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Linux Business Hardware

Lindows Webstation 340

Posted by michael from the only-free-if-your-time-has-no-cost dept.
dr.karl.b writes "Lindows.com has announced the WebStation, a hard-disk-less pc that boots from a CD, similar to the now dead ThinkNIC, for $169 (no monitor). Different versions are available from 2 vendors, TigerDirect and iDOTpc.com. The TigerDirect version has a 1.1GHz Duron, 256MB PC2100 DDR, 56X CD-ROM, 10/100Mbps NIC, floppy, modem, keyboard and mouse. The iDOTpc.com version has a 800MHz C3, 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 56X CD-ROM, 10/100Mbps NIC, but without a floppy, modem, keyboard or mouse. The TigerDirect looks like a better deal, at least now ($169 = $189 - $20 rebate). The 2 different versions seem to have confused the authors at C/Net and The Register, who only report the specs of the iDOTpc.com version."
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Lindows Webstation More

Lindows Webstation

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  • Huh?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How exactly does this work?

    I've ran CD based distros before but I've had a hard drive also..

    How do you play games on it (as the feature list says), or download MP3s, or read email, etc if there is no where to save the data?

    Ok so maybe it uses a virtual drive..what happens when you reboot?

    I'm confused, am I missing something??

    • Re:Huh?? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by xactoguy ( 555443 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:37PM (#6545941)
      Well, it's called the webstation, obviously designed for internet surfing only. If you are only going to be surfing the web, you don't really need to have any sort of hard drive, although I am sure that one would be useful for such things as cookies ( debate me on that point if you wish ). Games, well, you can certainly play small games such as tetris fine that would just play right off the cd, or off of a virtual drive in RAM. What happens when you reboot? Everything is wiped, obviously.

    • Re:Huh?? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:39PM (#6545958) Homepage Journal
      basically you would have some server or another to save them, or to a floppy(floppy is quite limited though..).

      from their webpage: "The Lindows WebStation is ideal for multi-computer households, school rooms, training labs, call center, community access machines, etc. It also makes an ideal computer kiosk. With such a low price, you can afford to put multiple WebStations through your home, school or business."

      basically it's ideal for anywhere you have another computer(s) around, for datakeeping. basically it's just a computer with equivalent of knoppix in it.

      though, this fails where lindows is trying to sell this (easy enough for people unfamiliar with linux), because setting up some storage through the net for it isn't that simple as plug this baby in (and people with a clue could make their own custom knoppix quite easily).

    • Re:Huh?? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:44PM (#6545989) Journal
      Thoughts on how it works...

      1. Battery-backed FLASH RAM like in the ThinkNIC

      2. USB-based "key" drive (sold separately)

      3. Online storage ala X-Drive

      If they can swing a deal with a cable/DSL provider for those people who don't own or want a "computer", they might have a killer item. Cable/DSL providers can lease or sell the units to people and then upsell their service with online storage and app-serving (ASP).

      • Re:Huh?? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Stonent1 ( 594886 )
        If they can swing a deal with a cable/DSL provider for those people who don't own or want a "computer", they might have a killer item. Cable/DSL providers can lease or sell the units to people and then upsell their service with online storage and app-serving (ASP).

        That's a good idea, considering if you don't have a hard drive to save things on, you won't be wasting your isp's bandwidth downloading stuff.

    • Re:Huh?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by svara ( 467664 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:46PM (#6546002)
      Lindows recommends to save the data either over a network or to a USB Memorykey. Actually this is not a bad idea, one can imagine a lot of possible uses for an extremely cost-effective PC ... with 64MB or so on a MemoryKey, that's nice, especially as you can carry those around.

      • Re:Huh?? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Viceice ( 462967 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:27PM (#6548278)
        It's actualy an idea borrowed from Kinoppix. Basicly, all you need is a Kinoppix CD and a USB Memory Monkey(TM). You keep your home directory on the Monkey and there you have it. Your desktop anywhere. .. Oh, i ment Memory Key

      • Imagine a lab of these... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @11:27PM (#6548511) Journal
        Yes, that would make it ideal for use in kiosks and some computer labs, as if a user was to install any software on it, the second that the user logs off and unplugs the flash disk, the machine is essntially restored to its origional state.

        Imagine a public computer lab that was filled with these thin clients (for the lack of a better term). People would have to buy specially made USB memory keychains that would be programmed with their user information, and then they could plug it into a terminal to use it and save their data to it. That would be both secure for the user, as they literally can't leave anything behind, and more convinent for the maintanance of the lab, as there is nothing that the user can do short of physically bashing the computer to actually damage it.


