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Shuttle's $200 Linux PC Part of a Trend?
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jan 10, 2008 03:44 PM
from the love-it-already dept.
from the love-it-already dept.
eldavojohn writes "With $200 machines being all the rage these days, it's surprising that more coverage hasn't been given to Shuttle's KPC which is an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB HDD. With deals like these, will Linux become the dominant home operating system for the thrifty?"
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And I though . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Teh REAL Lunix customer (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Teh REAL Lunix customer (Score:4, Insightful)
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1 hour to reinstall the OS.
1.5 hours to reinstall the drivers and antivirus.
2 hours to install the nessessary software (Acrobat, Flash, Quicktime, Google Desktop, Skype)
30 minutes for Microsoft to patch itself up.
I am quite good at such things, and none of the questions asked during the process caused me any grief. God help Joe Sixpack in the same state.
To be fair, XP does give you a nice ride out of
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Either way, it would require some low end, non-x86 CPUs and maybe that's an oxymoron in itself.
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I have a nice little Linux palmtop running on a 330 MHz OMAP2420 cpu. It cost about $300 new, including touchscreen, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, FM tuner and built-in camera.
Re:Teh REAL Lunix customer (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the $200 Shuttle doesn't come with an optical drive, I don't think the average user will be technically savvy enough to install Windows on it.
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no CD/DVD drive bay? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:no CD/DVD drive bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about you but I am finding I use the optical drive less and less these days. It is much easier to just get a USB flash drive for portable storage and dump the remaining large files onto an external hard disk. New software tends to be downloaded rather than loaded from a disk. So CD/DVD media is only useful for movies and install disks for new OSes. If they start making faster bootable USB flash drives with downloadable image files then I probably will stop using optical drives all together.
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- Format them that way
- Have a motherboard that supports booting from USB
That's it, really...Re:no CD/DVD drive bay? (Score:5, Interesting)
An ISO image is just a filesystem which you can mount. All you need to do then is copy all the files and folder structure from a downloaded installation CD image onto a USB stick of 1GB or larger, and make the USB stick bootable using the bootloader configurator thoughtfully provided. You now have a rescue "disc", albeit a USB one.
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Re:no CD/DVD drive bay? (Score:5, Informative)
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Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)
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I love the qube, but even used they are still expensive. This way a simple distro that makes it a NAS http://www.freenas.org/ [freenas.org] and easy to install, add a pair of cheapie 250gig hard drives and you are off with a terabyte.
Advanced users get a router, web server, ftp server, UpNP media server, SMB server
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A potential buisness model problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wonder if the business model won't be fruitful at first and slowly fade into non-existence.
The allure of low priced PCs for the neophyte is a great one but one of two things are likely to happen: They'll either find out that they want more and end up willing to spend more and probably choose Windows for the software support or they'll find that the machine suits their purposes and latch onto them for a larger than normal span of time and repeat customers will be next to nil.
I've found that people who pinch a penny when buying hardware are normally not good business for vendors. They'll make a machine last to their dying day.
So while the initial repsonce is going to be great but don't expect to see lots of these people as return customers in the next few years.
Re:A potential buisness model problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wonder if the business model won't be fruitful at first and slowly fade into non-existence.
The allure of low priced PCs for the neophyte is a great one but one of two things are likely to happen: They'll either find out that they want more and end up willing to spend more and probably choose Windows for the software support or they'll find that the machine suits their purposes and latch onto them for a larger than normal span of time and repeat customers will be next to nil.
I've found that people who pinch a penny when buying hardware are normally not good business for vendors. They'll make a machine last to their dying day.
So while the initial repsonce is going to be great but don't expect to see lots of these people as return customers in the next few years.
The above opinion brought to you by the IBM Corporation, circa 1975
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same is true for children's clothing. Buy one pair of size 1 shoes and you will likely not be buying another. So if these guys can sell just one PC to each person when they turn 13 thell will sell enough and every year there is a new bacth of customers. The trick is to offer a line of PCs, one at every price point. Then as yur customers upgrade you can keep them. Add
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Re:A potential buisness model problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
As I said, for software support. Let's face facts, there is tons of software that is not on Linux that people want. How much longer is the Linux community going to ignore this fact? That's why I a main machine that runs Windows and a machine I play around with that has Linux.
