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Walmart Expands Low-End Linux Notebook Offerings
startleman writes "A story on Tom's Hardware reports that Walmart apparently will offer a Linare-equipped notebook below the $500 mark. Manufacturer Linare said that it will bring a Linux-based device to the retailer 'within the next few days.' Specs include an AMD Athlon 1800+, a 40 GByte harddrive, 128 MByte memory, a CD-ROM drive, an Ethernet port and the firm's Linare OS as well as Open Office."
This will not be powerful enough for today's standards.
(it's a joke :) )
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
They will bring a device to Wal-Mart... it's the only one they have, though.
Balance 14.1" Laptop, 1.1 GHz AMD Athlon 4
Remove windows and you got your self a sub $500.
It's not near as bad as the extremely weak Linspire one they had a while back.
It still doesn't make them the good guys. I shudder to think what part of the world they are monopolizing for cheap labor...
It's Wal-Mart -- desecrator of burial grounds, disturber of ancient ruins, discriminator of women employees, and destroyer of small-town America... ...but it's Linux!
Oh, how to feel?
The coolest voice ever.
That's better specs than my laptop. Maybe it's time for an upgrade.
Still, sub $500 notebook, that ain't bad. Not bad specs either at first glance.
Run Windows ?
...marketing? Even on their own website, Linare says it comes with 128MB of memory, but 256MB is recommended. Would it KILL them to add another 128MB? What a turnoff.
can it copy and paste Miami Vice images?
If you want a laptop, you usually want to use it for work, you know, to have a mobile computer away from your main desktop.
Now, most people use Windows or Mac for their primary desktop. Hardly any users that buy their computers at Walmart are running Linux on their main machine. So what are they going to do with this laptop? It's not really compatible with their standard machine.
My best guess is that the hardware is basic enough that they can probably install Win98 on it with very little trouble. This is a computer for software license violaters, in that case.
Seriously Bentonville, put these super-cheap machines in the stores. Not because they will fail to create a train wreck. I've been in your stores - talked to you people - I know it will be a train wreck. Bring these items to your stores for me. Bring them to the store so I can see Linux move into mainstream big box retail. Bring them into the store because that will drive some interesting competition.
Thank you.
imagining a beowulf cluster of these wouldn't really be very funny...
Absolutely no mention of warranty for the boxes at the Linare website. I'd be a little worried about buying a low-end unit from a foreign company, through Wal-Mart, without some kind of assurance I could get it serviced somewhere reasonably.
I worry that the money saved might be done so foolishly.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Are the drivers for these things freely available?
Sometimes when you buy a linux machine, it comes with binary drivers that make it hard to run with a mainstream distro.
How many Walmart employees had to die in order for this product to get released?
Why did they choose linaire, the world's most hideous linux distribution?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
I don't think Walmart is doing this for any other reason then they don't want to pay the sticker price for windows. They are not really advocating Linux, more so than just providing something so they can say it has an operating system. Sadly, for any of you who thinks this is a win for Linux... I feel most certain that most of they buyers of these machines will buy it not because of Linux but because of it's fairly low price... wipe the hard drive... and install the pirated copy of Windows they got from the kid next door.
Blender And Linux Fan
The company website seems to be missing quite a few things.
First what is this based on? Redhat, Debian, etc? Will I be able to easily install and run a variety of software?
Secondly do they comply with the licensing requirements of the GPL and other OSS restrictions.
This all seems rather fishy to me.
My only worry is that the average, everday consumer will see Linux only on low end machines and equate the operating system with cheapness. And I don't mean "cheap" as in cost, but in terms of quality.
Why am I not rapping? I am rapping with you in a way.
Considering it's a linux notebook, and it's sorta hard to build yourself one of those. Looks like it'd make a good WiFi sniffer/detector, albeit a tad expensive.
On a side note: Has anyone actually made their own laptop that's not an utter monstrosity ?
I don't think that notebook will be powerfull enough t for today applications. I'll cause a bad feeling to new users of Linux.
It's going to be some kind of "bad advertising" for Linux.
ajf
I have to agree. You can do a lot with a slow notebook and lots of RAM and save a lot of money at the same time [I mean a professional class notebook, not a cheapie]. A faster notebook with only 128MB is ludicrous. It's painful. It's stupid. It's the American auto industry mindset.
