With the gPC, the Shuttle PC, and now the new Mirus PC (Linspire/Freespire PC,) the market for $200 Linux desktops seems to be getting filled up with a lot of something-PCs that all seem about the same at first glance. When you look carefully at the specs and the marketing behind each PC, though, you can see the niche it is targeting. Lets start by looking at the basic specifications for each product:

Mirus PC
Processor: Intel Celeron D 420 1.6Ghz
RAM: 1GB
Hard Drive: 80GB
Optical Drive: CD-RW
Accessories: Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers

gPC
Processor: VIA C7-D 1.5Ghz
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Drive: 80GB
Optical Drive: CD-RW
Accessories: Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers

Shuttle PC
Processor: Intel Celeron Something
RAM: 512GB
Hard Drive: 60GB (Shuttle told News.com 60GB or 80GB which I suspect means that 80GB will be an option that costs more.)
Optical Drive: None
Accessories: None

So what is each one the best for? The Shuttle is great for someone who cares about the appearance of their computers. It is a very small form factor PC and it looks very simple, clean, and generally well polished. Unfortunately, the specs are not so great. The lack of an optical drive in particular could be a big problem the next time you want to, well, do anything with a CD. In terms on raw power, the Mirus PC wins with its 1GB of RAM. The gPC is in the middle in terms of the specifications, but it advertises itself as the “green PC,” showing off the VIA processor and other unusual hardware. As a summary:

The Shuttle looks the best, but lacks in hardware, the gPC advertises itself to the eco-conscious, and the Mirus wins in the performance category.

I am sure that by now everyone is aware of the problems people have been having with Vista and the reluctance of businesses and home users alike to move from XP to Vista. Microsoft has already given XP another 6 months to live before it will no longer be avaliable for purchase and people will be forced to move to Vista, but people still want more. With the end of life for XP coming up soon, even with the delay, InfoWorld has started a petition to “Save XP.” Who knows how much success this petition will have, but I will be very surprised if Microsoft agrees to continue to sell XP forever, essentially admitting Vista was a flop. The effort that goes into this petition and other requests to “Save XP” might get the death of XP delayed for another few months, but not another five years, or however long it takes Microsoft to come out with the next version of Windows. It looks like everyone is stuck moving to Vista - or open-source software, where this problem could not possibly exist.

Take Ubuntu or any other open-source project, you can still get every version they ever released. For that matter, you can probably get every single beta they ever released. No one had to petition them to do that, that’s just how open-source software works. Better yet, if you do, for some strange reason, decide you want to use the very first version they ever made (or any version,) you are free to do anything to the code you want, so you can keep issuing security updates if you need to support a big business. If you wanted to use an old version of Windows, you would basically be stuck using an un-patched operating system. I am sure someone is saying right now, “but there aren’t any viruses for old versions of Windows anymore.” Actually, stories of old viruses popping up again are quite common. I remember recently a virus that was designed to spread on floppy disks got put on a bunch of computers and infected them.

When there is just one dominant closed-source vendor, users are at the mercy of a single corporate entity. If you don’t like what that entity is doing, tough luck. With open-source, you can modify and use the code however you want, whenever you want, no matter what.