Posted on 11/05/2007 12:19:20 PM PST by Red Badger
Linux, the free operating system that's a perpetual underdog in the desktop market, will get another chance this holiday season at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The chain was taking orders online Wednesday for a computer called the "Green gPC" that is made by Everex of Taiwan, costs $199 and runs Linux. It will be available in about 600 stores, as well as online, Wal-Mart said. A comparable Everex PC that comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and more memory costs $99 more, or $298, partly because the manufacturer has to pay Microsoft Corp. for a software license. Both computers come with keyboard, mouse, and speakers, but no monitor.
Linux is maintained and developed by individuals and companies around the world volunteering on an "open source" basis, meaning that everyone has access to the software's blueprints.
It is in widespread use in server computers, particularly servers that host Web sites. But it hasn't yet made a dent in the desktop market. Surveys usually put its share of that market around 1 percent, far behind Windows and Apple Inc.'s OS X.
Wal-Mart started selling Linux computers at its online store in 2002, at prices as low as $199. Computers from several manufacturers were available for several years, but are now gone from the inventory.
The variant of Linux on the gPC is called gOS and is derived from the popular Ubuntu variant. It's heavily oriented toward Google's Web sites and online applications, like YouTube, Gmail and the company's word processing program, all of which can be used only when the computer is connected to a broadband line. The PC comes with a dialup modem, but gOS doesn't support it. So most users likely will get online other ways.
Google's push into desktop applications is relatively new, and gOS, the Los Angeles-based startup behind the software, sees it as crucial in overcoming consumers' reluctance to leave the familiar Windows environment.
"We feel the timing is right for open source because of that," said gOS founder David Liu. The company has fewer than 10 people on it staff but gets help from volunteers in the Linux community.
Whether value-minded shoppers who would be enticed by a $199 PC will also be interested in making the jump to Linux remains to be seen. The operating system isn't known for ease of use and mainly attracts the tech-savvy.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said it is stocking the computer in about one in eight stores to test the demand for an open-source product.
The gPC has a low-end processor from VIA Technologies, plus 512 megabytes of internal memory, an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a combination DVD drive and CD burner.
Everex says the processor is very energy efficient, meriting the "Green" part of the name.
Again, that is a blast from the past comment from about 1999.
relevance.
That opinion holds until the next major revision of the distribution rolls around. Sometimes the "upgrade" option does the job, sometimes it doesn't. When it fails, there is much work to recover user data and system configuration to apply to a fresh installation of the new distribution. The average user doesn't even bother to do backups. Just wipe it slick and start again.
The rabid gamers will gravitate to Windows as that is the primary supported platform. The "average Joe" doesn't do anything really important with a desktop computer. If it has e-mail, a browser, internet messaging and the ability to print, it is probably good enough. Any Windows or Linux offering will cover that level of requirements.
geek ping
Fry’s had a $100 Linux machine a few years ago.
People would wipe the Linux off and put their windows operating systems on.
Sure it is. That's why my project had to hunt for a compatible video card for Centos4 when the existing card failed. Centos4 tracks Red Hat Enterprise releases, yet is still finicky about what video cards are acceptable. We had to buy one off the list of acceptable hardware. The spare we had on hand wasn't on the list and didn't work. That happened in April 2007, not 1999.
PCs are supposed to adapt for our convenience.
I don’t have a beef. I have an opinion.
It’s mine, exclusively, and I’m keeping it.
Enjoy your “Vista” of the world.
I keep wanting to try a Linux system, then I read incomprehensible stuff like this. I bought a computer that had linux on it, and I, being raised on Windoze, was unable to launch much of anything, and I couldn't find stuff. I was lost. So I wiped it. I downloaded Ubuntu once, but something was amiss, and I gave up on it. The live OS on disk sounds promising, but not if I ever have to understand the above paragraph. Linux users, go ahead and laugh at me.
You’ll keep it for a while and then you will change. There is no good reason not to. You can get a good Vista equipped machine for $400. Already loaded for bear. What’s the point of impeding progress? A lot of people said the automobile was only a passing fad as well. You got any horses?
I tried Linux too. I had my XP system with a double boot option and fooled around with it. It’s good but certainly not better than Vista. Just pull the monitor and other equipment off the XP machine, stick a new Vista box in there ready and already loaded and you’re good to go. You will love it. I heard all the negatives and they were all wrong. It is a great system.
These work arounds and manipulating of old machines is silly. I would have spent more to upgrade my old XP system than I spent for a brand new dual core Vista system which I now have. It made no financial sense. And besides a 3-4 year old machine is functionally obsolete anyway. It’s time to move on anyway.
$400.00? LOL Loaded for bear? BWahhaaa
Here’s the one I just built for a home server...
Supermicro X7DBN
Dual XeonMBoard
Dual 64-bit Xeon 5160 CPUs
1333MHz FSB
32GB DDR2 667
Dual-port Gigabit Ethernet
6xSATA
Intel 5000P (Blackford) Chipset
An absolute bargain for $2200.00. I’ll prolly sell it w/Kubuntu, Groupware, and Webmin installed for around $4500.00.
Interested?
If you don't have network connectivity, you can go to the book store and pick up a variety of distributions with books and DVD ready to go. Alternatively, you can order almost any distribution from discountlinuxdvd.com. You'll have ready to use disks in your mailbox before you could download the images from a website. Dirt cheap as well.
It looks like a lot of new stuff to learn. It is. I've trained many UNIX system administrators since 1980. Some of them have already retired...and they were new employees. Even the bright ones require about two years of working daily to be exposed to all the possible issues and resolutions. It's a continuous learning effort as the field grows and changes. Learn what is most important to you first, then add new skills as necessary. You'll find lots of books on the shelf to guide your new interests.
That depends on what you really need. Those shoebox HP machines have 1.7 GHz P4 processors and fast 7200 RPM IDE disks. That's more than adequate for a very healthy Linux system. The gcc and g++ compilers under Fedora Core 7 are leading edge tools. Combine that will good libraries e.g. FFTW and you can do some pretty serious signal processing. They are also quite serviceable as web servers and database servers. The "old" P3 800 running Debian 4.0 serves as the DHCP server for my LAN and as a "build" platform for multiple development projects with literally millions of lines of C/C++.
If your functionality requires the latest high definition video, audio, optical disks and 10Gig Ethernet technology, then you are probably in the market for something fairly recent. Different strokes.
Maybe they should have been doing the opposite............
So who needs something like that anyway?
Thanks. I’m kind of interested because I buy and sell used computers and I don’t want to put any of my licenses on these that will eventually leave the building.
Currently, I’m setting up a computer for one of my bosses so he can have internet at work. This will be a work application and will deal with suppliers webpages. Some of THOSE require IE 6.0 or later. Is there a way...?
Kris runs a good shop. I buy most of my used hardware there. When I'm pressed for time, I pay his techs to slap a machine together. It sounds like you are both in the same line of business.
Make sure you get real IE 6.0 or better for your boss. I use IE 6.0, IE 7.0 and Firefox 2.0.0.9 right now. There are websites at my company that only work correctly with IE 6.0 or better. Firefox does the basic Java applets just fine, but really screws up on accessing the special JSP pages and interpreting the CSS templates used for stuff like the expense reports. Firefox is my daily driver and default browser, but I have to keep IE at the ready for those situations where Firefox fails. I had to go with IE this afternoon to pick up the live streaming from Mark Levin's radio show. That was frequently necessary to stream Drudge from WABC on Sunday nights too.
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