It's just begging for a horrible user experience!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
what's the point of typing out byte? isn't a capital B assumed to be byte whereas a lowercase b is assumed to be bit?
if you're going to write out Byte, you might as well write out Mega as well. but mixing and matching like this? i find the flagrant lack of consistency to be unsettling.
THE STICK UP MY ASS IS TWITCHING AND I DEMAND A CORRECTION!
1 x IEEE 1394 port, 1 x PCMCIA Slot (TypeII) , 1 x LAN Jack (RJ-45) , 1 x Headphone /Speaker-out, 1 x MIC-in
1 x External VGA port, 1 x Modem Jack (RJ-11), 1 x Built-in MIC
Did they forget to list it, or do they really think a notebook without a USB port would actually sell?
I dig on Linux and all (got Slack 10 running right now), but I figured out early on that the Microsoft tax isn't that big a deal to the OEMs. Plus, and OEM has the luxury of punting their problems customers to Microsoft tech support (which is by far the biggest reason you're not gonna see Dell pushing Linux on the desktop for the masses anytime soon). The problem here is I can get a much better (numbers wise, I won't argue reality) notebook from Dell for ~$200 more. Call me when it's $300, maybe $350.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Maybe when you're at the store, you can buy an i-pod while you're at it, instead of putting gay shit like that in your sig / homepage.
I seriously doubt you even have enough cash to buy one of these laptops.
If a notebook can do what a desktop can do why have a desktop?
And who marked this troll as Interesting I would have given it a Score: Late 1999 era mindset barely preserved, a better troll would have been careful with such exquisite prejudices.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
If it's Linare and Wal*Mart then what's this about??
No sig for you!!
That is an awesome performance/price ratio. I need a latop anyways so I'll be among the first customers as soon as you can get one. I've heard that the first batch is only around 1500 units but maybe they will take pre-orders.
Of all the major distributors of computers, Why does the one company that's reprehensible ethics absolutely requires complete abstinence from purchasing their products come out with Linux computers?
It hurts.
my sig
Just goes to show how much /. is slipping
Why use these closed source linux type things, with the standard kernel and such, but with a custom, nonfree window manager? Wouldn't one of the traditional distros be cheaper? This is supposed to be a price saving move, and what's cheaper than a GPL operating system without the nonfree window manager?
SAILING MISHAP
Who on earth would still want to use Windows nowadays except some virus lovers. Wake up! Windows is dead and everyone I know is using either Linux or Mac OS. Times have changed...
Sure, I was just about to buy the Linespire laptop and this news breaks. Now I have to decide which is better.
Define 'Better':
Hardware specs: Looks like the Linare laptop has better hardware.
OS: To me the Linspire OS is better and has many more apps ready to go.
Does Linspire run on the Linare laptop? That would be a good match? The worst case is I buy the Linare laptop. If Linare sucks then I can install another Linux of my choosing. At least the hardware is good.
That's just KDE with a fugly skin, you know. Just look at the KDE Control Center. See the "apply settings on KDE startup" checkbox?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
USB is pretty fundamental, I hope it was just a typo. I would consider buying one of these as long as it includes at least one USB port.
Something else that looked strange: Linare said it will ship "more than 1000 notebooks" to Walmart stores in the US.
We are talking about all of the USA. Doesn't 1000 seem like a rather small number? That is NOT a real Walmart level shipment of product. What is that all about? (Considering the margins are small on this thing, the total profit on that volume would probably not even buy a street legal used car here in the USA.) They might as well have said they will ship more than a dozen notebooks.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Some say it's not powerful enough for today's standards, and aside from the RAM, I agree. Boost it to 256, and it's plenty. I'm typing this on a Sotec (now Averatec) 3120X laptop, purchased from a Wal-Mart (employee discount... I know, I suck, but it was $720 instead of $998), Celeron 1.2Ghz, 256M, 20G HD, and a DVD/CDRW. No legacy ports, just 3 USB, a winmodem (I'm told there are drivers, but never needed them), ethernet and 1 PCMCIA slot. Operating system is Gentoo, 100% MS Free. The only thing that is slow is compiling from source...
Now for gaming, my laptop and these machines are not good, but for a student who needs OpenOffice and net, or someone who wants mobility away from their gaming desktop... why not?
