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Earthlink Sponsors Cheap Linux PCs
prostoalex writes "Earthlink and Microtel are offering cheap Xandros-based computers to anyone who's willing to sign up for Earthlink dial-up service at $22 a month. The desktops on Microtel Web site start at $70 for a basic AMD Sempron machine, Microtel laptops start at $399. ExtremeTech says there is also a SkypeOut gift certificate: 'All Xandros PCs and laptops include free Skype-to-Skype calling worldwide, plus an exclusive bonus voucher for up to 120 minutes of SkypeOut calling to any phone number in the world.'"
I worked for them from whenever they acquired Mindspring until some time in '02 (I'd actually been with Netcom, then Mindspring, then Earthlink), when I got fed up and left...but I was in the hosting group, and we really didn't bother with who was running what, given that we only cared about their sites working (and only tenuously so, at that)...
Why do I mention this? Well, not only did Earthlink not support Linux externally, they didn't support it internally, either...the hosting and dedicated groups both ran two systems, one Windows (for issue logging, supposedly..I used mine for fuckall) and one *nix (which was pretty much whatever flavor we wanted to use, given that we were the ones who had to fix it if it broke)...granted, if you managed to get over into those groups, you already had a clue as to what you were doing, and you could manage on your own, but every now and again, one of us would end up with some kind of problem and have to rely on others in the group or the systems engineers to help out...I miss that fun, little anarchistic group I worked with...
Now, I know next to nothing about what Earthlink does these days in terms of support for OSs (internally or externally), but the capability for them to support *nix exists, given that at one point their web servers ran Red Hat (mindspring platform) or Solaris (earthlink platform)...it can't be too terribly difficult to come up with an easily read, step-by-step configuration walk-through (which even in house our dialup and broadband groups relied upon, and I'm sure they carried on that tradition when they started moving things out of house and overseas)...but I'll be damned if I'm going to be the one to call them and find out.
Of course, they could just as easily support ONLY Xandros on the PCs they've put out, given that it would be standardized and they would know definitively what would need to be done to configure whatever dialer that they had put in place, and then tell people using other versions to go fly it up a flagpole...actually, having worked there, I'd feel pretty safe in assuming that this is exactly what they would do...Xandros=Support / Fedore!=Support.
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
It's important to qualify "stole" here.
/b img.aspx.gif icon_customize_it.gif
Their sizes are identical. 1423 bytes.
Did a "save as" with firefox.
>fc
Comparing files img.aspx.gif and ICON_CUSTOMIZE_IT.GIF
FC: no differences encountered
img.aspx.gif is from the Dell Home website. The other is from Microtel.
hmm.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
PeoplePC is still very much alive. The company I work for manages a section of their television advertising and I assure you, they are doing just fine.