[Scottish] Linux advocacy - $199 PC with Linux in USA

[William Anderson]

colin@wew.co.uk wrote:
> ...its frequently mentioned that you can't buy a box with Linux
> pre-installed easily. Wal*mart USA (www.walmart.com) owner of Asda
> stores, and crusher of small retaillers is currently offering a range
> of PCs running Lindows or Mandrake starting at $199 (approx 125 UKP).

The only machines listed for that price on walmart.com s a VIA C3 800 with
128 meg RAM, 10 gig HDD and LindowsOS preloaded.  It's probably that the
Mandrake and clean (no OS preloaded) variants have sold out I suppose :)

Aidan Karley wrote:
>        Old news we know (saw it on /. months ago), but has anyone
> seen one of these boxen in the UK?

Microtel, who manufacture the Walmart PCs (which incidentally, seem cheaper
on Walmart's website than they do on Microtels!), are based in City of
Industry, Calif., and I can't see any sign of them operating outside the US,
so the odds of seeing these machines anytime soon isn't good, I reckon.

http://www.buymicrotel.com/
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?productid=1957333

This doesn't mean to say Walmart couldn't organise something similar to push
through Asda ... £69.99 DVD players and £249.99 28" widescreen tellies and
PC CD-ROM games show a willingness to diverse into the PC market, and to dip
prices to extremely silly levels.

> I've had two friends harassing me
> for sources of cheap boxen in the last week, and this does sound in
> the right price range. Is the kit supplied any use? One of the guys
> is whimpering about trying to run stuff on a 486 w/ 16MB and a
> 640x480 screen, so if the spec is significantly higher than this, it
> could be a handy thing to know about.

If your friends are just looking for "better than 486 spec" performance, a
surplus kit supplier such as Sterling XS, Morgan or ELF can all provide PII
range headless boxen of reasonable spec for about £100-150.  In fact,
Sterling have a few PII 350 machines on the go - £105 for a Compaq Deskpro
(the EN space saver chassis), £117 for an IBM 300 GL and £164 for a Dell
Optiplex GX1.  I picked up a couple of the Deskpros a while back - they were
a wee bit cheaper then tho - and one has done sterling service (no pun
intended!) as my firewall since the turn of the year.

eBay is also an excellent source of kit - I just got an Ultra 1 up and
running for a reasonable price, and picked up a PIII 600 w/256MB RAM, 20 GB
HDD, DVD-ROM and SCSI Scanner for £205 - made an excellent replacement for
my ailing PPro200 debian server, and has got a bloody ultra ata66 card on
board to boot - bargain!


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