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More on Toronto's Linux-only Computer Store
bluethundr writes "The Register today is running a story about what we first thought (but thought incorrectly as it turns out) to be the world's first Linux-only computer store. Who knew that they were also running a Linux-powered car wash in the back? Heh."
I had several seizures during the slashdot blackout.... I actually went outside....there was all of this green stuff on the ground, first I thought they were sprites, but they were to photorealistic....It was scary......I am NEVER going back to that tepid land again!
Don't they have to give everyone free car washes under the terms of GPL?
Ohhhh, I so wanted to see pictures of the rotating penguin. Also, the idea of selling a hard drive with linux preinstalled is really cool. I like it. They should have one of these in my town! Especially if they had random linux gear ala thinkgeek. Oooh, and a wifi-enabled cafe-type-place.... mmmmmmmm. (Hey.. they have a linux-run carwash already)
the sign for the car and van wash is more than twice the size of the sign for the linux computer store
I can't believe how many times I've been getting my car washed and thought "boy, I sure wish I could buy a computer while I wait"!
:P
If this business model becomes successful, I'm going to start my own. Look for a 'Pats Donuts and Computer Repair Shop' coming soon
-Pat
Wonder why the cost is higher....Can't be too hard to load up Linspire. Even states in TFA that it loads in only 10 mins. If anything, the costs should slightly lower (although TFA does not take into account for rebates, discounts, etc, so we can't be sure, eh?)
:) ) I think they might be better off offering better/more distro options...
The store remains focused on the Linspire (formerly Lindows) OS and office suite, says Silverman, with no immediate plans to start selling other distros from the store.
For the regular user, Linspire is the most simple to work with," says Silverman. "It installs in less than ten minutes."
I've been to their site before...They state on both Canadian and American sites the following -
"Do you prefer a different Linux distro? We can accommodate most requests."
Which does seem contradictory to TFA...Linspire seems hokey to me to be the primary distro. One would think that they would use a popular distro (ie-Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc) While Linspire is easy to use, I threw my younger sister into SuSE and Yast and she had a decent handle on things (Mind you, she's no geek but quite trendy, so a shock indeed
Ditto on the hard disks preloaded with Linspire. A neat idea, although I bet it takes a bit for the distro to auto-detect the hardware, etc. For the non-Linux, this might troublesome.But a good idea nonetheless...Like Knoppix on steriods or something....
Gotta love the rotating pengiun though....
-thewldisntenough
My MythTV HowTo
Those MegaTouch games in many bars run Linux. Check out the credits, they thank the Linux community, and say sources available on request. Toggle the power to see lilo on boot.
http://www.moneymachines.com/touch.html
So what? I'm sure DOS could run a carwash.
You mean these people have somehow found a way of not having to use electricity to operate electrical-mechanical devices? Is there some hidden potential energy in a disk of Red Hat? Should AnandTech be doing a review to see which distro has the best energy loss ratio?
Ironic that www.sub300.com and www.sub500.com, the Linux desktop resellers associated with this new store, Run Microsoft Windows 2000 webservers.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Well at least its another step to get the public more aware or linux. Linux Carwash ay?
http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/
check it out, its great.
Also, one of my other fav sites
http://linuxjewellery.com/
not realted
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
I live pretty close, I have to get my car wash tomorrow.
Supporting Linux...
the carwash receives instructions from the control computer via XML.
Why we don't have BSD only shops? Don't start with BSD is dying
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
Who knew that they were also running a Linux-powered car wash in the back?
Anyone who read about this last time it was on slashdot
Can it only be a dupe if the "editor" doesn't know its a dupe?
Does anyone else suspect michael may have some kind of financial interest in this store, because he posted the last story on it (and even included a link to it!) yet this new story includes no new information.
... a store where assistants KNOW what they are talking about, KNOW what they are selling and actually give a shit about getting your computer to work more efficiently and without a glitch....
Hmmmm sounds like bloody heaven to me....
