Would More Expensive Linux PCs At Wal-Mart Work?
In a recent Datamation article, Matt Hartley put forward two suggestions for making future Linux PCs a success in stores like Wal-Mart. As many of you may know, Wal-Mart’s experiment with selling the gPC, a cheap Linux-based PC, was essentially a failure. I certainly agree with Hartely’s second suggestion for making future “Linux in Wal-Mart” experiments more of a success, which is to give consumers enough information to be sure that everything they use will work with Linux. Unfortunately, I am not as sure I agree with his first suggestion.
Hartely’s first suggestion is that Linux PCs sold should not use such low-end hardware. At first this makes sense, but if you add higher end hardware, the PC gets more expensive. The problem with this is that the $50-ish price saving you get from Linux is much less relavent if the PC costs $1000 than if it costs $200. That might be fine if someone was looking for Linux, but most Wal-Mart shoppers are probably just looking for a good deal. Perhaps a better solution than adding more expensive hardware is to use a less resource-intensive Linux distro such as Xubuntu or DSL. It would certainly be interesting to see a stripped down Linux compete with Windows Vista.
Also, if you are interested in a live group distro review, please vote in the poll by clicking on this link.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I completely agree with the argument that most people won’t buy linux PCs in wallmart if they aren’t dirt cheap. However although I agree Xubuntu is certainly an option, I think that if PCs were pre-loaded with the lightweight and hardly pretty DSL, many shoppers would be thinking; “What the hell is this…windows 98?”
June 14th, 2008 at 8:01 am
If the Linux machines were incredibly slick-looking machines, preloaded with awesome software, and were the same price as the boring-looking Windows ones (though at a lower actual costing), then I’m sure they’d still get bought by ordinary people. The key would be to make sure sales staff were trained about Linux’s differences, and let store owners know that there was better GP (profit) in the Linux machines.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
OK, i’ll tell you the Real problem.
i was voluntary tech support for the gPC.
The real problem is: The software (distro), not the hardware
They used a buggy, confusing and incomplete version of e17 beta.
They didn’t use Gnome. If they had gone with gnome, everything would had been easier (including community support)
i still have nightmares