  • How do you use it without a hard disk?

    Simple, their workstations, they access a file server for storage and retrival of data/information.
    • Also the seektime of the CD-ROM will be a bottleneck, a problem with Live distrubutions is the long delay when loading programs and multi-tasking with them stored at different parts of the CD. It is frustrating and infinatly slower than a Hard disk.
      How much does a 1GB hard disk cost anyway?
    • Or just bring along a USB keychain drive.
    • You have three basic options:

      1. Only do things that don't require hard disk storage: readin email vi imap, web browsing, etc. Just use the RAM as a cache while you work

      2. Use a small USB "thumb drive". These drives are a little small as 128MB, but realistially that's more than enough storage for most people's personal files (ie: not applications and configuration data)

      3. USe NFS, SMB, CORBA or some other type of networked storage protocol to access your files on a central server. This is the model that
  • Why not stick a 2gb drive or something small in there just for the OS? That way the CD drive would be free for people to play music CDs, etc.
    • The model over at IDOT can be configured to have a 20 gig hard drive for only $67, so it wouldn't be that much more to put a hard drive in there.

    • Why not stick a 2gb drive or something small in there just for the OS?

      Can you tell me where one would find such a creature?

    • Speaking as a network admin at a museum, you never want to let folks install thier own stuff. You've seen that lab computer that hasn't been locked down. It has 98 re-installed, 8 copies of DOOM, a keyboard sniffing program, and the desktop is so full of icons from crap that it needs a scrollbar.

      Besides, you know that the machine is just going to get stuffed with pr0n. Better to limit them to what tmpfs will hold.

      • Which is why, right off the bat, I installed FoolProof on my school computers. Ok, it's not the best security software out there, but at least it kept most of them out.

        Then they had to buy newer machines with NT4 Workstations and no NT Server. That's when the students go crazy and started installing warez'ed games on them. I even wacked one remotely right when they were copying the archives on the HD.
        • I even wacked one remotely

          you should teach my girlfriend how to do that

    • Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:23PM (#6546273) Journal
      Think "razor and razor blades" for this model.

      The machine, virtually unbreakable, is designed to get you online. You'd be amazed at the number of e-mail stations sold in the world and the number of people who are only interested in e-mail, IM and E-Bay. Okay, okay, maybe online weather, stocks and sports scores, too.

      The big deal here would be to sell online storage space. Save everything online!

      Before people start whining about the speed of this, consider 2 things --

      1. If done by the ISP, one hop upstream, it will be very fast.

      2. No matter where it is stored, it'll beat the pants off of accessing everything from a damn CD-ROM.

      This also creates a market for "personal streaming". Rip your own MP3s/OGGs and have them stored online. Have icecast run from the service with a limit of 1 or 2 simultaneous streams and maybe a password for access. This way people can store their music online and now worry about CDs or such.

      • USB Pen Drives (again . . .) (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Idou ( 572394 ) * on Sunday July 27, 2003 @04:46PM (#6546741) Journal
        I tried the LindowsCD 0S with a USB pen drive, and it finds it automatically and mounts it in /disks/dos. It doesn't make an icon on the Desktop like Knoppix, but that is still very straight forward.

        You can get 64mb USB Flash drive for about $10. That is good enough to save a moderate amount of personal files. Don't think "only web" here, though. It comes with Open Office (or just use a knoppix flavor for whatever software you are into), which will, say, let kids write a word document, save it on the USB drive, and print at school. Definitely has potential as an "offline" tool(think "lower income").

    • Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @07:06PM (#6547443) Homepage Journal
      "Why not stick a 2gb drive or something small in there just for the OS? That way the CD drive would be free for people to play music CDs, etc. "

      Cost + the concept that something could go corrupt? At least with a Read-Only media for the OS, a virus is wiped out with a reboot.
  • Can you add a hard disk after purchase?

    • Re:Add a hard disk? (Score:2, Informative)

      by setzman ( 541053 ) *
      If you look at the pictures on the Tiger Direct link, a hard drive is installed. As long as it has an IDE controller for the cd-rom, which it does, yes, you should be able to add a hard drive, as long as the BIOS in this thing supports one. Or, you could add a SCSI, SerialATA, or another IDE controller to the system via the PCI slot.