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
I used to visit the Linux General Store in
Atlanta near Georgia Tech. (I think it was
the first linux store. They were around in
1998 I think. There were even articles about
it in 1999. http://linux.omnipotent.net/article)
Does anyone know why Joe and Mindy closed up
the shop? If they moved, I want to know
where so I can drop by and buy a dozen blades
or so on my next capital purchase. If he
just got tired of six years of selling linux
and wanted to spend more time drinking, that's
cool too.
They obviously haven't been doing enough research.
And I am definitely going to check out this store.
Just too bad its isn't on the College St. computer store ghetto.
With so many idiot business ventures out there (ie: we have several thriving pet grooming outfits in my small home town), why can't there be a Linux-only computer store?
People invest their life savings in much dumber ideas than that.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Good step forward. Good luck to them. Good things only will happen.
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
"...also running a Linux-powered car wash..."
Fine, but they don't do windows.
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? ~ Albert Einstein
looooooooooool *^_________^*
Just thought I'd make the obligatory post to inform that we're not all Linux freaks here in TO.
:p
I run a WinXP machine, and recommend Mac to most people I know.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I can imagine wat it is like if it was a microsoft & carwash instead of linux.
First there is a big sign outside : Please close all windows before using carrwash.
- or -
A customer ask to wash his windows.Service men response: Wich version you have? Windows 98 or XP?
nahh i don't have a car nor a drivers license...
That would be a damn fun store to shop at... just grab something and run out the door... if caught just tell them it's Linux!
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
The upside is that its free, but takes 18 hours of tweaking to actually clean your specific model the first time. If you have an import or a rare car, it might not clean it at all.
There's a slim chance your car wont start after the wash, leaving all your gauges at 16, 16, 16, 16, 16...
Your "Save the Whales" bumper sticker might be replaced with a "Save the Pengiuns" sticker or a photo of a fat guy in front of a computer will be appended to your original bumper sticker.
Pasty employees will snort at your aftermarket body effects and graphics, unless they are glowing then they will tell you how 'l33T they are.
Conversely, the very same pasty employees will give you the weakest high-five you have ever experienced if you have made any modifications to your onboard computer or stereo system.
After the wash your car will not be able to share a lane with any car registered in Washington state.
Your mileage will increase but for some inexplicable reason you'll have to learn how to drive stick as your automatic will cease to exist.
it's another "hey everyone! I'm looking at gay porno!" site.
www.linspire.com seems to imply Linspire is not linux, it's a separate OS. It does not seem to be open source or even "free as in beer". The licensing terms appear to be far worse than bill gates has wet dreams about doing with XP. There is very invasive product activation and you have to keep paying a "mempership fee" or you lose access to all the software you've already bought, unless you paid extra for a lifetime license.
For access to their forums, you also have to pay a membership fee, and to get access to the real forums you have to pay another $100 "lifetime insider fee" so you can be an insider as long as you're suckered into paying the other membership fees.
Why would anyone be interested in these terms? Its reality is far worse than the most avid MS basher claims MS is planning.
Whats wrong with pet grooming? Seriously, have you ever owned a dog? They can get pretty filthy quickly and unless you like bathing 30-80lbs animals who don't want to take a bath, well that's you're only route.
Toss in work, kids, etc and that 30+ bucks to groom your dog doesn't seem like a big deal.
Simply put, the economics of the situation tend to work out.
I would be pretty skeptical about investing in Linux retail. What are they making money off of? Pure hardware sales? The margins on hardware aren't too hot. I'm sure labor is pretty good, but the buyers probably already know how to do most things and paying seventy bucks an hour for someone to remount your CD-ROM or whatever is pretty excessive.
Not to mention he's not only competing with the local electronics stores full of wintel machines, but web-based businesses with much less overhead. (is he selling on the web also?)
Good luck and all, but there's more money to be made in dog grooming, if you want to be technical about it. At the end of the day the "idiot" business is the one which can't pay the bills.
This does tug at my nostalgia strings as I remember the local computer stores I dragged my parents to in the late 80s. None of which are still in business. Even then I found that it was cheaper to order stuff through the macwarehouse or the computershopper magazine than the brick and morter stores. I must have been around 10 years old, most adults already know how to scour for deals and its a lot easier with the web.