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Re:A potential buisness model problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think about it for a minute, I think you'll realize that the linux community is not ignoring the fact, just doing its best to carry on in spite of it, living without some apps, trying to create replacements where possible, or trying to encourage software companies to release linux versions of their programs. When it comes down to it, though, it's the software companies's fault that the software you want isn't available for linux. It's kind of a chicken and egg kind of thing... not much incentive to create software for a system that doesn't have a lot of users... and there's not a lot of users because some of the necessary software isn't available. Things like these low-cost PCs that allow people to do some useful computing without paying for the expensive hardware required for the latest Microsoft OS are a part of what the linux community needs to encourage people to try linux, so that software companies will have more motivation to produce software for linux, which will encourage more users to switch, and so on.
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Example: There exists on the market software to "Migrate your old PC to the new one easily!!oneoneomgwtfbbq!". All of which is well and good, and people buy this software. Even if they don't, they somehow feel comforted by seeing it and 100 similar utilities all lined up in DVD cases in their local PC World (or insert local
Re:A potential buisness model problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
I do realize I'm in the minority, but there's a lot of software on Linux that I can't get at Windows, especially what comes with the OS. That's why my main machines run Linux and the gaming machine I rarely boot up runs Windows.
Some examples are basic shell utilities or their analogues, such as grep, tr, and dozens of others. Although possible to get on Windows, Perl, Python, and other interpreters don't run as smoothly and take more work to do on Windows. For my purposes, it's most efficient to use such tools in a shell prompt, which Windows somewhat lacks (don't get me started on their DOS emulator, which lacks decent tab completion, useful text selection support, and so on). I even have a friend who has SSHd running under Cygwin so he can SSH into his own computer and have a useful terminal emulator and shell (Bash in his case).
The same goes for the graphical applications I use, such as parts of KDE, which haven't run on Windows well yet (KDE4 will fix that). Other examples are good shell replacements. It's like having to use CDE during the days of proprietary Unix, without any good options. Sure, BB4Win derivatives provide options, but they're nowhere nearly as good as XFce, KDE, or even RatPoison for my purposes (I'm not even sure why it's not possible to have two different wallpapers in dual-head mode under Windows).
Sure, for the average consumer, Windows has what they want and the software they'll send their money in for, but for someone raised under GNU/Linux, Windows lacks the important software.
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Why the thrifty? More like the reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why the thrifty? More like the reasonable (Score:4, Informative)
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To keep things cheap, Shuttle may have reused the chassis from another Shuttle model, which may have drive bays. The motherboard may have a drive connector. Perhaps we can install our own drive into the chassis, and ditch the bezel.
Plus, there may be a USB port or two, so an external DVD drive may be possible.
Prefer a $200 laptop (Score:3, Informative)
I've already got several desktops and laptops, but would buy one of these in a second, given the chance.
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QUICKBOOKS (Score:5, Insightful)
Businesses, once they see it in action, will scoop up $250 boxes and switch because: they don't have to pay for the VM and the Windows license, they don't have to pay for yearly anti-virus subscriptions, and they don't have to deal with windows update constantly breaking and changing things.
But, I do look forward to the next version of whatever eye candy you guys are working on. Rotating xterms on a cube is really, really impressing the suits.
Qemu (Score:3, Interesting)
Qemu is the silver bullet. Let's say the company has legit Dell-sourced windows licenses. They can switch over to linux and run the windows partition through qemu in a window/fullscreen on the Linux desktop. Qemu is plenty fast enough to run quickbooks especially on recent hardware. There. Problem solved.
Except qemu has been around for a while and it's not the Linux killer a
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http://www.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_room/press_release/2007/06-13.jhtml [intuit.com]
To the new computer user (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering what people would want out of a $200 machine, I would say that Linux can be even more user friendly. On a bare bones machine, people don't have the expectation of being able to do 'anything' give them their large icons for a preconfigured email/web/word/musicplayer interface and that is what they will stick to.
For a $200 PC, I would prefer a linux distro. And this is coming from someone who prefers using XP for most of my computing needs.
Obligatory car analogy:
I love my pickup truck for its cargo capacity, not its gas mileage.
