[kittycatonline.com]

Not what consumers wanted? They all sold out as fast as they were put on the shelves.

And I bet most of 'em came back to the "Customer Returns" counter in about a week. I can just see Bubba picking up that cheap PC, then going home and trying to install that copy of MS Office 97 he's still got lying around. Probably didn't even know it was Linux, I bet Bubba said "Boy that Vista looks different..."

Linux just doesn't seem to fit with Wal-Mart.

[MediaMole]

They would have done much better with a higher quality PC with a more mainstream version of Linux, like Ubuntu, preloaded. gOS is a strange version of Linux and the machine was far too underpowered for most purposes.

Inexperienced computer owners typically buy solely on price and are disappointed when their cheap PC doesn’t do what they want.

[kingu]

If Bubba had a copy of Office 97 laying around, he'd find it very difficult to install as there wasn't a floppy drive on the PCs being sold. But if he tried to use that AOL install disc, there's where Bubba likely had problems.

Out of the 82 systems the local Walmart got, 5 were returned, all for the same problem - power supply.

[dan1123]

If they included Crossover with it, Bubba would have just seen Office 97 install and work just fine.

I bet the real reason is because Microsoft pushed some legal buttons and WalMart wasn’t going to go to court over $199 computers.