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Wal-Mart's $200 Linux PC Sells Out
hankmt writes "About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 Linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz VIA C7 processor and 512 MB of RAM. While the specs are useless for Vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. The machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses (it may still be available in some stores). And the product sales page at wal-mart.com is full of glowing reviews from new and old Linux users alike."
Not quite what you'd think!, 10/31/2007
By NWAshopper, AR Read all reviews by this reviewer
Value for price paid: 1 out of 5
Meets Expectations: 1 out of 5
Buyers beware! Don't let the low cost of this computer sway your credit card. This computer doesn't have the power to run Windows XP!!! This is a decent buy for the tech smart who are looking for ITX Hardware on the cheap. DO NOT BUY. You will be very dissapointed!
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
Great Value for Money, 11/06/2007
By CompuShopr Read all reviews by this reviewer
Value for price paid: 5 out of 5
Meets Expectations: 5 out of 5
This is a Linux machine that's capable of XP or Vista. It runs quick, and upgrades easily. Major con is no monitor. Tried XP and Vista and it runs like a champ. Definitely recommend this product.
Probably the same as a Windows user... None.
...called Zareason:
http://www.zareason.com/shop/product.php?productid=16160&cat=0&page=1
So you can buy it there with a clean conscience. heh.
BTW, I have no business relation with the family that runs Zareason, but I did buy about $8,400.00 worth of products from them, and Zareason did a fine job of shipping the products to the public middle school that I ordered on behalf of. More details on that purchase here:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/1446254
There's free phone support and a regularly updated app called "Faqly" that contains the latest tech support info for folks stuck offline.
According to the article the original /. story linked to, the number to be sold was around 10,000.
This seems to be the main thread, there are a couple hundred posts now.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=599025
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Wal-Mart has been experimenting with Linux PCs for a long, long time. Here are just a few examples:
2002 Walmart sells Lindows PCs:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/general-10/wal-mart-ships-linux-pcs-23619/
2003 Microtel computers with SUSE Linux:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,111557-page,1/article.html
2004 Linspire computers on sale at Wal-Mart for $498.00
http://www.news.com/Wal-Mart-debuts-498-Linux-laptop/2100-1044_3-5498006.html
May of 2007, Dell computers on sale at Wal-Mart:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/15701
Wal-Mart is not stupid. They know that as the price of PCs falls, their sales volume rises. They have a vested interested in commoditizing PCs. With Microsoft, Wal-Mart gets a limited mark-up. With Linux PCs made by small vendors, Wal-Mart gets to call the shots. Wal-Mart has dollars signs in their eyes, and those dollars signs are dancing with Tux.
Manager at a local Wall Mart said he had 80 to go on sale at 8:00AM and they were all sold at 8:01. People began lining up at 6 in the morning, and they gave slips to the first 80 in line. I went in at 5PM and people were still trying to buy them.
Approximately 11.1 [link to wikipedia deleted]
No, that's the index. But thinks for the link.
Looks like it would be about 3,000 bogomips. Not cutting edge, but not too shabby either.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way