    • Re:Add a hard disk? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SeanTobin ( 138474 ) <byrdhuntr@hot[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:43PM (#6545978)
      My bet is that you can, but there is a very good reason for being cd only. Its much more difficult to screw up a os on a cd than it is to screw up an os on a hdd. When a 12 year old skript kiddie hax0rz your library machine and inverts the mouse buttons, the techno-challenged librarians just need to know how to hit the reset button. No worries about fscks/scandisks, or actually having to undo the switch.

      Yes, the above can all be accomplished with some weird write protection on the hdd, but compare costs here. A cheap cdrom can cost under $20. Try and find a hdd in the same price bracket. Then add the cost of all the magic necessary to make it kiddie-proof*.

      [*] does not include said kiddies removing cdrom and coating with strawberry jam. But that's what backups are for.

    • Re:Add a hard disk? (Score:5, Informative)

      by yardgnome ( 190624 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:45PM (#6545998) Homepage
      Both iDOT and TigerPC allow you to add a HD before purchase. The base model is HD-free, though.

  • This would be good for Libraries and Colleges. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) * on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:36PM (#6545934) Homepage Journal


    I think college campuses and libraries could really use this, its a good idea it just needs some marketing.
  • it's a fat, thin client. They are just offloading some of the server work.

  • Should be easy to change the OS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:37PM (#6545942) Homepage
    If it works with Lindows, then it should also be possible to stick in a Knoppix CD. In fact, it's surprising that nobody else is marketing cheap PCs using Knoppix or a similar distribution.

  • usage. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blanks ( 108019 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:38PM (#6545946) Homepage Journal
    I think people are confusing these machines with systems you would have at your house. The main benefit would be to companys that do not want workers using their machines for non work related issues.

    A good example would be a telemarketing center, where only data is passed to the system, a little input from the end-user, and then stored on another system.

    This would work well with a POS system as well.

    Or, an MP3 player in your house where the system just pulls music off your file server.

    Get the idea now?

    • Re:usage. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by firewood ( 41230 )
      I think people are confusing these machines with systems you would have at your house.

      On the contrary...

      This is a perfect machine for Grandma if you are worried about her clicking on some chain-mailed trojan, or spyware, or otherwise fsck'ing up some setting and then calling you up in the middle of the night to ask for help fixing it. Just tell her the machine needs to "rest" at night; every morning she'll get a squeeky clean reboot.

    • Re:usage. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mr_Icon ( 124425 ) *

      I think people are confusing these machines with systems you would have at your house. The main benefit would be to companys that do not want workers using their machines for non work related issues.

      I would sincerely hope that they use something other than a CD-ROM.

      Ring.
      "Molly hey, can you send me that data from accounting?"
      "Sure, Pete, hold on a sec... Hang on, my CD-ROM is spinning up. Almost there... Ok."
      "Great, can you take a look at the spreadsheet with me so we can go over the numbers?"
      "Sure.

    • Re:usage. (Score:3, Informative)

      by gregfortune ( 313889 )
      This would work well with a POS system as well.

      Agreed, although the POS software must either be web based or you must be ready to roll your own CD based distribution (maybe using Knoppix as the base). The CD that ships with the machine isn't going to help at all if the POS software is not web based.
  • Could someone explain to me, please, why it's impossible to manufacture a slow, low-capacity hard drive for $10 per unit? What makes a hard drive so much more difficult to build than a CD drive? Is it because the write head has to be so close to the medium?
    • Now, it's because the margins are higher on the disk drives and the manufacturers WANT it that way.

      Look around, can you find a drive that's less that 10GB and/or less than $50. Not retail. It's like the car market. If a company would design a decent vehicle and run it for a couple of decades it would be dirt cheap. (Think VW Beetle.) Car manufacturers hate that, which is why they insist on designing completely new cars every 3 or 4 years, and competely new lines every 6 to 10.

    • In Aussie dollars... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by leonbrooks ( 8043 ) <SentByMSBlast-No ... .brooks.fdns.net> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @09:43PM (#6548102) Homepage
      ...the up-front price (USD$189) is AUD$285.40 at today's rates.