I'm assuming he doesnt have that much overhead and the carwash subsidizes the actual store. It looks like he bought a carwash and thought it would be fun to build a Linux store on the property. So that space was already going to waste and the Linux store is really just a hobby business built on top of his real business.
Another positive aspect is that people can just walk in and play with Linux to see what its like. I'm sure many people are curious, but not curious enough to partition their drive or get a second machine. Kinda how the Apple store is full of people who will never own Apples.
My observatory used to have its site hosted by a slick corporate-image-type company which runs Win2k/Win Server 2003. The downtime was terrible, and the management (all MCSEs, or working their way towards it...) were utterly hopeless.
s hit, nerdtoy hosting outfit running Debian, and we've never seen an outage since.
So we transferred hosting to a personal friend's two-bit, barely-break-even-if-we're-lucky-but-who-gives-a-
This may sound like just another apocryphal *nix fanboy story, but it's true.
He always has one. That's what's so funny about his claims to journalistic integrity! What about that article a few months back featuring the object of his desire, Raven Adler? He managed to keep that on the page for two days. There were 27 articles on the page ahead of it before it was finally forced off the bottom! Gotta be some kind of record, surely?! And anybody who rightly questioned some of the fan-boy claims by and about Adler were almost instantly modded down to (Score:-1) hell. He must have sat there for two fucking days with that thread open looking about for smacktalk about his baby! What a CUNT!
"Hi, I want refund on this, it won't work under Windows XP."
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
You must be new here.
...in Japan
/I'm so confused
I seem to recall this article, which mentioned the fact that this was in the back of a car wash. Might just be me.
But hey, Toronto is lucky. They have a store where they can prevent having to do the maintenence that I'm doing to my dad's computer (installing Firefox, Ad-Aware, and Spybot). Can you believe that he's been running that computer for three years without running Ad-Aware or Spybot? It's just a normal Winblows box, too!
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Sure, but if any of the water gets into your car, you will have to GPL your car.
I hope you have a Jaguar that I can borrow.
It probably uses less water to get your car clean than a car wash powered by Windows, and it still gets your car cleaner!
I remember this small store in Paris 10 years ago.
It was Linux only, this is where I used to buy all my Linux CDs (bandwidth was so expensive back then).
Anyway, this store doesn't exist anymore, it lasted few years though.
It was in the Bastille area, just behind the Opera.
we had the Linux general store in Atlanta which opened in the late nineties (98-99). It was opened by a great guy; but the only people that visited were the local pierced freaks from GA tech and me. And like me we'd get one Suse (redhat whatever...) CD and put it on a bunch of discarded PCs. Guess what: The store didn't make it!
In todays environment as a small business I don't think you can compete with $200 PCs at wallmart with Lindows pre-loaded or on the side of the equation with the IBMs of the world.
The one niche I do see for significant growth in the Linux marketspace is as a consulting firm for small businesses. You do NOT need to spend $30 a square foot on retail space to do that! (Or whatever you pay for retail in Canada; but I can assure you professional looking retail is more expensive than professional looking mixed warehouse/office space.
And for you entrpeneurs out there: you can start such a business really cheap!
Hajo Monogamy: Belief so strong that millions of people end perfectly good relationships in order to start a new one.
Did he use RTAI?
How did he interface with the hardware?
What language was the software coded in?
In fact, I see no mention at all about the carwash being Linux powered... Arguably in the title?
Can anyone point the way to more info about the carwash?
If he did manage to do this, it would IMO be a better pursuit than the store.
Bangalore has a Linux store (http://www.gtcdrom.com/)running from 1995. You get anything and everything related to Linux. For the past 5 years I have been doing all my Linux buying from there.
If he wanted to give an easy-to-use Linux to clients, can someone explain what are the main advantages of Linspire over Xandros?
I found Xandros to be quite simple ( although I'm sticking with Mandrake) and Lin[dows|spire] wants your first-born and bank account.
