Wal-Mart’s $200 PC - sold out ( 10,000 sold...running Linux Ubuntu )

ZDNET ^ | November 13th, 2007 | Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

About two weeks ago, Wal-Mart began selling $200 Linux-based PC.  The initial run was around 10,000 units.  Now Wal-Mart is sold out.  Has Linux now found a niche?

The system sold by Wal-Mart was an Everex’s TC2502 gPC and is the first mass-market $200 desktop PC.  The spec of the system is very low - 1.5 GHz VIA C7 CPU embedded onto a Mini-ITX motherboard, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB Maybe a more relevant question is not whether Linux has found a niche, but whether Windows has outgrown the average user?hard drive - but this doesn’t matter because the system does pretty much everything that your average PC users wants.  With the gPC you can surf the web, send and receive email, work with word processor and spreadsheet documents, chat with friends, keep a blog updated, edit photos and pictures, even burn DVDs thanks to the built-in DVD burner.  About the only thing that your average home user won’t be able to do with this PC is play games on it.

One thing that interested me about this PC is that it is shipped in a tower case when the components would fit into a much smaller case.  I wondered why this was the case until I came across a write-up on Wired:

Even at the low end, however, image is everything. The gPC is built using tiny components, but put inside a full-size case because research indicates that Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated they equate physical size with capability.

That “Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated” bit is a tad worrying because I do wonder whether someone who equates case size with capability should be put in charge of a Linux system.  The reviews seem pretty positive though.  Maybe Wired have underestimate the kind of person who shops at Wal-Mart.  Positive reviews far outweigh negative ones.  However, the comment that stood out was this:

when you want to jazz it up, just spend 10 bucks for a new linux distro

Interesting comment, eh?

Now here’s what’s interesting about this PC.  It doesn’t have what it takes to run Windows Vista, but it has more than enough power to do pretty much everything that users want from a PC.  As hardware costs have plummeted, and the power that can be squeezed from components increased, the cost of having Windows installed on such a PC becomes too high a proportion of the cost of components.  For example, if you wanted to load Windows Vista Home Basic onto this system (not that I’d suggest that you tried - the PC just couldn’t cope with Vista), you’re adding between $60 and $90 to the cost of the PC (depending on what the vendor pays for an OEM license, if you do it yourself, expect to pay the higher price in this spectrum).  In fact, Wal-Mart do sell a similar system with Home Basic pre-installed (this system has an extra 512MB of RAM, a SATA 150 drive instead of an ATA 150 hard drive, and comes with a keyboard and mouse) for $298.  Add Microsoft Office to that cost and the price of software doubles the price of the hardware.  By installing Linux and OpenOffice, the total cost of the PC is kept as low as possible.  While the price of hardware has fallen dramatically, the price of Windows hasn’t.  This could be Microsoft’s Achilles’ Heel.  This low price point will appeal to many.

Has Linux finally found a niche in which it can compete against Windows or will the interest in these kinds of systems be limited?  I think that Linux might well have found a good niche.  Sure, these low-end systems will never appeal to those who want power at any cost (and who don’t mind if their systems belch black smoke to achieve that power) but for people looking for a very cheap PC at a rock bottom price (this system is so cheap that I doubt you could build one for as good a price if you added shipping charges for the components into the deal), this must be a pretty irresistible deal.

Maybe a more relevant question is not whether Linux has found a niche, but whether Windows has outgrown the average user?

Thoughts?

[VeniVidiVici]

That “Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated” bit is a tad worrying because I do wonder whether someone who equates case size with capability should be put in charge of a Linux system.

LOL!

Man calls Wal-Mart:

Hey, I bought a computer from you guys and there are no Windows on it.
Yes, sir, that's correct. It has Linux.
Lin, what?
Linux.
What in the sam hell is that?
It's an open operating system that is free.
So if it's free that must mean it sucks.
No sir, it does everything Windows does only better.
But you said it was Open Windows. Doesn't that allow viruses to come in?
Um, no sir. That means that people all over the world wrote the software to make your computer go.
You mean even them I-ranians and Russkies?
Well, I assume so sir.
Well, hell's bells! Screw that! I want a refund!

[Kieri]

And also amazing that solid state thumb drives now are 1GB and more.

A 2G Sandisk Micro drive is going to be $7.99 on Black Friday. I'm hoping to pick up a few for stocking stuffers!

Amazing, considering I remember the old dual floppy PC's.