Don't start the party, yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll explain: Joe Consumer buys a system for $200. He realizes that he can't run his Windows apps easily/at all, that it's "different" and "difficult" from what he knows (Microsoft, again), and it's kind of slow. He'll associate Linux with incompatibility, difficulties, and piss poor performance. And he may tell his friends.
I haven't even addressed the poor schmuck trying to bring home work from the office.
The typical
Be careful what'cha ask for, ya know.
Oh, yeah: save the argument about "educating the masses". They don't care and trying to shove propaganda, dogma and excuses down their throats will only drive them further away from Linux.
Re:Don't start the party, yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The last thing you want if you have a business built around something that costs a fair amount of money is an alternative that is good enough for a subset of your customers but a lot cheaper. Even people who need more end up buying a few because what the hell, they're cheap, and maybe they can use it for something. The next thing you kno
This crowd can't relate to many users (Score:4, Insightful)
I can imagine that many here will have a hard time seeing the utility of a device like this because it doesn't have the horsepower for gaming or 3D rendering. But I think back to how many WebTV users were in my site logs and realize that most people can get by with relatively modest hardware requirements. A 75% solution would run basic productivity software, email, chat, view pictures, play movies and run Firefox.
I'd get one for the times I don't feel like hauling a full size laptop. Many times 75% is plenty.
I think the popularity of appliance type devices in Japan may signal the market is somewhat bigger than many at Microsoft are willing to accept.
End of the digital divide? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm hoping that the introduction of very low cost PCs is going to open up computer usage, and more importantly the internet, for the developing world. Sometimes we like to think of the internet as a global community, but that really isn't the case. Most of the internet is still the anglophone countries and Europe.
Of course, cheap PCs alone aren't going to do it - there is still the question of the infrastructure to provide home internet connections to the world. However, that is more likely to occur in a situation of widespread computer ownership.
another article; Ubuntu preinstalled (Score:3, Interesting)
Keeping old machines running for $60 (Score:4, Interesting)
My advice for the past six months has been: buy it a new hard drive ($60) and install Ubuntu. The hard drive is what fails at 4-5 years, but the rest will keep on ticking and thanks to the thriftiness of Linux, doesn't slow them down.
They don't care that it's not Windows XP or Mac OS X. All GUIs look about the same for the tasks most people do.
With these newer cheap machines, I'm excited, but wary. Would I rather install $200 of junk or do a $60 upgrade to an older, but once more expensive machine with better hardware?
The Shuttle boxes I've worked with so far have been high quality but have tended to overheat. However, they were a good deal more expensive than $200. I wonder what corners got cut, and whether a five year old Dell that cost $900 when it was new would have these problems?
Either way, my compliments to the Ubuntu team. That's a convenient and reliable OS distro.
It's not a laptop... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a laptop. Next!
Not flamebait, but the truth. Cute little laptops have been either underpowered or the preserve of the rich till now, so Asus and everybody else knocking out workable, durable, cute machines is newsworthy. A desktop box that costs 200 dollars? where's the news in that? You can find those on every high street, and loads of people have brought out cute looking ones so nothing new there either. Plus it's not 200 dollars and press the on button, for Joe Public it's 200 dollars, spend some more on a monitor, then plug it into the wall. SO more like buying another desktop. Yawn.
Hardware makers will drive Linux to success (Score:3, Insightful)
Will make many people happy (Score:4, Insightful)
Today was that day. My mother called that nobody could repair her expensive computer.
I took the train, placed the computer, upgraded, created an account, installed firefox and gaim and added her printer.
She was ready to do all she does with computers; browse, gmail, print, chat.
If this old computer can make her happy, I'm sure these powerful 200$ boxes can make many others happy.
Then it's time for a mini Mac price cut (Score:3, Insightful)
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No optical drive = great (Score:3, Interesting)
It's that they wouldn't spend the extra 5.25 drive bay space
and cabling for something that's only needed once in a while for os-installation.
And when you're trying to make a small low power device, that's at a premium.
For that once-in-a-while need to reinstall the os,
there's certainly no need to go to the extreme of sending to the factory.
My company uses a lot of small linux appliances like these (esp for firewalls)
and I keep a external usb-cdrom on han
Re:512 Ram, 60GB HD... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Cheap machines... (Score:5, Insightful)
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