If Linspire were the only choice for desktop Linux on x86, I'd stick with Windows XP.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Well as is pointed out. The space is basically free since otherwise it would go unused. As for a Linux business. I think most geeks are not ambitious enough when it comes to running a business (or have the knowledge). Using the strengths of Linux while minamizing it's disadvantages is were it's at. Your "consulting" idea is one, but it could also be a service contract for home machines, were the remote capabilities come into their own. Same for businesses. Maybe have more "turnkey" solutions that one can come off the street, and purchase (much easier with Linux). I'm trying to get a shop right now, to look more carefully at linux. However they appear to be more interested in being a standard wintel shop with a refurb business contract, even though some of the staff is interested in Linux.
"Whats wrong with pet grooming? Seriously, have you ever owned a dog? They can get pretty filthy quickly and unless you like bathing 30-80lbs animals who don't want to take a bath, well that's you're only route."
I keep mine indoors mostly.
"I would be pretty skeptical about investing in Linux retail. What are they making money off of? Pure hardware sales? The margins on hardware aren't too hot. I'm sure labor is pretty good, but the buyers probably already know how to do most things and paying seventy bucks an hour for someone to remount your CD-ROM or whatever is pretty excessive."
As long as you're taking business cues from the Wintel market. Linux however opens doors to opportunities to do things that either would be more costly, or impossible for an all Wintel shop.
"Not to mention he's not only competing with the local electronics stores full of wintel machines, but web-based businesses with much less overhead. (is he selling on the web also?)"
Yes the article does say he has a web presence.
"Good luck and all, but there's more money to be made in dog grooming, if you want to be technical about it. At the end of the day the "idiot" business is the one which can't pay the bills."
There's money to be made were ambition, brains, and not a little bit of fear are willing to take you.
"I'm assuming he doesnt have that much overhead and the carwash subsidizes the actual store. It looks like he bought a carwash and thought it would be fun to build a Linux store on the property. So that space was already going to waste and the Linux store is really just a hobby business built on top of his real business."
A lot of businesses start out as hobbies. At least his hobby has the potential to grow into a business that he enjoys.
"Another positive aspect is that people can just walk in and play with Linux to see what its like. I'm sure many people are curious, but not curious enough to partition their drive or get a second machine. Kinda how the Apple store is full of people who will never own Apples."
Or buy a HD with Linspire already installed (RTFA). At least the ground floor for trying Linux isn't the penthouse, like Apple.
Segmentation fault (car dumped)
o__0
SLDT02004071000004(x, y) - "In Soviet Russia, x y YOU!"
This should, of course, be "In Soviet Russia, y x YOU!"
in june the newthinking store startet in berlin , selling linux-stuff like home entertainment-products running on linux, t-shirts, books, software and several hardware. several events around linux and information society take place in the store rooms.
Hi everyone. Marc From Sub300/Sub500 here. Again I thank the supporters for the support. So far our first couple weeks in business have been quite good. To point out a couple things though: 1) The article was incorrect. We are not concentrating solely on Linspire. We already have several other free distros available, and will start bring in the pay distros soon enough (hopefully by the end of this week). We will also be expanding our hardware and system selection. 2) Although some of the carwash jokes are hilarious (especially about having to close windows), the fact that we are located next to a carwash is really a non-issue. We have been inth computer business for about 15 years, and have been doing online sales for about 2 years. It wasn't a whim to open the store inside the car wash. The two businesses run quite independantly of each other. As entrepreneurs I don't see it as a bad thing to have your finger in many pots. Lastly, 3) Our webhost. We don't host our own site. We pay a company to do so. We have been dealing with them for a long time, and they offer excellent service and truly unbeatable prices. Unfortunately they use IIS and not Linux, but we can't change that. Same as we can't tell the electric company or phone company what software they should use. If we were hosting our own site or selling internet service, I'd be concerned. We also acknowledge that the company in Australia was 1st, so we have removed all reference to that claim from our site. Again I thank you all for your support, and if you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me (through our websites)
Sub500.com already sells CAN$499 and US$299 (through the sub300.com site) computers over the internet. The only news about this is that they decided to open an actual store as well. I suspect that they plan on keeping the internet side as their main source of revenue.
Also there is no professional here. Their retail space is in the back of a car wash.