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."

Comments

They already offer a $550 notebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Balance 14.1" Laptop, 1.1 GHz AMD Athlon 4

Remove windows and you got your self a sub $500.

Re:They already offer a $550 notebook

[bsharitt]

I don't see the option to let me remove Windows to get my sub-$500 notebook.

Re:They already offer a $550 notebook

[ikea5]

well, Alienware Area 51-M is the same as the Sager 5660 (both of which are rebranded Clevo models). http://www.clevo.com.tw/

No USB ports?

[Doppler00]

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?

Re:No USB ports?

[MBCook]

That would be my guess. I don't think there have been any chipsets made in the last 5 or 6 years that DIDN'T have at least USB1. If it's on the chipset, it's on the notebook (why bother not to add the ports?). I think there is one in the picture on their site, but it's too low res to tell.

Also, look at what you get. They give you ethernet, FIREWIRE, and no USB? That makes NO sense. You basically HAVE to have USB on a computer to sell it today.

Re:Universities won't like it?

[Scott7477]

You can't be serious about UNC only allowing one type of OS on the school's network: if so that is a retarded decision.

Re:fp

[randallpowell]

Change KDE to Blackbox or any other *box and it'll be fine. Turn off unneeded services as well.

IT'S NOT OPEN OFFICE(tm)

[oldosadmin]

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.

Re:It's just a throw away for them

[Brandybuck]

So what? At the present time, *NO* preinstalled Linux is going to kept intact by the average Linux user. I you like Fedora and the sytem comes with SuSE, you're going to wipe it. If you like Mandrake and it comes with Debian, you're going to wipe it.

Re:Remove windows, and you got no wireless

[blixel]

But they don't offer a linux laptop WITH WIRELESS. When they do that, it'll be something worth discussing.

Actually they do for $100 more. And you get 256MB of RAM instead of 128MB.

These notebooks are for sale at multiple places.

[sc3252]

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.

colleges...

[MadAnthony02]

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