      Visiting a random local wholesaler [dma.net.au] and using their one-off retail prices: AllInOne Mobo $99.00 (choice of 3), CPU $104.40 (Athlon 1800+, or $130.80 for a Celeron 2GHz), RAM $54.00, CDROM $32.40 (writer $58.80 AOpen 48x, DVD $70.80 BenQ 16x), case $58.50 (midi tower, 300W PSU), total AUD$365.10. Their website is buggered again as usual because they derive it from an Excel spreadsheet and the code to do it sucks so badly that I completely eclipsed it with 90 minutes' worth of effort using gawk and oocalc to turn the spreadsheet into a PostgreSQL database and PHP to display it.

      Options: 128MB USB thumb $66.00.

      Treating another random wholesaler [ple.com.au] similarly gives $99, $118 (2000+, identical Celeron), $66.00, $50.00 (writer, no reader avail; cheapest DVD at $118.00 includes CD writer), case $40.00 total AUD$373.00.

      USB thumb for $69.00.

      Add roughly $15 for a keyboard and mouse, $20 for a modem (or $35 for a hardware modem, which I'd recommend for reliability), so $400.10 and $408.00, respectively. For $100 extra you'd get twice the CPU and in one case a burner on top of a reader, lose the floppy (or pay $17), and I'm guessing that either shop would bundle the collection for AUD$389 or less, especially if they expected to sell lots of them.

      And guess what? The price of MS-Windows XP Home OEM is AUD$189, and MS-Office XP OEM is AUD$429 - more than the cost of either machine, and a combined total of half as much again as the hardware, just to do word-processing. Mandrake Linux 9.1 PowerPack edition is AUD$99.95 inc GST and includes two good office suites plus extras (and of course the ingrates amongst us can download it for free).

      There are no slow low-capacity hard drives left. They'd cost nearly as much to make as a fast, high-capacity drive (similar materials, similar plant) and nobody's going to bother putting together a plant to build drives that won't sell. Put it this way, if you had a choice of a 5GB drive for AUD$75, a 10GB drive for AUD$80 or a 40GB drive for AUD$95, which would you buy? If you can get 128MB of Flash for AUD$69 and (with a compressed FS) that's enough to run your system, why would you want a bulky, noisy, unreliable hard drive? The Cyrix-based motherboards are only selling well for niche markets, and I suspect that low-capacity hard drives would be the same. Make one small, slow, low-power, low-heat, long-life and you might find a market - until Flash gets that cheap too.
  • First of all, it can store data in a RAM drive, which is basically what it uses to store the OS as well. The "RAM drive" acts like a very small (but fast) hard drive using the system's RAM.

    It's a nice solution because a similarly equipped and more proprietary thin client (a Wyse terminal, for example) is much more expensive and most of the thin clients have Windows XP Embedded on them.

    Kudos to the Linux world for lowering costs again!

  • HD (Score:2)

    by scrotch ( 605605 )
    It says it handles POP email accounts and comes with OpenOffice to edit MS Word files...

    That really implies a Hard Drive, huh? Maybe the HD is an option that allows these "features"?

    It also seems that advertising a 56X CDROM drive that you can't use without removing your OS might be a little misleading as well.

    • Re:HD (Score:2)

      by Arker ( 91948 )

      It says it handles POP email accounts and comes with OpenOffice to edit MS Word files...

      That really implies a Hard Drive, huh? Maybe the HD is an option that allows these "features"?

      Not at all. You can run OO off the CD (doh!) and 'save' them by emailing them and/or using network storage and/or using a usb flashdrive.

      • Obviously you can run whatever they put on the CD.

        The marketing I read sounded geared toward a 'Joe Sixpack' that wants to get online cheap, experience the World Wide Web and get himself an email address. Mr. Joe "what the fuck is a usb flashdrive" Sixpack. Joe "network storage?!? my ass" Sixpack.

        This thing is being marketed as a cheap, easy, bulletproof way to get online (no matter what its more practical uses are). Network storage is not cheap, easy or bulletproof.

        My point is that they are marketing ca

  • iDOTpc (Score:5, Informative)

    by yardgnome ( 190624 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:41PM (#6545968) Homepage
    I've ordered several things from iDOT and never been disappointed. In fact, when I first ordered from them, someone noticed that I lived only 15 miles away from their warehouse. So they offered to refund my shipping costs and hold the parts for me to personally pick up! Even more surprising, they noticed that I had separately ordered the parts for a more-than-barebones system, and offered to assemble the hardware at no extra charge.

    So consider this customer satisfied. If you're going to order one of these diskless PCs, you certainly won't have any reseller problems if you order from iDOT.

