Slashdot Mirror
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."
How many bogomips are we talking here...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It sold out much faster then this; It's been out of stock for at least 2 days.
Remember, these are typical Walmart customers here. How many of them are going to return these things when that AOL CD they have doesn't work automagically? How many of these people are expected to have DSL or Cable instead of dial-up? How many are going to be returned because they don't have MS Office pre-installed on them?
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.
... the Slashdot equivalent of strapping buttered toast to the back of a kitten and pushing it off a table. You could power a perpetual motion machine with the flames generated by this combo...
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Probably the same as a Windows user... None.
Wal*Mart = Bad
Linux = Good
*whimper*
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It seems the people buying it know that it isn't Windows or they're buying it for friends/family and they'll be providing the support.
And for home users it's all about knowing someone who can fix it when it breaks. With Windows there's usually some neighbor's kid who "knows computers".
So don't expect too many returns on this.
In the community around me, I've seen a lot of growth in the use of Linux on the desktop just in the last year. But probably the most interesting trend is that I've seen a bunch of new Ubuntu users among the mechanical engineering students, who in general aren't particularly computer-nerdy, and even more amazingly, are actually dependent on Windows-only software for some of their CAD tools (i.e. Solidworks).
I think the Walmart results might be indicative of a growing trend where people are just about ready to make the leap themselves... particularly when it comes preinstalled like it does here. Another step in the right direction.
What I'd love to see, though, is how much previous computer experience all of those Walmart reviewers had -- for some, it seems like quite a bit.
--
Electronics kits for the digital generation.
Does it run Windows?
That a Linux machine is sold out at Walmart suggests that plain folks -- not like you and me -- know and respect Linux. The lesson is that there is a ready market, in middle America, for Linux-based applications. Will software developers heed this lesson?
For most people, the monster computer (with globs of memory and a gazillion hertz of processor speed) running Windows XP is already more machine than most Americans need. Now, Microsoft will kill off Windows XP in order to sell Vista to us. We will need a super-monster computer to run Vista. This whole process of bloated operating systems (OSes) driving purchases of even more excessive amounts of hardware is a damned waste of money.
The simple machine that runs Linux is good enough for most people. The number one application in America, after all, is e-mail.
Software developers should tune into middle America and sell Linux-based applications so that we can put an end to this never-ending cycle of bigger, badder OS needing bigger, badder computer.
how many AOL users bother to change their OS to linux? how many people use the features in MS office that OpenOffice doesn't support? how many would even notice the difference?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
...urge to support the Wal Mart beast. But Linux is good right? But wait...Wal Mart is not good. Unless, they throw me a open-source bone. Then they're good right? Damn, I hate moral dilemmas. Why can't everything Wal Mart sells, just be something I either do not want or do not need? It's almost as if they are pandering to....hey look! They have for $1.99/dozen!
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
There is something very wrong with the reviewers, I keep clicking "Read all reviews by this reviewer", and the reviewer only did this single review on a product. Which is unusual for people who write their reviews on products (usually they'll have a few others they've written reviews for). They all write excellent English, no grammar mistakes, punctuation mistakes or anything.
I suspect manipulation of reviews.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Remember, these are typical Walmart customers here.
That is important, they are not like Slasdot readers. Unlike business users or college students, M$ has done no favors for these people and they have zero loyalty.
How many of them are going to return these things when that AOL CD they have doesn't work automagically?
I don't know. The EEE has an AOL button, no CD is required. I know it's hard to believe but AOL would be happy to spam users of other OS.
How many of these people are expected to have DSL or Cable instead of dial-up?
None. Why should they?
How many are going to be returned because they don't have MS Office pre-installed on them?
None. Open Office is more than enough for the average school paper. Very few people actually NEED M$ Office for work and even they hate it. The rest of the world considers M$'s ever changing, secret file formats an expensive ass pain. They are right.
Anyone who actually needs M$ Office will have their boss pay for it or pirate the junk. If M$ makes the second option impossible, the first option will have to happen or the boss will learn to use free software. M$ is not going to be able to get everyone to pony up $400 every couple of years for a text editor and that's where they system breaks down. Sooner or later, all of those smart business users and college graduates will figure out that they don't need M$ either.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I am very happy to hear this news and pointed a number of people at this machine. But it would be a lot more meaningful if we knew how many they sold out of. 10? Big whoop. 10,000? More impressive.
The biggest vote of confidence in Linux is that Walmart even sells it. Walmart doesn't put stuff on the shelves if it isn't going to sell. That it sold out just shows that Walmart was right.
...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.
I don't believe a lot of buyers were typical wal-mart customers. These PC's have been blasted all over every tech site for the last several days and each site has been covered in comments about people who want to get one. There are comments on this slashdot article by people who have bought them.
I think a load of these were bought by linux fans wanting to support linux on a retail box. for a low price.
Gone!