[TalBlack]

“Now Wal-Mart is sold out. Has Linux now found a niche?”

LET TELL YOU SOMETHING; IF i can run my music production software on one of those then as far as I am concerned,yes, Linux has found a niche. I would give anything to get the hell away from windows.

[-=SoylentSquirrel=-]

"...I just turn them on and use them. Crashlessly...."

Dude, you can't just invent new words.

Or can you? Hmmmm.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

I was using dual floppies on a 3.4mhz clone when the guy in the office next to me got an IBM with a 20MB HD. My first comment was “why in the h_ll would you ever need that much storage?”

[Gorzaloon]

Dude, you can't just invent new words.

Or can you? Hmmmm.

You can in Linux....hahaha.

[TxCopper]

Cyrix lives again!

[silentreignofheroes]

Know this is late,been splittin firewood,(work but free),,guess I’ve been out of the loop,started in tube theory,,heat caused me more problems than you could count,,heat in electronics was my enemy..reckon I need to ask questions again.. I believe these systems will sell and be accepted as long as it’s “button based”so to speak.

At any rate MS needs some competition..

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Check out this one:

Ubuntu Studio. A multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu.

********************

Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional.

We provide a suite of the best open-source applications available for multimedia creation. Completely free to use, modify and redistribute. Your only limitation is your imagination.

[MarkL]

Everex.. used to see that name on stuff way back when..

I bought one of the very first Everex Step-20 386 systems in KC way back when... 20MHz 80386, 4MB RAM, EGA graphics (eventually upgraded to VGA!) 120MB & 65MB RLL hard drives, running SCO Xenix 386. I was also Everex Warranty authorized, including the Everex MP (Multi-processor) Cube, based on the Corollary C-Bus MP system. What a piece of JUNK! But their Step systems were very high quality, and pushed the performance of the the hardware to the point of occasional instability... I really liked their stuff, way back then...

[Riley]

All that’s missing is the defensive preamble about how he’s such a computer expert and has been using these things for years and don’t you try to snow me and on and on.
My first tech job, way back when, was in a retail store. We had legions of these people troop through the place. I put up with it until I had sufficient cred to get a real job, then I fled. :-)

[Gorzaloon]

guess I’ve been out of the loop,started in tube theory..At any rate MS needs some competition..

Well, Linux will "put some voltage on pins 2 and 7 and warm your filament".

[silentreignofheroes]

A warm filament is a happy filament,,those were some days..

[wildbill]

Hey, I misspelled it. It is the Foxit Reader. Foxit software. You can get ability to edit and change PDF files as well. I haven’t tried that yet.

[Erasmus]

Well, as long as we're fumfering....

My department once bought a RAM expansion box for one of our PDP8's.

Box held two expansion banks of core, 4K 12-bit words each.

The box cost us $8000, so the cost per byte came out to $0.65. That's right--sixty-five cents.

[Lexinom]

The spec of the system is very low

It doesn't NEED to be all that high - it's running Linux, and would likly outperform a Windows box with twice the hardware power for regular mundane tasks like booting and starting applications.

That “Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated” bit is a tad worrying because I do wonder whether someone who equates case size with capability should be put in charge of a Linux system.

LOL! How true, how true...

This is a far, far more sensible system for the "average" user who just wants e-mail, the web, a couple of simple games, a way to write letters, play and maybe record sound, etc. I've long suspected windows was huge overkill for the home market, having become so unwieldy that its complexity and the associated problems become a net demerit rather than benefit.

[UnChained]

1978 AppleII

I had my boss spend $1200 for a 16K ram upgrade and about the same for a 10 MB hardcard so I could write some business apps in Applesoft Basic.

[Lexinom]

Both of my Apple IIs are still in service - mainly for the kids, but also for “quick and dirty” programming, testing scientific theories, etc. Simple, and they do what they’re told.

[KoRn]

<"Soon 9000 knuckle dragging mouth breathing slugs will return their PC’s to Walmart because they “don’t get that linus thang”

Not likely to happen. Any person with at least a brain stem can use Ubuntu. It's VERY user friendly. Most everything in Ubutu just works.

[Gorzaloon]

A warm filament is a happy filament,,those were some days..

Reading the Burnstien-Appleby catalogue,peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before bedtime, and having panic attacks awaiting the first CK722 and 2N35 to arrive in the mail.

We just do not have that kind of excitement going from a Pentium 3 to a Pentium 4.....