The box said "Requires Windows XP or better"... so I installed Ubuntu!
Technical Specifications: /Speaker-out, 1 x MIC-in ;Depth: 253mm / Weight: 2.7kg
:( Also, 128MB is EVIL! I think they only did that to get under the $500 mark, though (it costs $498 :P). Not a bad system for word processing or email.
CPU: AMD® Athlon®1.8 GHz Processor
Operating System: Linare Linux® Professional Edition
Memory: 128 MB DDR RAM; Expandable to 1 GB
Hard Drive: 40 GB HDD
Optical Drives: CD / DVD ROM
Display: 14.1" XGA TFT-LCD with 1024x768 resolution
Graphics: AGP V2.0 Compliant with AGP4X support;S3 Graphics ProSavage8x high performance 128-bit 3D engine with up to 64MB DDR memory
Sound: Dual full-duplex SoundBlaster Pro/real-mode
Built-in two high quality stereo speakers.
Network: Built-in full duplex 10/100 Base-T Ethernet
Built-in 56K / V.90 modem
Ports/Other: 1 x IEEE 1394 port, 1 x PCMCIA Slot (TypeII) , 1 x LAN Jack (RJ-45) , 1 x Headphone
1 x External VGA port, 1 x Modem Jack (RJ-11), 1 x Built-in MIC
Battery: Li-ion , 8 cell
AC adaptor : Input Voltage: 90v to 240v AC
Output: 18V DC / 65W(90W)
Dimensions/Weight: Height: 38.5mm / Width: 302mm
As someone else said, no USB or FireWire ports
but does it run Windows?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
For a simple machine that would allow me to do some basic development work at a local coffee shop this thing could work out nicely.
I like my desktops, and have stayed there so far, but something like this could almost convince me to try my hands at a mobile work/hobby environment. Hell, the lack of wireless would not only make it more secure, but less of a distraction than my laptop usually proves to be.
Whether or not I get one, there is plenty of reason to believe this machine is a good thing, much as the $100 PC Projects that have been touted by several groups as the next great humanitarian effort and have been reported here on here on Slashdot.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
maybe they are going to sell them online and see if they move any? or it's a typo.....
murderers and shrinkwrappists of felines.
I initially thought that it didn't look so bad, but then it became painfully obvious it was just trying to be like Windows, down to the logoff/shutdown/restart screen. When I scrolled down and saw that in the place of the start menu was a hideous looking button labeled "explore" I had just about enough. Just about every desktop environment for *nix has good traits. It is almost an insult to the developers to theme it like a "me-too" windows clone.
It looks like they sell direct to consumer on their website, so if you want the cheap laptop without WalMart, go for it :)
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
huh? * 1.8Ghz/256Mb/40Gig * Not enough power? Maybe if your a gamer. I run all sorts of apps on my 500Mz desktop running Slackware 10 & KDE 3.x.x.
This little laptop should be a screamer for what most people do with laptops (business apps, web surfing, and email).
I wonder about a notebook priced for students that many universities wouldn't permit on their networks - not being XPpro. Now I'm sure many of you will say I'm crazy but I know for example that the UNC will not, with rare exceptions, permit a non XPpro machine in. They sniff you and if they find noncompliance they shut off the port.
Moreover does it have at least wireless drivers built in? Retrofitting Linux drivers into a notebook machine for a PCCard NIC is not a pretty sight even for well known distros that support it. And if I can't at least use wireless at home then a notebook is largely useless to me.
It's really $600 for a 256MB RAM unit.
Last but not least how does this compare with a more mainstream refurbished notebook machine? This unit is a little on the low end side and compares with maybe a 2-3 year old maintstream unit.
If there's any bad feeling about linux, in regards
;)
to this particular instance, it would more likely
come about due to the particular distro that's installed
not hardware issues.
Hell, it's more powerful than any pc I currently own.
I've never had any problems that a faster harddrive wouldn't cure.
'Course, I'm not a big gamer either.
Hell most Linux distros are quite snappy on a 500mhz machine, given a nice videocard and a
quick harddrive.
Damn....! didn't see the troll spoor there *sigh* My apologies.