Amazing what a decade of hardware progress can do :)
Wow, are you ever an elitist prick. I guarantee you almost everyone on Slashdot shops at Wal-Mart, because almost everyone on Slashdot is "plain" and normal in almost every respect. If the PC is sold out, 85% of it is because of dorks like you and me. The other 15% is people that didn't know what they were buying.
We also don't have Wal-Mart, so there's a bright side.
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.
But Linux is good right? But wait...Wal Mart is not good. Unless, they throw me a open-source bone. Then they're good right?
The readership of Slashdot varies drastically. Attempts to use social pressure to homogenize it have failed, with great hilarity.
Apparently you did not get the memo. B-)
Please do not expect all of us to march in step.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Agreed. "Hate" might be too strong a word.
However, tell a small business client that they've got to buy a separate license for EACH station for MS-Office. While you might not get "hate", you're sure not going to get any "sweet sweet lovin' ", either. Typically, they next ask for workarounds to install one copy on multiple machines.
Personally, that's my big gripe with Office and Vista. MS marketing aside, I can't see the value in paying $400 for a software package that does what its parent company wants. Heck, I have installed an OS that didn't cost a dime and uses an office suite of the same cost... and it does what *I* want.
....and I donate to support those. THAT is value.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Or on the other hand, if you had no knowledge of computers and walked into a store only to see a machine for $200 and right next to it the same machine for $500-$700 which would you buy? OS choice really isn't as important as some on /. would make it out to be to the average Joe. All they are looking for is will it do what they want it to do for the cheapest price. Here is where Linux can fall flat on its face if someone doesn't make retail versions of software as available and ubiquitous as Windows software. Put a boxed set of Open Office next to that Microsoft Office suite and then we can talk. You see, there is the problem with this thing. Everything you need is included with the distro making this kind of visibility moot. The problem is that the same time Joe Average is picking out that computer they are also looking at the software shelf loaded with Microsoft centric crap. The moment they pick up that shareware disk for $5.00 and ask, "will this work on that box I'm buying?" will be the kiss of death on that sale. Add in the fact that sales people at WalMart aren't the pick of the crop and mess up even Windows technical issues and it is a recipe for a PR disaster.
Assuming that at least some of those sales of this box was to Joe Average, this can be a boon or bust moment all dependant on the support they get from WalMart. If WalMart washes their hands after sale (i.e. "All sales are final. Take it up with the manufacturer or Ubuntu") then this could be doomed after all the geeks have gotten theirs.
Personally, I wish WalMart success on this venture. There is nothing more healthy to a monopoly than competition.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I hope these machines are good. I used to buy the $200 Fry's Great Quality machines, but Fry's is no longer selling those
Me too. Well the architecture is pretty similar (cyrix CPU) but it looks like the software is a factor better, many of those GQ machines didn't have adequate drivers to support the on-board video so you were stuck at 640x480 or whatever. Though installing Mandrake (back then) usually took care of that.
The thing that really burns me is all the "Good for Light Word Processing"crap these power-system zealots keep spewing - and I ma not discriminating here, all of the platforms, Windows, Mac and Linux are full of em. I can tell you that machine (512MB RAM/80GB HDD) is probably capable of some great DTP (Scribus) could be great for illustration (Inkscape) and really serious office work (OOo). It may not be fast at doing such things, but we should never say it is not capable.
As a Classic computerist I know of authors who write books and other published works still on Commodore 64s, (heck some have never left their typewriter behind). To them they get familiar with something and stick to it they don't upgrade because they are to busy being productive with what they have (the hard part is finding replacement parts for their daisy wheel printers). Same reason why the XO will be a hit with kids, they will not see those laptops as underpowered or slow, but the draw is they have access and the speed isn't really a factor when you are starting out (as they get better and outgrow it, then that's another matter; it took me years to outgrow the VIC-20).
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
It has a serial port, so if you want to use dialup, you can always attach a real modem. Those are well supported on Linux, far moreso than internals. So if someone wants dialup, you have a pretty easy solution to give them. I can't imagine that a modem costs more than $25-30 these days anyway. (That's assuming you can't find one for free; people give them away all the time on Freecycle.)
But anyway, I think this is a moot point; most people who bought the machines probably knew exactly what they were buying. It'll only be when the enthusiast market gets saturated that you're going to see these machines trickling down to the "retractable cupholder" crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I knew it! I knew Linux is going to sell out some day! I told you Linux is just as evil M$FT! Sold out to Walmart of all people.
*RTFA*
Oh. Good job, carry on.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Customer - "Hi, I have a problem with my computer, it won't boot"
Walmart - "What operating system do you have installed"
Customer - "Windows Vista"
Walmart - "I'm sorry, that PC shipped with Linux. You'll have to reinstall that before we can help you!".
Next thing you know, they'll blame faulty hinges on Windows!
