Posted on 11/05/2007 12:19:20 PM PST by Red Badger
Desktop Linux is and always will be a non-starter. Too many competing distros. No uniformity of UI. Besides, Linux is way too hard for most people and they wont want to deal with it. Install software on Windows? Double click an icon. Install Linux software? Find the correct repositories for your distro. Download it and try to install it with the command line. Oops. Wont work. Dependency failure. Missing libraries. Linux is best as a server OS and as a geek toy.
At $199, I would buy one just for hobby purposes. It would be fun to mess around with Linux.
also people want the windows software, not linux software
Would it be worth it to buy the computer and install Windows XX on it instead?..............
That was my thought. Load XP on it.
Heh, careful there, them’s is fightin’ words for some folks! :)
I wonder if this machine can be slapped around to become a reasonable media center. Shove a high-end video card into it...
...oh wait, that’s right Linux. I’ll stop right there. The next step in that process is cruising usenet to find drivers for the video card, finding them, installing them, discovering they don’t work, finding the source code for the drivers, installing developer tools so I can rebuild it myself... All of this, of course, being done without a monitor. Gah.
My first computer was an Everex, about 20 years ago. Cost me a bundle, but it was a great unit. Upgrading from a 20MB to 30MB hard drive cost me twice as much as this complete machine.
I used to think this. However, I installed Ubuntu linux on a spare machine this summer, just to see where Linux was at, and was quite surprised. It was very user friendly and had a very windows-esque look and feel to the desktop. Installing programs (even those downloaded from the net) has become automated and is no longer the "geeks only need apply" hassel it used to be. If all I was using a computer for was office apps, internet and music I would switch in a second.
I remember buying a mail order HD, a whopping 40 MB $400, to put in my old Turbo XT. I wondered, “What in the world will I ever fill this up with?”.......
Buy a three year old surplus dell for $50 and get linux somewhere for free.
Exactly, who thought this one through? The reason people buy computers for the home is primarily to access the internet and to run some software for word processing, accounts, etc. Leaving out the most important and functional aspect of a product? That is no bargain/.
You get what you pay for.
You obviously have never heard of Synaptic or Aptitude. Installing software in Debian based/Ubuntu based distros is far, far easier than installing Windows software. The only exception is installing Windows software in Linux (which defeats the whole purpose).
You can download VMWare server for Linux (from VMWare) free of charge and run one of your old operating systems on it as well.
“You can download VMWare server for Linux (from VMWare) free of charge and run one of your old operating systems on it as well.”
You wanna try running VMWare on a machine with these specs? How about buying a real machine from the beginning. Its sad knowing that poor people who are ignorant about PCs will spend money on this kinda garbage. Walmart is taking advantage of folks with this.
I’ll agree that recent distibutions of linux are much easier to install. But thats where the easy part ends. Try getting it on the network and its not so easy. Guess with this wonder machine that wont be a concern since they didn’t make it internet capable.
Where can you find one?
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