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Shuttle's $200 Linux PC Part of a Trend?
eldavojohn writes "With $200 machines being all the rage these days, it's surprising that more coverage hasn't been given to Shuttle's KPC which is an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB HDD. With deals like these, will Linux become the dominant home operating system for the thrifty?"
Shuttle is smart and will have a hard time losing money on this. GNU/Linux enthusiasts will buy machines for servers if the Windoze users don't migrate. It's all about Vista baby, thanks M$!
Windows users want to replace their aging XP rigs and represent a huge market. They have put off new hardware purchases for ever. Cheap GNU/Linux machines give them a relatively risk free alternative to the Vista dissaster. They can try it out and load it with XP if they don't like it. Most people will be happy as long as they get their email, chat and YouTube.
It does look tempting as a network device. Shuttle makes small, quite computers. I'll wait to see if ARM based machines become more common (even cheaper) and put a free OS on that to save even more power. As always, I can move my hard drives and have more than enough capacity. Everything I've got works well so I'm not in a rush.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Cheap machines are one thing, but I don't know of anyone who has a computer at home who doesn't play games. Until Linux can get a stable of games as well as a few of those 'killer apps' (TurboTax, QuickBooks, etc.), people will just ask "Can it play GameBlah?" and when the answer is "No" or "Yes, but you have to do all this configuration work and edit config files as root and [whatever]" their eyes will just glaze over and they'll just walk over to the Windows displays because the answer is "Yes, just put the CD in and install it".
Your average user will love this computer: it lets them spend $200, and they can just throw a pirated copy of Windows on it.
And the FOSSies love it too, because while it doesn't help them... they think it hurts Microsoft. But it really doesn't, since that machine wouldn't be making MS money either way. At least on Windows. But then that user will stay using Windows (just like the customer wanted), and will probably end up buying Microsoft software at some point in the future.
So even when FOSSies win, they lose. The funniest thing is, their failures all seem to be by their own hand.
With deals like these, will Linux become the dominant home operating system for the thrifty?
So... will people who want to spend as little as possible go for a cheap PC with a free OS, free Office package and lots of other free software..?
Well, that's a poser isn't it?
Get your head out from under that rock! (or is it... Mom's basement?)
Wow, you're so cool.
So you want me to buy hardware and put Linux and VMWare on it just to buy a licensed copy of Windows so that I can run cross platform software why?
It's nice that you can insult me with no real cause but I really don't see the point of being such an ass when the reason not to do this is so obvious.
It's great that if you're not bowing to Linus that you have to get shit on by the Linux community just trying to have a straight forward conversation with them. Further proof for me that the Linux community is filled with snobs who have no real desire to do what it takes to make Linux into a first class desktop OS instead of just cawing on about GIMP and OpenOffice.
What an asshole.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
to pay your $699 SCO fee you cock smoking teabaggers