Nothing to see here folks LOL move along
probably in a week or two. I think I'll either install sarge/ubuntu on it or put windows98 or something on it, I haven't got a windows box anymore and it's handy for a few things i'll need to do, i'll get the $600 version with the 256 ram and then it should run smooth, wireless support as well? Bonus.
They've been selling these on walmart.com for a long time now. Reviews say the laptops are flimsy and cheaply-built, and there was a problem with advertising at first because the supplier lied to Wal-Mart about the specs and allegedly hacked the BIOS to report a higher CPU speed than what was actually installed.
These things also don't have a PCMCIA slot, so if all you need is a cheap wireless laptop that runs sluggishly, this might be a good deal for you. I should note that linux runs fine on my $350 Ebayed P3 Thinkpad, though.
In economic theory a commodity is something which has many producers and many buyers. The other defining characteristic is that one producer's goods are not much different than any other producer's. Commodities usually have quite low margins because it doesn't matter who you buy them from so you can shop for the lowest price.
The things that make laptops expensive are no longer as special as they were a short while ago. 15" LCDs are now a couple of hundred bucks. Run of the mill hard drives are becoming smaller and smaller. NiMH batteries are quite good and are much cheaper than more exotic types. The result is that laptops should be not a lot more expensive than desktops in the near future.
When IBM sold their laptop operation it was because they saw the writing on the wall. We're beginning to see lots of small companies producing laptops. We aren't quite at the point of being able to assemble your own laptop from parts but we're getting close. Desktops have been a commodity for a long time; laptops soon will be.
Imagine someone having several computers in their home. Maybe one of these laptops could be used as a relatively cheap file/backup/mail server. Throw in a PCMCIA card and you may even use it as a gateway or firewall.
The reason I say it's cheap, by the way, is the form factor. Naturally a desktop system with similar or better specs would be even cheaper. But this seems to me it's cheaper than other alternatives with comparable form factors. You could configure this laptop to run with the lid closed and that gives you a relatively sleek box which also draws little power.
The revolution will not be televised.
What they do seem to do rather effectively, is fuel price races to the bottom in every field they enter. This can't be good for any community. I would rather pay a few dollars more to buy a product from a local business, or a local geek to provide the same product or service.
http://injoke.org/index.php?title=daily_show_wal_m art_piece
http//injoke.org -- Culling The Interesting
The following is enough to run Mandrake Linux 10.1:
Athlon 1Ghz
CD-RW (but a regular CD would be enough)
40G HD (I upgraded to 80G when it died)
3COM NIC
256M RAM
16M Matrox G450
My laptop is even worse, old PII-300 with 196MB RAM and a 6G HD. It was sufficient for me to use to get through 2 years of college in a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology degree program. And it was running Gentoo at the time (now running SUSE).
Considering I'm not rushing to upgrade either (I'm not into gaming), I'd say these Wal-Mart machines are plenty for a lot of people.
i went to linare's website and couldn't find the source....
The People's Republic of Wal-mart. Your home for cheap plastic crap.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Over two years ago I bought a Toshiba laptop at Best Buy.
14 inch LCD
ATI radeon (works fine with linux opengl drivers) 256 megs ram (I upgraded to 512)
1.5ghz PIV
Windows XP Home (formated it and installed Debian
3 usb (version 1 not 2 unfortunatly) ports.
The only thing that sucked was the soundcard/speakers and the Microsoft tax. It only cost $600. Acording to moore's law (I know technecally it's about density, not price or performance) that kind of computer should be down to $300 by now (half price at the 18 month mark, and I give it a little extra leway.) Other machines have gome WAY down in price. I just bought a 2gig ram, 4 way SMP (450mhz each) ultrasparc machine. I cost me $200 and runs solaris 10 great. It would have cost me at least $2,000 two years ago. Why is PC hardware, particularly laptops still so expensive?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
± 29 dB
Just last year, I got a Toshiba Satellite -- celeron 900mhz, 14gb hard disk-- for $3000! FUCK!
They have 128MB in there for 2 reasons:
1) To meet the $500 price level
2) So they can charge $100+ more for a 256MB version.
Seriously. This is just a way for Wal-Mart to eliminate more competition - Dell, Gateway, HP, et. al, and 'embrace and extend' another market.
Wal-Mart isn't saving you money. Spend a little more and buy a used Powerbook, or a stripped-down Dell.
