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Linux PCs Discontinued at Wal-Mart Stores

Posted by Zonk on from the we-barely-knew-ye dept.

eldavojohn writes "The $200 Linux PCs discussed earlier last year have been discontinued for sale at Wal-Mart's physical locations, though they will remain for sale at walmart.com. All this despite the systems repeatedly selling out. From the article, 'Paul Kim, brand manager for Everex, said selling the gPC online was "significantly more effective" than selling it in stores.'"

5 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Normal by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't Walmart bring products in and out all the time, I fail to see the "omg linux failure" here..

    1. Re:Normal by kripkenstein · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't Walmart bring products in and out all the time That is very true. In addition, the point of the article is that on-site sales were poor, but on the other hand online sales were successful enough for Wal-Mart to continue selling Linux PCs, currently the gPC 2 and the CloudBook.

      Bottom line, walk-in customers at Wal-Mart weren't into these products, but more tech-savvy people that buy online form a sufficient market for Wal-Mart to serve. What is important about the latter fact is that it means Wal-Mart will be ready to supply demand should desktop Linux become more mainstream.
  2. Re:No worries, mate by kaos07 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just go get the cheapest Windows PC you can find (they have a sticker that says "Vista Capable" or "Vista Ready") and install Linux. It's cheaper than buying a dedicated Linux machine. Actually the cheapest PC available on Walmar is $278. Exactly the same as the Linux model but comes with Vista Home Basic.
  3. I bought one, had a bad time... by JetScootr · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "Linare" linux distro on it did NOT include gcc (or any compiler), the only drivers for its modem and NIC were partial source for WINDOWS drivers. Their tech support was one guy who was obviously NOT in the US. He had to "call his supervisor" cuz he didn't know what Linux was or why windows drivers wouldn't work with it. After several phone calls, he email me a broken rpm file. I loaded Knoppix, got it working fine and overwrote "Linare". A coupla months later, the power caps popcorned.

    --
    Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
  4. Re:Once again... by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    The exec's used skewed information.

    Almost ALL locations that had them in the stores only stocked 1 or 2. They also did not display them so they were tucked away when they had them. Most of the time they were sold out and the local store manager never had it set up to restock very often so therefore the sales pace in store was slow. Mostly from raw incompetence. I watched 6 local stores around here trying to get one because I was too lazy to buy online and ship to local store. They NEVER had them in stock.

    Typical retail games and retail executives making decisions based on bad information created by their own management team.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.