<div class="gmail_quote"><div>I have often struggled to find hardware that I knew was going to work with Linux and as a result have a few bits of hardware lying around that I've never used or have had to wait for support to come sometime after buying it. Trouble with all these compatibility lists online is that they very quickly get out of date and often manufacturers will change the chipset they use for another while keeping the same boxing and product name/version. <br>
<br>I think the idea of a store that specialises in helping Linux users to choose their hardware would be a fantastic one but the idea of relying on passing trade is not such a good one. Perhaps a web based store would be better - especially if it has a review feature such as Amazon and Ebuyer do as this could then be used for people to comment on which distros they work with out of the box and what tweaks are needed to get them to work. <br>
<br>I would go ahead with the idea and start it now rather than when your job finishes allowing time for trade to build up. Do it as a web store and advertise in Linux format or one of the other magazines or even in carefully chosen online sites. If I were wanting to build a new PC then I'd gladly buy from a site such as this. Another avenue to explore is the "hackintosh" where now Macs can run on intel hardware people are discovering it's relatively easy to run on generic hardware. Sourcing the motherboards and other hardware that people have had success with looks to be quite difficult due to the pace of change. I would move into this territory too while phrasing things carefully so as not to attract the attention of the legal department of apple. <br>
<br>Ed<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>From: John Boulton <<a href="mailto:john@touche-soft.co.uk">john@touche-soft.co.uk</a>><br>
To: Lincolnshire Linux User Group <<a href="mailto:lincs@mailman.lug.org.uk">lincs@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>><br>Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:08:49 +0000<br>Subject: Re: [Lincs] Retail Centre<br>Settle down chaps, Chris asked some very good questions, most of the<br>
people he asked and certainly the replies came from people who work in<br>
business or in IT and more importantly UNDERSTAND Linux! The response<br>
however, was uncalled for. He got some very sensible answers, basically<br>
that a Linux shop would go down like a lead balloon.<br>
I design bespoke applications for Apache2 servers with back-end MySQL<br>
databases allowing people to store and access data remotely. I only know<br>
the bits of Linux that I need, but information is freely available<br>
through the guys and gals in LUG's like this one.<br>
Anyone intending to start a business should test the water and make the<br>
best of the results, go ahead Chris, start the shop, we'll watch with<br>
interest and a certain amount of pleasure. JB.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br>