The less people that shop and buy at Wal-Mart, the better off this whole country will be.
It might look ugly to you, me, and many other slashdotters, but to mom and pop it looks just as "high tech" as XP or OS X.
I think it's good marketing, even though I wouldn't keep those defaults.
It's not near as bad as the extremely weak Linspire one they had a while back.
//last one accidently modded troll so here it is again.
Here
By looking at this thing, I'm guessing that 75% of the people buying this will return it once they use it and realize that it isn't Windows. It looks very much like Windows, plus most people who shop at Wal-Mart wouldn't know the difference.
By requiring companies to regularly lower supply cost and increasing supply Walmart forces companies to stop producing domestically and move offshore. Eventually companies cannot continue to exist (produce) in the US.
Great - I'll just fire up my video editing app on the measly 128 megs of RAM and boy, WON'T I BE STYLIN???
DooD!
HW
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This machine is obviously geared toward getting Linux "Out there" to people who are Lin-curious but not confident enough to fly solo on their primary PC, and also I suspect Wal-Mart is trying to reach the power-user market by offering a machine without the costs of Windows involved.
This is all well and good. If you have $500 to burn and want to experiment with a proprietary version of Linux, this is your bag. For the rest of us, I'd suggest visiting your friendly garage sale or used computer depot for a good solid 750mhz PC to throw Fedora on for grandma and grandpa who are Lin-curious. Power Users that don't want to give Microsoft their share of PC sales cash have options. Build your own machine even.
So this leaves this option kind of in the air. The only reason I would see to buy it, would be to get a fully functional system, format, and install Gentoo.
Nice try, but not quite home-calibur Linux <b>yet</b>.
Let's fake an answer for the curious; let's fake it all for the fame.
Over two years ago I bought a Toshiba laptop at Best Buy:
14 inch LCD
DVD drive
56k modem
10/100 ethernet
2 pcmcia slots
ATI radeon (works fine with linux opengl drivers) 256 megs ram (I upgraded to 512)
1.5ghz PIV
Windows XP Home (formated it and installed Debian
3 usb (version 1 not 2 unfortunatly) ports.
The only thing that sucked was the soundcard/speakers and the Microsoft tax. It only cost $600. Acording to moore's law (I know technecally it's about density, not price or performance) that kind of computer should be down to $300 by now (half price at the 18 month mark, and I give it a little extra leway.) Other machines have gone WAY down in price. I just bought a sun machine:
2 gig ram
4 way SMP (450mhz each)
4 redundant power supplies
It cost me $200 and runs solaris 10 great. It would have cost me at least $2,000 two years ago. Why is PC hardware, particularly laptops, still so expensive? On the high end the specs are going up so the price/performance ratio is higher, but at the low end, things have stagnated or even gotten more expensive. Cheap laptops cost more now then they did years ago. New SD-RAM is more expensive then it used to be and often more expensive then faster DDR RAM. CPU performance has also grown slowly in the low end dispite the constant clockspeed increeses. It took the desktop over a decade since the technology was available (the mips R4000 came out in 1991) to go 64 bit.
Intel is certainly part of the problem in spite of their recent 180 on the mhz myth and adoption of AMD64 for the Xeon. I have a pentium II 450mhz system with 512k L2 cache, and a PA-RISC system with 1.5meg L1 cache. I even have an ancient sgi Indy with a 200mhz mips processor with 1meg cache. Why do new Celerons still only have 256k L2 cache and PIVs only have 1meg L2 cache? Up to about 2 megs you will still get significant performance increeses by adding more cache. I understand the Itanium2 has a 9meg on chip L3 cache, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons its price/performance ratio stucks ass. However, there is a happy medium between the PIV and Itanium when it commed to cache. AMD is in the same boat with a 1meg L2 on the Athlon64.
Microsoft is part of the problem, but this certainly isn't the case for this walmart computer. It might be a step in the right direction, but the industry can produce better desktops and laptops cheaper.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Firewire = Useless to the average user.
GByte? I was a little worried when it seemed that GBrowser was hoax, but it's all better now! GoogleOS is awesome!
"Shabir: Hi, Nived", too funny!
SEO Firefox Extension
A 933MHz PIII with 512MB RAM (even 256MB) would suit most better than 128MB. 1.8GHz (equivalent) is great and all, but did they think about 1.2GHz and 256MB RAM or anything?