This space for rent
How many AOL users even know what an OS is ??
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Right after someone invents the mod "-1, can't spell douche"
Thank you, thank you - I'm here every night. Be sure to tip your cocktail waitress.
I had it in my cart this morning. Didn't close the deal. Maybe I can catch the next round. I also would like to know how many they sold and how fast. If any come available open box maybe I can get one of those.
I have the 1.3GHz via, and I like it. With Vista any kind of video is a slide show, even with the XP drivers loaded. Runs XP decently well with 1GB of memory. With Ubuntu it's just a regular PC. Power efficient, there are kits to scale it down for your car. It's not a toy -- you can do real stuff with it.
If anybody bought one of these and aren't happy with its linuxy wierdness, try selling it on ebay. I think you'll do better than taking it back to the store. :-)
I'm not buying the $299 one with Vista and twice the RAM. They can keep that. You can get a 2GB stick of DDR2-800 at newegg for $50 so if they wanted $250 for the box with 2GB in it I could go there.
WalMart does not like to run out of stuff. I wonder if they'll take this as a sign that Everex isn't ready to be a WalMart supplier, or as a sign that we're all ready for the smokin cheap environmentally friendly linux pc. Can Via even make the motherboards to meet the demand? I hear their output is rather limited.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's not the 'year of the Linux desktop.' It's not this year, it won't be next year, and it won't be any year after that.
But that's okay. Linux -- and other Free OSes -- don't need a "year." They're gaining traction, slowly, and will continue to do so. The migration away from vendor lock-in on the part of the general public isn't something that's going to happen in a single year. It's going to happen over the course of decades.
The writing is mostly on the wall: the price of hardware has dropped and will continue to fall, and that makes it a lot harder to justify big bucks for an OS, while at the same time more people are satisfied with their current machines and don't want to upgrade, meaning you can't lower your price and make it up in volume. Less revenue means less to spend on top talent, and that means a crappier product. The public may be slow, but eventually it catches on when you try to push too many lemons. (And once it does, it can be brutal and unforgiving; just ask the big U.S. automakers.)
Microsoft will do what it can to wring the last drops out of the Windows/Office monopoly, but they're busy diversifying as quickly as they can out into other areas. They're too big to just keel over and die overnight, but they'll probably have to pull an IBM: preserve their brand and reinvent themselves as a different company.
I'm optimistic that when the history of the late 20th and early 21st century is written, it will be remembered as a sort of digital Wild West, a lawless time, when proprietary non-standards roamed and fortunes could be made and lost overnight. But that's all going to come to an end, and when it does, the advantages of open standards -- and, to a slightly lesser extent, open source and Free software -- will be pretty clear. The forces driving that transition, however, are slow and grinding. They're not the sort of thing that lend themselves to a "year of," except arbitrarily and in retrospect.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Wait... does this mean that we like Walmart now?
Just wondering...
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Microsoft Office has an interface designed in Hell by idiots. I hate it. HATE IT.
You can't do anything that isn't programmed in. My boss, who is a Microsoft fan, fumbles around in its interface, I've watched him. The emperor is wearing no clothes.
You just think it's OK because you don't know anything better.
Yeah, I know I"ll be modded down for this. Whatever. Star Office sucks, but so does Microsoft Office.
I was impressed by what is now known as Microsoft Word before it was bought out by Microsoft, but that was a couple decades ago. What is also impressive is that I see the same kind of fumbling around in a twisty maze of GUI menus all alike that I saw when someone was once trying to impress me with Microsoft Windows for Workgroups. Not more than a couple of years previous, I had people screaming at me at my workplace to not require any of that in the UI guidelines I was writing for that section of the company.
Then perhaps you'd like to address the issues he raises instead.
I've listed them below for your convenience.
- These are typical Walmart customers who have zero loyalty to either Microsoft or Linux.
- No CD is required for AOL. It is easy for an ISP to be platform-agnostic.
- DSL and Cable are platform-agnostic, but dial-up users can purchase a modem for less than the cost of a Windows license, let alone Office, antivirus, spyware removers etc.
- Nobody will return a $200 computer because it doesn't have Office installed on it. OpenOffice does the job nicely, and M$ Office is never installed free on budget Windows computers. Moreover, M$'s ever changing, secret file formats are an expensive ass pain.
- It won't take long before anyone with a clue realises ponying up $400 in monopoly rent every couple of years for a document writer is pointless when there's another option for half the price and better longevity.
I'm looking forward to your reasoned response..."I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Wow are you ever an ethnocentric prick. I guarantee you there is a significant percentage of Slashdot users who aren't even in a country that has Wal-mart stores.
How many AOL users even know what an OS is ??
They know exactly what an OS is, it's the blue window that tells them they've got mail, duh..
That would be a little like a Mazda RX7 having a warning that this is not a Dump Truck.
There, fixed that for you.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.