December 21, 2004
NO WONDER FOLKS ARE TOSSING GOLD INTO SALVATION ARMY BUCKETS:
Wal-Mart breaks price barrier with Linspire Linux laptop (INFOWORLD TECH WATCH, 12/21/04)
Wal-Mart is offering a laptop that dives below the $500 pricepoint, and it's no accident the machine, from Linspire, runs a Linux-based operating system.The Balance laptop, at $498, enters a mass market at a price that will undoubtedly accelerate Linux adoption.
The laptop comes with the OS, Internet suite, and Microsoft-file compatible office suite and can be used with both dial-up modems and broadband connections. The machine comes with a VIA C3, 1.0 GHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, which is expandable up to 512 MB with SODIMM (Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Modules). It includes a CD-ROM drive and a 14.1-inch LCD screen.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2004 11:13 PM
For the people who hate Wal-Mart and Microsoft equally, this is going to fry some brain circuits trying to figure out what position to take.
Posted by: John at December 22, 2004 12:31 AMI hate MS and have no particular animus toward Wal-Mart, so it's a no-brainer for me. On the other hand, has Linux ever solved the DVD problem? (I seem to recall that Linux programmers had to resort to some rather creative solutions to get DVD drives to work because the algorithms for DVD-ROM playback software are proprietary and the owners wouldn't open-source them. That whole DeCSS mess, for example.)
Posted by: Joe at December 22, 2004 5:20 AMThe C3 is a bit of a slowpoke, though; for $100 more you can get a much superior machine.
Joe:
DVD players for Linux are widely available. The Linux guys don't make a fuss about it because they don't want a fight, and the movie moguls don't make a fuss about it because it's not 100% sure they'd win and it isn't really a threat in any case.
$498 is the initial MSRP. How cheap will this thing be next Christmas?