Hopefully, if buys instal Windows on the machine they will void the warranty by running an unsafe and unsupported system. :-) Would be a nice twist on the usual.
501 Not Implemented
If something has a high degree of "style" and "coolness" associated with it, such as clothing, jewelery, PDAs, laptops, certain makes of car, certain fine firearms, etc, then it is insulated from the costs of manufacture and raw materials.
Changes in the cost of silk or 12 year old Chinese sewing machine operators do not change the cost of the $600 high-fasion dresses they make, but they do change cost of my tighty-whities. The cost of steel is not reflected in a Benelli target pistol or a Mercedes, but is in a socket set or a Ford Echo.
Laptops fall a little bit closer to that category than desktops and other commodity equipment. People still think it reflects too much on themselves, which laptop they choose, hence the overpricing.
Which is good for bottom feeders like me. After rebates at Fry's, I pay almost nothing for my ECS motherboards with low-end Athlons. I wear Dickie's work clothes, drive a 15 year old VM Jetta, and generally live like scrub. I'm about to buy a house in cash, though.
Just to clarify, Open Office(tm) is a trademark of some company somewhere in commercial land. The software most of you use is OpenOffice.org(tm). Please refer to it as such.
Jay | http://oldos.org
I have no idea how I typed "Atlon" not just once, but twice. I should have known better. Sorry.
The cost of labor in a wicker basket is very high.
The cost of labor in a microwave oven is very low.
It is all relative.
Real honest-to-gosh slave labor would not reduce the cost of the notebook further.
My bet is that these are factory closeouts and rejects from Taiwanese factories. A profit of some sort is being made from getting rid of unwanted inventory.
This has been up for quite some time.
But they don't offer a linux laptop WITH WIRELESS. When they do that, it'll be something worth discussing.
"install the pirated copy of Windows they got from the kid next door."
Activation, validation for security updates, this is an option that won't be around for long, you can bet that when Longhorn arrives you won't be able to depend on these things. The days of doing this are numbered.
Wal*Nix
/home to /tmp.
Gives 4K disk quotas to users.
Forces all users out of
Grows partition to fill entire disk(s).
If you read their website they state that it will be for sale not only at walmart but at their own site and amazon.com, also if you cared to even look at the site a little more you would notice they have two models, one cost $500 and i agree it is shity but the $600 comes with 256mb of ram wifi, a dvd drive, and they state that their cpu's they use are althlon xp-m so it cant have that bad of a battery life. But like many of you said it does not state that there are any usb ports, I have contacted their site and am going to see if they respond, I just hope i dont get an automated response.
They're fucking Wal-Mart!
Of course they're going to sew some evil and havok in the process of doing their good deed.
Just because they're dumb as boards, think Jesus is looking through their rooftops, favor TV shows about eating live worms, and buy and vote themselves into a lower economic class is no reason to condescend to them!
cuz unless its actually walmart store shelves it introduces no one new to Linux it's just another place for ug geeks to buy a *nix box from.
What is so idiotic in computer hardware is that you cannot buy anything that is NEW for a low price such as $125 desktop or $500 laptop.
There are many end users that would buy the cheapest computer they can find and throw it away when it breaks.
You have a good point. No matter how Linux-centric Wal-Mart gets, they're still arm-twisting bastards that cost US jobs and milk the third world.
Transistors and Beer!!
Unfortunately The question is whether people want to pay thrice the competitors' price for clothing made here in the US or any where else with well compensated workers. No I don't work for American Aparel but their ads caught my attention a while back. I was dismayed they did not do online shopping but that has since changed.
As for the topic at hand, the moral disadvantages of buying an especially cheap computer are perhaps counter-balanced by the environmental advantages of buying a small form factor machine?
Walmart is a bit behind the times. I've been offering a $499 linux box for about a year now. Granted it's not $499 anymore, it's $459, but hey, I won't quibble about $40.
I just wish people would shop around locally instead of "if it's not on TV, it doesn't exist". Not only do local companies have to look you in the face, they actually care about you being happy with your product (most of the time). Too many people keep doing that and companies that actually CARE about customer satisfaction are going to go out of business. If that happens, I have a feeling that there's going to be more people that just say "oh screw it" too much. Not to mention, people like myself that were put out of biz because of things like that....well, quite frankly, I won't shed a tear for ANYONE crying about how Dell, or whoever treated them poorly. Oh wait, I don't now.