    • Re:iDOTpc (Score:4, Informative)

      by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @06:12PM (#6547198) Homepage Journal
      I agree fully. I've ordered several things from iDOT and never been unhappy.

      On the other hand I've worked for TigerDirect in the past and I can tell you that they will screw their customers at any chance they get. Even employees don't like to buy from them (and they get a discount). I'd suggest definately buying from iDOT instead of TigerDirect.

  • Funny thing (Score:3, Funny)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:42PM (#6545973)
    The cost of the complete system is a bit less than the going rate for the protection money err single user license that SCO sells.

  • If Lindows.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 222 ( 551054 ) <stormseeker@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:42PM (#6545974) Homepage
    keeps chopping away at the bottom of the PC market, there may not be anything MS can do about it. One thing i would be interested in, and didnt see, is some sort of card reader so that users would have means to save at least their documents. At any rate, heres the obligatory comment on how the OEM XP Pro costs more than the machine AND the Operating system.

  • Lifetime... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:43PM (#6545979) Homepage Journal
    I wonder what lifetime a system that's CD-only (and with a fast CD drive) will have - lifetime of an average CD drive is about a week without break and at full speed and only thanks to stopping frequently and lowering read speed, plus working rarely more than several minutes a day at full speed, they survive more than a year. But replacing HDD with CD...
    • These type of bootable CDs only load the OS into the system RAM, and then don't usually read from the CD any more after that point. It only takes one read at boot time to get the whole OS and software expanded and into memory.
      • ...unless you start diferent apps. The usage is similar to that of /usr partition. Not terribly high but not null either. (just enough to kill the drive berfore the warranty expires ;)

  • Apple Pro Mouse (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) *
    The perfect slashdot geek system. Impress your friends with your new ugly web terminal, complete with crappy looking keyboard and no monitor! Only $169 after mail-in *cough*ripoff*cough* rebate!

    In short this is only useful to people running NFS or SMB servers in their basement/home office/garage to allow the thing to be useful. No hard drive means no long term cache. You can't save files off of it meaning either run to your normal PC to download the file or connect to previously mentioned network share to

    • Re:Apple Pro Mouse (Score:4, Interesting)

      by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:50PM (#6546449) Journal
      Sadly, even at $169, this system is overpriced for the hardware that you get.

      Just for the hell of it, I went to mwave.com, and priced out their absolute cheapest pre-assembled barebones system. I was able to get a system with a faster processsor and a better motherboard for $153, or $165 with a cheap keyboard and mouse included.

      Add a 50 cent burned Knoppix CD to the system, and you just got yourself a better system for $3.50 cheaper, and with no rebate hassles.

  • E-mail? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:44PM (#6545985)
    just plug it into a broadband Internet connection and you're ready to surf the Internet, send and receive email

    If this thing has no hard-drive, wouldn't that make email a little difficult? Unless they mean web-based email or an IMAP client then people are gonna lose a lot of there email.

    Downloading files would be a little tricky to...
    • They probably use tmpfs to create a fake hard drive in memory.

      As far as email goes, all of my users are either webmail or IMAP. BFD.

    • It's got a network card. think remote fileshares, NFS, Samba.

    • If this thing has no hard-drive, wouldn't that make email a little difficult? Unless they mean web-based email or an IMAP client then people are gonna lose a lot of there email.

      On the WebStation page [lindows.com] (linked to in the posting here on Slashdot), it says the following: Web-email, Send & reply to messages! You made a good point about this machine, but your question was easily resolved by RTFA. :) At least Lindows doesn't overtly pretend that this thing will be a full-blown POP/IMAP/whatever e-mail sol

      • Re:E-mail? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by scrotch ( 605605 )
        The Tiger Direct link claims the following suspicious features:

        - Faster Performance Than Windows
        - Spell Check, Send And Receive E-mail (POP, IMAP)
        - Surf The Web Faster (with pop-up blocking)
        - Instant Message Anyone (AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN)
        - Built-In Web Browser And Mail
        - Play MP3 Files And Digitize Your Own CDs
        - Play Games With Added Power
        - Use Microsoft File-Compatible Word-Processing, Spreadsheet And Presentation Software (.doc, .xls, .ppt, and more)
        - Perform Photo Editing And Graphic Design
        - Manage A

  • iDiotPC? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bazongis ( 654674 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @02:44PM (#6545987)
    Am I the only one who saw an imaginary 'i' in there?
  • Now, I understand the concept, but this sucker loads the OS into a RAM disk, meaning it eats a bit of RAM to begin with, then what if you're checking out lots of websites, I guess it stores the caches and cookies on a file server, or RAM disk. All on 256MB RAM?

