, browse the internet and listen to streaming radio. It's all my Mother does and she's on Linux.
So if she can use it (and she's really not technical) then most people should get by.
# nohup
I think Sun is serious about becoming the biggest Linux vendor, as they suggested a year ago with their china deal where McNealy said "This, I believe, makes us instantaneously the number one Linux desktop play in the planet."
If they're going for volume, you can't beat Wal*Mart and China.
Better yet, why not find your local geek and get the leftover parts from two upgrades ago.... I'm sure most slashdotters could build a couple of these machines from their spare parts drawer.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Walmart.com actually has had a lot of options in terms of pre-loaded OS's. They come / have come with Windows, Lindows, Lycoris, Mandrake, Sun Java Desktop, and FreeDOS. Or you can get them naked.
True, all of these are cheaper than Windows (except for, of course, Windows), but if all Walmart was interested in was being Cheap, they would all be using Lindows (remember flat rate licensing?). The inclusion of Lycoris and Sun Java Desktop is an indication that they see value in having a variety of Linux desktops available.
Now, it may very well be that they simply contract out through individual companies, so that if someone wants to sell a Lycoris desktop through Walmart.com it presents no risk to Walmart, but that doesn't mean Walmart is inherently exploitive.*
*on this particular issue.
The ______ Agenda
By your logic, Because walmart always wins ( and believe me I agree 100%), ANY PRODUCT they sell will defeat their competing products. Ok, Walmart sells coke, therefore Walmart will crush pepsi. Walmart also sells Pepsi, therefore Walmart will crush Coke. So who wins? Sams Choice Cola.
Walmart likes to help its vendors... at first. They worked exclusively with Tide to see if they could reducce their operating costs. Great, Tide now operated more efficently as a compnay. Then Walmart introduced Great Value Liquid Clothes detergent (compare with Tide!). Walmart might be working with Sun, but noting that they are essentially just selling a free OS, Its just a mater of time before Walmart introduces the even lower cost Great Value Linux . It will happen, believe you me.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
-
What's up with everyone wanting to put their linux stuff in walmart? Does it actually amount to sales? My guess is that having something to sell in Wallmart is more about PR than sales.
Wal-mart appears to not be very pro-windows, their back-end systems all appear to be Unix or a linux/bsd-based variant. In fact the handheld units on the floor run a version of linux (watching them do a reload is entertaining actually). Wal-mart has also been pushing towards this for quite a while, they want things at the lowest price to pass along savings. Right now in low-end PCs the single largest cost factor is the OS when you have Windows. These systems are fairly comparable to the $499 systems they've had from HP & eMachines, but the only real difference is the OS and they're over $200 cheaper each! Business-wise, especially for Wal-mart buy cheap then pass along savings business plan, going with a non-Windows based PC is a no-brainer.There are going to be a lot of systems out there with root passwords of "password" soon ;^)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The only people who would buy a non-MS PC are relatively technically competent ("enough to be dangerous"), and the majority of these folks should be smart enough to know what a bad deal this is--you can piece together a much better system for the same $$$. Hello, eBay? So the target audience is...?
you might notice the following:
The PC is up on blocks.
The case has a shotgun rack
The customer wears a wife-beater shirt with a penguin on the front.
There are dipstick oil marks on the floppy drive.
The hard drive is full of Johnny Cash MP3s.
The case is modded with a transparent confederate flag window.
The mousepad is red and black plaid.
Traces of pig feces on the keyboard.
The open source internet browser default page is www.y'all.com.
The USB port cover panel is welded shut.
The wallpaper on the desktop is of a scanned black velvet Elvis painting.
The case has a side-mounted spitoon.
The customer added an 8-track tape player in one of the drive bays.
There are John Deer stickers on the case.
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What's the big deal here. If you go to Dell.com and click on Small Business you can get a Poweredge server for $279 with the following components:
Intel P4 2.4 Ghz
40 GB Hard Drive
128 MB Memory
Floppy Drive
48x CD-ROM
($379-$100 mail in rebate) I hate mail in rebates!!!!
This is basically a low-end desktop with no OS. Load your favorite distro and there you go!!