Are you Bill Gates? If so, when is Xbox Next coming out??
Maybe that'll bring enough customers to Linux to justify porting my games :P
</shameless_plug>
I could never buy a computer from a company with a cheeseball flash movie like Linaire has on the front of their site.
Wow, that is lame. Let's find out who their flash programmer is and throw dog shit on their front porch.
Just kidding. IANAL
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
And they are selling a desktop 3ghz 256mb ram ordinary pc type pc with windows and ms works7 for £599. that's about $1000.
WTF?
For comparison, the cheapest jeans are £4, a breadmaking machine is £20 and a divx/mp3/jpeg/everything compatible dvd player is £43. And a 28" crt tv is about £200.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
You can find Made-in-USA shirts at Walmart. They only cost about a dollar more.
But good luck finding flip-flops or laptops _not_ made in China.
Wrong. No matter how low you get your labor costs, the pressure from Walmart is to drive them lower. "Lower prices - always!" How do you think they back up that slogan?
Sam's Club has a sub $500 notebook w/ XP and wireless. If you are a business memeber then it could be tax exempt and shipping is less then $10.00
Features
Processor and Memory:
Dual-ported 128 kb split L1 cache, 64-Kbyte L2 cache on die, FSB 200MHz
On board 462pin CPGA mobile AMD Pro1600 processor w/ PowerNow!(TM) technology
On board 128MB DDR RAM
Expansion 1 slot of 200pin DDR SO-DIMM, up to 640MB system memory
Supports 2.5V/1.25V 200pin DDR200/DDR266 SO-DIMM module
Core logic: SiS 740 + SiS 962L
Hard Drive and Multimedia Drives:
Easily upgradeable, 2.5" 9.5mm height, ATA100/66/33 supported
Slim DVD-ROM
Audio, Video, and Graphics:
AC'97 2.2, supports 5.1 channel decoder through SPDIF cable
Built-in two stereo speakers with chamber
High performance 256bit 3D graphic engine, up to 143MHz 3D engine clock
Shared memory 16/32/64MB DDR (user adjustable in BIOS, 16MB as default)
Data, Fax, and Modem:
Internal LAN, modem and Wireless LAN
Integrated WiFi(TM)-compliant wireless LAN available as configurable option, 802.11b : 11Mbps (1)
On-board 1Gb/100M/10M Base-T LAN Ethernet, upto 1Gbps (3)
56K V.90 modem supported by miniPCI modem card as option
Ports:
Four USB 2.0 ports, up to 480Mbit/sec
One RJ-11 jack for modem
One RJ-45 jack for Ethernet
One headphone jack with SPDIF output for 5.1 channel decoder
One mic input
One external VGA port
One parallel port
One S-video tv-out connector
One DC-in jack for AC adaptor
Keyboard, Mouse, and Display:
3.0mm key travel, 19mm key pitch, inverted-T keyboard with two Quick Launch keys (www and email)
Synaptics touchpad with 4-way scrolling button
14.1" XGA TFT LCD display with resolution of 1024 x 768, 16.7M colors
Additional Software and Information:
Pre-loaded with Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
BIOS: Plug & Play, password, ACPI and DMI supported; bootable from USB FDD and CD-ROM
Kensington Lock and BIOS password protection
Battery Charge: approximately 2.5 hours charging time
Battery Life: approximately 1 hour
Dimensions: 13.14" x 10.78" x 1.33"
Weight: 6.0 lbs. (with 14.1" panel, 4-cell battery and CD-ROM drive installed)
$499.81
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/lina re/
And they'd better have IE on there.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
I initially thought that it didn't look so bad, but then it became painfully obvious it was just trying to be like Windows, down to the logoff/shutdown/restart screen.
I don't think having an interface that looks just like Windows XP is a bad thing considering the market they are going for. Wal-Mart is trying to appeal to normal computer users, not geeks. Normal computer users want to be able to click on programs and have them run, without having to get used to a new interface. Chances are that many of the people who buy these machines will have used or owned a Windows box at one time, and the interface lets them use Linux with a minimal amount of learning.
