Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wal-Mart Sells PCs Preloaded With Sun's Linux

Posted by timothy on from the from-high-end-to-everyman dept.

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."

25 of 617 comments (clear)

  1. Why Wal*Mart? Gott in Himmel, why? by The+I+Shing · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Why Wal*Mart? Gott in Himmel, why? by boisepunk · · Score: 5, Funny

      KMart? is that some online shopping utility that comes with KDE?

      --
      main(0)
    2. Re:Why Wal*Mart? Gott in Himmel, why? by boisepunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe having Linux being "good enough for government work" isn't exactly the image we want Linux to have. Just like I think having Linux on cheap, disposable, sub-par computers from places like Wal-mart may not be the best thing either.

      The real goal is to have people see Linux as a viable alternative, not a cheap Windows imitation or some eccentric thing the government uses.

      --
      main(0)
    3. Re:Why Wal*Mart? Gott in Himmel, why? by jargoone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason everyone hates them is because they strong-arm suppliers into providing them product at prices costs below what any other retailer can purchase the same product at. So they can sell it for less than the smaller guy's cost, and still profit. Small(er) guy can't win, has to go out of business.

      Seriously, if you care, do a search and educate yourself. It's not hard to find -- the web is literally covered with anti-WalMart material.

  2. Mixed feelings about this. by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    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,
    1. Re:Mixed feelings about this. by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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.

      Why would you buy a Walmart PC with Linux on it for $300 and then go out and buy Windows for $150+ when you could just go buy a Dell with Windows XP preloaded on it for under $400? Unless you're planning on a five-finger discount on the Windows license it'd be more to buy a Linux box and put a non-OEM copy of Windows on it.

    2. Re:Mixed feelings about this. by Ralph+Yarro · · Score: 5, Funny

      This sounds great at first glance but my gut feeling is that most of these units sold will be reformatted with Windows.

      Yes, it's frightening the lengths people will go to to avoid paying their $699 licensing fee.

      --

      The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
    3. Re:Mixed feelings about this. by Maestro4k · · Score: 5, Interesting
      • 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.
      Actually I think you may be wrong. I had the misfortune (ok to be fair at least it was a job and kept me fed) of working at Wal-mart for a year and a half. For much of that time I was in Electronics, and even after I was moved to checkouts the Electronics people were known to call me or bring customers up for me to answer their computer questions. Frankly the vast majority of these people (all your average joe non-techy person) could have cared less what OS they had as long as it WORKED. If the Sun Desktop works well and does the things Average Joe Consumer wants (which are web surfing, E-mail and possibly chat mainly) then the customers likely won't even notice it's not Windows on their computer.

      And to be honest (not trying to be mean) most of those Average Joe Consumers couldn't reformat a system and put Windows on it if their lives and the life of their first-born child depended on it. Whatever it comes with will be what it stays with.

      Now it will be interesting to see if they pack in restore CDs for them, HP in particular is really bad about forgetting them, even with only a 15 day time-period for in-store returns we took back so many HPs for exchange because of missing restore CDs it wasn't funny. I believe we had more computers stacked in claims than on the sales floor most of the time.

      One amusing tidbit I had\ve to mention, wonder how long it'll be before Wal-mart realizes it'll be really easy to take a stylized sun and put their smiley face in the middle.

  3. WalMart Link and Accessories They Recommend by Johnny_Law · · Score: 5, Funny
    Here is a direct link to the computer on Walmart.com and their description of the OS.
    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.
    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.
  4. What's so 'Java' about it? by taradfong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  5. link to systems by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 5, Informative

    here you go

    as low as $288

    --
    vodka, straight up, thank you!
  6. Re:No floppy?! by neiffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am a teacher and I wish more PC's would ship without floppy drives. When my students bring in disks from home (and I sometimes have 150 disks to deal with at a time), 1 in 3 has an error, and another 1 in 5 has a virus. I'd much prefer email or a USB flash drive!

  7. Re:Who buys a PC at wallmart? by neiffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the goal is Linux to the masses, I'm sad to report that the masses are at Walmart.

  8. What Walmart has to say about this computer.... by kidgenius · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From Walmart's website:

    "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)

  9. Re:No floppy?! by Ralph+Yarro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because you know that a floppy drive adds hundreds to the manufacturing cost.

    How much does it have to add to hit your profits on a $300 item? Say they make a 10% profit, that's $30, say the floppy drive costs $3. Not including the drive would increase profits by 10%. If a 10% increase in profits doesn't sound appealing to you then I'm going to guess that nobody lets you make those sorts of decisions.

    --

    The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
  10. Walmart by mostlyalmighty · · Score: 5, Funny

    But does it run Windows?

  11. Oh nooo by Knight+Thrasher · · Score: 5, Funny

    *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!"

  12. Linux on the shelves by semper_james · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  13. Sound of music in this? by person-0.9a · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

  14. What you're missing by karmaflux · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  15. Heard good things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  16. Sun as the biggest Linux vendor. by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "Selling *anything* at WallyWorld practically guarantees broad exposure in markets "

    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.

  17. On your first WalMart PC service call by WormholeFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    -

  18. Dell Poweredge Server by vwjeff · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  19. Re:Gog vs Magog! by scotch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hereby nominate you for the most-useless-use-of-a-footnote award.

    --
    XML causes global warming.