I think it's great that a company is selling computers preloaded with Linux but this really isn't news.
I don't know what the Sun Java Desktop is like personally, but it is probably pretty good - Gnome and StarOffice and all that jazz.
As such it should handle what most people use a PC for pretty well - internet, e-mail, chatting, letter to the bank manager.
You don't need Windows XP for these tasks.
Now the price is a bit high given the hardware - you could build the same for a lot less, but Walmart will be making a slice and Sun will be too I imagine.
And these boxes will be faster than 2.8GHz Celeron boxes judging from reviews online.
Man I have bought a bunch of these boxes. I normally buy the cheap 200 dollar not loaded model and throw fedora core on them and give them to our customers. In the two years now of running them I only had one that had the power supply give up the smoke. For non power users that just want to surf the web and do a occasional spread sheet the box is more than fast enough.
Got Code?
I hereby nominate you for the most-useless-use-of-a-footnote award.
XML causes global warming.
A solid piece of hardware - I now have three operating in various capacities around the house - but noisy like you wouldn't believe. I've become accustomed to some minimal amount of acoustic engineering going into boxes these days -- all of the name brand boxes have an average (low) amount of noise. Not so with the Microtel. The power supply has a whoosh to it, and the CPU fan a bit of a low whir. You may be able to remedy this with a replacement low-noise PS.
Not bad for under $300, but, as always, you get what you pay for.
Why don't we have boxes with external (fanless - noiseless) power supplies? Everything that goes on inside the box is low voltage DC, right?
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
What's up with everyone wanting to put their linux stuff in walmart?
If I had to guess, it's because Wal-Mart is the only retail outlet that a certain monopolist can't bully. The reason Linux OS's are showing up there is that Wal-Mart doesn't care if they piss off the folks in Redmond.
--Mid
I'd expect some of the technology worker bees and programmers not to have much difficulty moving to something like this, but how about further up Sun's management hierachy that lives and breathes things like Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations?
I hate to burst your bubble, but having worked for Sun for the last 2 years, I can tell you that Sun does a pretty good job of keeping their own employees using Sun software. This includes Star Office and Solaris. Most Sun offices use SunRay terminals hooked to a Sun Enterprise server. They run StarOffice 7 on top of Solaris 9. This makes it pretty easy for a Mac geek like me to open work documents using OpenOffice on OS X. In fact, up until very recently it was a fireable offence to even install Windows XP on any work computer. They were pretty worried about all of the privacy issues in XP and didn't want MS stealing corporate secrets through some unknown backdoor. Now, they allow you to run XP only if you run some script called XP Neuter first.
If anything, things are the other way around here, simply because of the NIH (not invented here) syndrome. Sun employees tend to be extremely anti-MS and anti-IBM, and most would not run MS Office or even Internet Explorer unless they were forced to by some management directive.
About the Java Desktop rollout: I can't speak for those in large Sun offices like Broomfield, CO and Burlington, MA; they may be running it already, but out in the small field offices it hasn't been rolled out yet. I haven't had a chance to preview it yet with the LiveCD thingy, but I would imagine within a year or so everyone will be running it.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
As if the closed circuit TV systems that monitor every square inch of the store aren't enough.
Actually, not all of the camera domes you see in the ceiling have cameras in them.
That being said, I once had one of the Wal*Mart greeters chase me out into the parking lot and demand that I return inside the store because I apparently set off "Wal*Mart's inventory control system!". She refused to tell me why I needed to go back inside, so I shrugged and walked away. A plainclothesd LP came up to my drivers window as I was about to pull off. I told her she was free to ask her question in the parking lot, but I would not be inconvenienced to return inside the store unless she could give me a good reason. She told me they were calling the cops. I handed her my driver's license, said "Write down my name, go watch your videotape, and decide if you need to call the cops", took it back and drove away.
The funny thing was the reaction of the cops when I called them warning them that Wal*Mart was going to call them, and I gave them the full story. The copy who answered the phone had kind of an exasperated sound. "Yeah, they do that sort of stuff all the time", he told me.
Go figure.
