Remember the gPC? It's Everex's $199 "green" Linux computer, the one Wal-Mart stocked up on during the last holiday season. Well, it seems the "experiment" is over, with an unsatisfied Wal-Mart putting those famous price-cutting scissors on their plan to sell the cheap PC in their stores.
According to the AP, Wal-Mart concluded that their middle-American consumer base was not hip to the gPC's Linux-based operating system. However, seeing the appeal of the computer to a more geeky clientele, Wal-Mart will continue to sell it on their website.
Why should anyone care? Far as I know, this was the first mass production of consumer electronics with some green features (low power consumption -- not enough to make it completely green, but a start).
I know what you're thinking: "If it's just the OS they didn't like, why not slap Microsoft Windows on it?" Trust me on this: putting Windows on a green computer is not a good idea.
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Comments
View as Flat
Biodiversivist Posted 7:13 am
12 Mar 2008
Do people run out and buy a new computer just because their directory gets tangled up?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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salmoncreek Posted 11:23 am
12 Mar 2008
Sam.
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:44 am
12 Mar 2008
In 1995, Corel software went on a very public project to convert all their office software to run on java -- which at the time was a threat to Microsoft's entire architecture. 6 months later Corel announced that java "just didn't work". Many suspected a hit job (Corel did this again later with other technology).
I don't mind that Wal*Mart decided to pull one cheap computer from it's shelves (and to keep selling it on walmart.com, their website), but the press releases in every major media outlet just minutes after the official announcement were highly suspicious. The titles were all of the "Linux is dead" variety and appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and many other national and local papers.
Meanwhile the real threat is the ASUS eee which is short circuiting the PDA, iPhone and PC markets by providing a portable machine that most consumers can actually use. It's small enough to carry, low powered and long lived on its battery -- and it runs Linux.
The Manhattan Declaration
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spaceshaper Posted 1:31 pm
12 Mar 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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odograph Posted 1:51 pm
12 Mar 2008
Notebooks in general though are going to have a lower total system power requirement (beware CPU-only quotations, that's the biggest chip, but not the only chip, and doesn't include the disks or display).
I'm happy with my Eee PC, but I think these are early adopter times. There are some rough edges with Asus' Linux update process. You might want to watch how that works over time.
BioD, on the upgrade thing MS is aggressive in adding in new features. This gives them a common marketing cause with PC makers, video card makers, etc. Unfortunately those same additions expand Windows beyond the ability of relatively recent hardware.
On the other hand, the hacker-developer community for Linux has a different value network. Many of them run older PCs ;-)
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314159265 Posted 8:10 pm
12 Mar 2008
But "Linux" is catching up well with Gnome and KDE desktop environments. Dunno why this stuff needs eons to start up and even needs time to exhibit menu icons - on a GHz box. Looks like they need to mimick Windoze to make the dummy user feel comfortable and not get surprised by any comfort, speed, or effective windowing.
But if configured right (e.g. Fvwm2 window manager) it can run smoothly on a 200MHz box.
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:47 pm
12 Mar 2008
I am a 'developer' and I dual boot my PC with Suse Linux 10.3 and Windows XP.
My PC is a brand new 64bit AMD X2, 2G, ASUS motherboard with a hot of the press nVidia 8800GT.
The Manhattan Declaration
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:49 pm
12 Mar 2008
Ever watch the LEDs on a Windows machine...blinky blinky blinky.
Take a look at a Linux machine...quiet as a mouse.
The Windows memory management scheme is flawed, archaic and broken. Add in all the "phone home" built in spyware and your computer is doing 3x the work it has to just to run.
The Manhattan Declaration
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odograph Posted 1:37 am
13 Mar 2008
Really? Which packages to you contribute to?
I had a package in some of the distributions at one point, but that was ... jeez, ten years ago now.
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