RSS$199 Linux PC a Success at Wal-Mart
By the Betanews Staff | Published November 13, 2007, 10:58 AM
A $199 Linux-based PC from Everex has proven to be quite a success at Wal-Mart, with the computer selling out online and at most store locations. Reviews have also been overwhelming positive, with one buyer calling it "a wonderful first computer for anyone."
The Everex machine runs a variant of Ubuntu Linux called gOS, which is designed to be simple and directs users to Google services and applications. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is also included for working with documents. On a hardware level, the $199 PC features a 1.5 GHz processor from Via, 512MB of RAM, 80GB hard drive and a combination CD writer and DVD drive, making the purchase price quite a deal.
In my town, these flew off the shelves not only because of their price, but because of their speed and UI. The store had one running at the front door, and in the electronics department, and they let people play with it. Unlike a Win machine, they weren't going to hurt it even if they tried. Kids wanted to play the games, of course, but the adults liked the Web 2.0 focus on the desktop, similar to Fedora 8.
Besides, why not learn a little Linux?
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|watch them fly back when wallyworld customers figure out it ain't winders and it's busted ma.
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|that, or you could read the reviews of the 50+ people that love it on walmart.com.
http://www.walmart.com/c...s.do?product_id=7754614
Thanks.
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|"flying off the shelves"
and
"50+ people who loved it"
doesn't really engender thoughts of a high satisfaction rate... :p
It should be noted that these come with the standard 1 year warranty and tech support. Since this is ONE configuration on ONE set of hardware, it should be really easy to support.
(Insert restore CD, play tux-racer while it restores, get pissed at the unit when it interrupts your game to tell you it's done, reboot...)
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|Agreed, however it's an effective sample of satisfaction. If it was a complete failure, there would be 100x more complaints than compliments.
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|True. Wal-Mart would never remove negative comments, would they? ;)
Haven't seen the thing in action. Still considering the purchase of one myself...
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|...noobs
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|Decent system. 1 year warranty. This will do nicely for folks who only need basic computing.
$99 bucks more for the $298 version with Vista Basic (if they want to learn the basics "Windows")...
Not a bad deal either way. I may actually be tempted to buy one of these for my kids. (I'd probabyl go with the $298, but my kids are already familiar with windows and do want to be able to play their $9.99 wal-mart kid-games.)
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|OMFG
Google is taking over... This is getting REALLY scary...
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|It's not a Google product.
You forgot to take your meds. Chill.
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|For Microsoft big business is in working groups, tight underground control system of any user of the group by the Administrator, permanent updates, giant OSs, featuritis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_featurism) and an increasing "calling home" policy in their own interest. They don't have a real offer for humble home users who only want simple things. The success of anyone who cares about individual and no network based systems is granted.
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|*poke*
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|I am wondering if they know what they are buying into
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|A system that will allow them to do basic PC tasks with minimal cost or effort?
I'm sure they have an idea...
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|For people who surfs the web, check emails, wanna type things up and Print, occasionally read files from CD. this PC is perfect. If you wanna d more... I don't think it'll handle it as well as others will.
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|I can't wait to see how all the M$ drones belly ache about this...
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|*poke*
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|Ah M$ drones that is something so new from you.
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|I wonder when the pit$ingo drone will post his M$ hate, oh wait....
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|I can't believe there are that many suckers buying this computer. While I do think Linux is an excellent operating system, Via's processors are slow as molasses regardless if they run Linux or Windows. There are better and faster computers with Intel Pentium 4 or Intel Pentium dual core (Core 2-based) CPU's that have a very similar price tag.
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|If it's configured properly, it will boot clean, lean, and quickly.
As for loading times, if this is a first PC, they don't know any better. If it isn't, they aren't expecting any miracles.
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|People could probably dig that old Pentium (as in Intel 586) computer out of the attic and get better performance running Linux than with this computer.
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|Sure, if they care to take the time to configure it properly.
You do realize this computer is for folks who don't really want to spend the time learning how to do that, right?
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|There are a lot of Linux distributions that will run on an old Intel Pentium PC and they are just as easy to install as Windows Vista. Chances are, an old Intel Pentium computer's hardware would be supported out of the box in Linux so there really wouldn't be much more configuring to do than if you were to buy Walmart's $199 PC.
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|You are missing my point:
The installation of Linux on this system is configured to boot as fast as possible and support only the current devices attached to it.
A user installing Linux on "old hardware" would have to spend quite some time configuring the system to get it to the point these are sold at.
Even so, that's still not the point. The folks this is targeted at don't HAVE an old Pentium lying around, don't know anything about Linux, and don't care to learn, and this describes a whole hell of a lot of people.
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|Just checked out the reviews on the walmart website. It's great to have a machine on the market that is made for internet and office productivity using open source alternatives. There's even a model that's $100 more for 1gb of ram and vista basic with openoffice, but there's plenty of those in stock.
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|Sounds like an excellent box to keep around for testing and for light computing.
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|I agree....it would be a very low cost test box. I always keep a test box here, and would be lost without it.
Best of all, for the slowness and whatever all else, it exposes people to Linux who probably don't even realize there is an alternative to Windows...and I think that's a good thing.
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|If you're looking for testing, you can get the gOS dev board (mobo and cpu from this machine) for $60. Add $20 of ram and some spare parts and you've got a good start for a test machine (or second machine to keep the kids from messing up your gaming rig)...
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