Speaking of cameras, some Best Buy stores actually track 1 in 50 or so customers from entrance to exit for marketing purposes. You won't see the typical big black camra domes, instead there are little white camera domes on the trusswork, very, very inconspicuous. They're a few meters apart and completely blanket the store. (You should see the racks they go back to, it's insane) It's not in every store, but they tell me that the watch where you go, what you pick up, what you actually buy, etc.
Kinda scary really.
Sun's Java Desktop Linux distribution is SuSE 8.something with Sun logos. YaST, RPM, no little green chameleon. Format, install SuSE 9.1 with kernel 2.6 once it is released.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
As a Sun employee that DOES work in Broomfield, I can wholeheartedly confirm we've been using this for some time. Moreover, I work in a particular building on the campus that has its own Sunray network. We're mandated to use this special network, which contains just about everything on the bleeding edge that Sun has to offer, including the next unreleased version of Solaris and StarOffice, so we get to deal with the problems before the customers do.
So just to add emphasis to your statement, is Sun "eating its own dog food"? Damn right it is.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
ugly, underpowered, outdated? Why, because dad bought you the latest dual Intel Xeon with a $500 video board so you can frag away with your friends?
I'm writing this from one of those ugly, underpowered, outdated 1.3 Ghz Duron, 128 MB Microtels right now. 1.6 Ghz comparable to a postage stamp? You've been brainwashed by the gaming/hardware industry, my young friend.
While no one I know has purchased Microtels from Walmart, I'd say that's because there aren't any Walmarts in the area. I have, and business associates I know have, purchased Microtels from TigerDirect. I've been run Apache on several of them for about 3 years, with uptimes exceeding a year. Business associates have been using them for file/print, dns, apache, and desktops. Yes, desktops. Instead of spending $600 to $1,000 for business desktops (just the hardware and Windows operating system), they can spend $200-$230 plus shipping, and get a fully functioning computer that is more than sufficient for their offices, and to replace lesser powered, older systems.
Of those that need faster systems for some reason, they are still using the Microtel systems, but are forwarding X over the lan from a more powerful server (still under $1,000, including memory upgrade).
Walmart doesn't sell bath soaps and cereals to your mom, young man. They sell whatever consumer goods to consumers that consumers want or need. And through their wholesale division, they also sell to businesses. But their wholesale division is not located at every location where a regular Walmart is located, so Walmart relies on their Walmart stores to also sell to businesses.
Small businesses far outnumber medium (500+ employees) and large businesses. And small businesses are far more likely to have retail versions of software licenses, including Microsoft server licenses. And they are far more likely to run out and pick up a new desktop or three, on a spur of the moment, or over a weekend, than big businesses (though I've known techs from billion dollar companies do this also).
You may think a Microtel is ugly, outdated, and underpowered, especially if running a Microsoft operating system, but according to some of your fanboy tech enthusiast sites, my 1.3 Ghz Duron powered system will run rings around a 2 Ghz Celery powered system, especially against office productivity testing programs.
One problem was OpenOffice taking long time to load, but that problem was removed with OpenOffice optimizations to memory settings in the 1.0 release, faster startup in the 1.1 release, and the fact that in office settings on a server/client setup with X forwarding, OpenOffice can and often is left running on the server. While KDE is bloated compared to Windowmaker or Xfce, and KDE is often activated as the default environment, it can easily be switched to another lighter desktop, and in that case, can run even on a postage stamp. But the Microtels have no problems running KDE and OpenOffice on them, without a memory or processor upgrade, I should know, I'm doing it now.
Another fact that you or your dad may not have considered coming from a Windows environment, is that because a large number of small businesses are running old systems, dating back to the first generation of pentiums, 486s in some of the small businesses I know, and even Intel 8086s, and 8088s for custom written calculations in DOS that they 1. don't want to pay to have rewritten, and 2. aren't aware that Linux has DOS emulation. The last time I suggested moving off WordPerfect for DOS and onto Linux/OpenOffice, the response was, "why?" "It works". "Why mess with it, if it works?"
Business owners, especially small businesses, are very conservative. If something works, they don't want to upgrad