[NTLUG:Discuss] Fry's and Linux

[terry]

Thomas Cameron wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lance Simmons" <lance at lsimmons.net>
> To: <discuss at ntlug.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 3:02 PM
> Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Fry's and Linux
> 
> 
> 
>>I sent this note on May 29th, which was while the NTLUG site had died,
>>and I still welcome comments:
>>
>>
>>>I think this has been talked about before, but here goes again.  As a
>>>lot of you know, Fry's sells computers with Linspire pre-installed.  I
>>>wasn't previously aware of the scale on which they're doing this.
>>>Yesterday they sold over 1,000 units in the DFW area.  There were 300
>>>boxes at the Irving store, the guy there said there were 1,000 at the
>>>Plano store, and there were probably a couple hundred at the Arlington
>>>store.  At $99, they were going fast.
>>>
>>>The machine came with Linspire installed, together with a Linspire
>>>recovery disk.  After fooling around with the Linspire desktop for a
>>>couple of minutes, just to see what it looked like, I wiped the hard
>>>drive and did a network install of Debian.  Probably lots of people
>>>installed Windows, but I wonder how many new Linux users there are in
>>>the Metroplex this weekend?
>>>
>>>I don't know whether these people will think of themselves as Linux
>>>users, because the Linspire desktop is so Linspire-centric.  I guess
>>>they'll end up going to the Linspire website for support.  But even if
>>>they don't really understand what Linux is, the fact is that they're
>>>using Linux.
>>>
>>>Is it a good thing for the development of Linux that Fry's is flooding
>>>the market with cheap Linspire boxes?  (I can't get over the fact that
>>>Linspire boots into a desktop running as root!)  Does anyone actually
>>>use Linux on these machines who wouldn't otherwise be using Linux?
>>>Will these new users, if there are any, be able to find NTLUG?
>>
>>-- 
>>Lance Simmons
> 
> 
> 
> This isn't really related, but a couple of weeks ago I went to Fry's to buy
> a video card for a Dell Precision 620 (old dual Xeon 1GHz box).  I was
> looking at the NVidia Geforce 4 MX and I asked the sales guy (the little
> voice was screaming not to, but what does it know, right) what he

You should have listened to that voice in your head.  A question of this 
sort would require extensive knowledge about Linux and computer 
hardware, and Linux developer relationships with computer  hardware and 
computer hardware manufacturers.  That's a bit above the scope and 
training of a store sales clerk. Questions specific to the hardware or 
hardware manufacturers may have netted some useful info, but that's 
[more than likely] far as it would go, [in  usefulness].

If there are questions about Linux compatibility: try the Linux 
community, the project developers, the hardware vendors or manufacturers 
for [accurate] answers to your compatibility questions.


> recommended for Linux.  Blank stare, then he lit up and said "oh, we need to
> ask that guy, he knows about Linux!"  So we went over and I asked "that guy"
> if he had a recommendation for a video card for Linux.  He told me that I
> should get on the web and go to a Mac site to find out what was compatible.
> 
> I asked what he meant, I didn't need a Mac video card, I needed a video card
> for a PC running Linux - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, to be exact.  He said,
> "well, you need to go to any of the Mac web sites and see what card people
> recommend."  I said again this was Linux, not Mac.  He replied "Yeah, well
> Mac has taken over Linux now."
> 
> After a few moments of stunned silence, I asked if he was talking about Mac
> OSX with the Mach microkernel and BSD Unix under the hood.  Blank stare.  I
> laughed out loud and walked away.
> 
> Scary.
> 
> Thomas Cameron
> 
> 
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but test everything; hold fast what is good,
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