I have blog like everyone else
I work for a college's tech services department. We require Windows users to run a CD that includes Symantec AV and Checkpoint VPN software to log into the network.
Right now, for Mac and Linux users (as well as people with networked XBoxes, Playstations, ect), they just give us their IP and MAC addreses and we unblock their MAC address.
Our network security guys are for the most part unix geeks. They work pretty closely with the Linux community here, speaking at LUG's, ect. I would think many other schools would be the same way
I have blog like everyone else
Once you get below $500 for a laptop, I wouldn't worry much about what OS is on it. I'd worry about how long the hardware inside will last.
I've seen "bottom of the price range" equipment begin failing within the first year and be totally dead before the end of the next.
Sadly, this would probably work. Everyone thinks that high price = quality.
I ordered my laptop without windows a couple days ago. Though some consider it to be more expensive than a compairable machine running windows, I think I'll like it none the less.
-- john
It will give you Headaches each time,you use it.Why not buy something for a litte more and get a Dell/HP/IBM and most Problems are gone.Remember the plastic hinges.These are the most breakable Part.Also the Display may be of lower Quality.And the Fan spin often,which might be a bad thing if your on a train or in a libary.Also labeled Notebooks are ready to try out in Stores.On Walmart you buy cardboxes and never could try out the keyboard.Thats why i stay within the Brands.
Honestly, this is not being marketed at the type of person who thinks about things breaking a couple years in the future. You need to look at this laptop more as a consumer device (dvd player, clock radio, etc) and less as an expensive device with support. These things are like commodities.
What happens when the dvd player you got from walmart stops working? You take/send it back and exchange it for one that works. You probably get a year warranty and if it breaks in that year you send it back to Walmart, not India. Compared to Walmart, HP and Dell are relatively small.
If Walmart is selling this device, you can probably assume they have the support infrastructure in place. It's not the same support infrastructure as Dell and HP, it going to be more of an "exchange" type of thing than "repair".
-- john
Damn, I can't wait to get one!
Hey it's a noteboook so it's kind of small form factor, portable, cost the same as a mac mini, but this one comes with a screen. The specs are about the same for both machines.
But it still counts as a Linux machine sold, and if the MS Windows is pirated, it doesn't count as an MS Windows copy sold.
Linare PC ADBS220
It's no laptop but for 199 it has a REALLY fast CPU, 2200 GHZ!!!
http://www.linare.com/images/ad1600.jpg
It's funny
From Sunday Best Buy will be selling this a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S111 for $500. There is a rebate involved though, unfortunately. Specs:
15" XGA TFT active-matrix display with 1024 x 768 resolution
40.0GB EIDE hard drive (4200 rpm)
Intel® Extreme Graphics with 16-64MB DVMA shared video memory; S-video TV-out
i.LINK (IEEE 1394) port and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer
Integrated 10/100Base-TX Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; V.92 high-speed modem
Weighs 6.6 lbs. and measures 1.5" thin for portable power; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2) operating system preinstalled; software package included with RecordNow!, InterVideo WinDVD 5 with SRS TruSurround XT technology
Da Blog
Using an AMD 1800 is better than the Via C3 that one of the other cheap Linux laptops uses...
They're low-balling you on the memory, though. Should be 256MB.
Still, with even used laptops with PII CPUs and much less hard disk going for $240-300 on the used market, this is a good buy for a new laptop with Linux pre-installed.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Future Offering = Linair-built.
If Linair can supply more powerful hardware with the same price, I'm not surprised to see Walmart going for Linair instead of Linspire. From TFA:
Buying a Linux laptop from Wal-Mart - $550
Buyiing a Mac mini - $499
avoiding Microsoft - priceless
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Not on the sub-$500 model.
And if you read the $600 model's spec sheet, it doesn't specify that it actually has integrated wireless, but that it has "wireless capability." That seems mighty suspicios given that they list specifics for both the wired ethernet and the modem.
± 29 dB
...would they call it Walnux?
"Hello: Thank you for your interest in Linare products . yes, Both Linare Notebooks LADBS250 & LADBS200 comes with USB(2.0) . If you have any further questions, Please feel free to contact us. Best Regards Customer Support Team Linare Corporation www.linare.com www.linuxtimes.net"
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