    This is a nifty idea, but only if you have a network file server, and can deal with all your HD-less boxen being offline, when you upgrade the NFS, or when it breaks down.

    And then there's network traffic......

    • Re:Swap? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@nOSpAM.etoyoc.com> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:08PM (#6546171) Homepage Journal
      You, my friend, have been using M$ products too long. Most Linux software uses the same basic libraries. You only need 1 copy of Glibc, Mysqllib, tcllib, etc in memory to run your entire OS. While your program may be huge, only a fraction of it is loaded at a time.

      NFS is not needed here, because all of the programs and data live on either the CDROM or in RAM.

      You are obviously mistaking this for LTSP.

  • It'd be just as easy to avoid the Lindows crap by putting together a similar workstation and use Knoppix. Heck, you can use compact flash storage to keep your Knoppix config files in a persistant home directory [knoppix.net], so that would seem like the better alternative.

  • You can get a barebones PC with an OS for the same price you'd pay most places for a barebones PC?

    Actually, "that ain't not bad." I'd like to try lindows but I'm not gonna pay even $50 for it without knowing what I'm getting. But if I can get a barebones PC thrown in with the deal, it don't seem like much of a risk at all. Hell, stick an old 40GB drive in the box, sell it, and make a profit on the deal...

  • They should get a license to distribute Knoppix with these -- it's already a network-aware OS that comes with an office suit, chat programs like AIM, a few web browsers, etc.

    It'd be perfect on this type of thing.
    • The main reason I'm even curious about lindows is because it looks, on the surface at least, like they've put together a reasonably coherent, usable linux distro that DOESN'T install 10 gigs of sydn (shit you don't need). Even my windows box now has two web browsers because I use mozilla; is this a "feature?" No, it's a nuisance because inevitably you end up with some piece of software that relies on using browserx for something when you want it to use browsery.

      Joe gear and Jill SewingCircle don't need "a

  • These systems would work well with the USB keychain drives that are out. They're fairly expensive (right now), but the memory sticks would be an ideal way to store files and configurations. The average user and Joe Sixpack will probably going to have less than 256 MB in C:\My_Documents. When keychain drives' price drops enough for one to be bundled with these systems, they could make this arrangement useful for Joe Sixpack wanting a cheap PC.

    The Tiger system has pretty decent specs -- with more memory (add
  • Should we be surprised at Microsoft's dominance?

    What killed the ThinkNIC anyway?

  • The case is huge, and mostly empty. Two empty 5" drive bays, one empty 3" drive bay, and a floppy. This looks like an attempt to recycle excess low-end PC inventory.

    The iOpener was a much better piece of industrial design. Maybe it was just too early.

    • Try sticking a DVD drive, CD burner and a couple of cheap fat hard drives in an i-opener.

      And, unlike the iopener, this thing even has a NIC. Imagine that! A fast network connection in an "internet appliance!"

  • pc (Score:2)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 )
    if they are making them out of stock pc components, they'd be better off to add a harddrive. if it was some cool embedded version of lindows it'd be one thing, but this is basically a stock pc just without a harddrive.
  • In the early days of personal computing, people would try to make up examples of computer use in the home, such as keeping recipies in the kitchen etc.

    I think we're finally coming to it slowly. I do it with an old surplus laptop, which sits in the kitchen. It runs a slide show when doing nothing else, has a sheetfed scanner for all the receipts and house paperwork, and is a web browsing station (including recipies from epicurious!) for when I'm in the kitchen.

    Plus it can play music and web radio station

  • Why a case? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:16PM (#6546230) Homepage
    Low end processor and no HD mean LESS HEAT. So why did they put this stuff in a big empty box? I'd think a web terminal type pc would do a lot better packaged into something like this [firstkmh.co.uk] with a cheap LCD.

  • This would be PERFECT...if... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:17PM (#6546237)
    Lindows gave you the CD to create the LindowsCD OS for the computer. Think about how incredibly useful that would be!

    You run a program on the CD to customize an installation of LindowsCD. You pick the home page, maybe the network share where files are saved, bookmarks, etc. It already knows the hardware so no config necessary.

    You click a button and out of your burner pops a LindowsCD perfectly configured for your environment. You stick it in the machine, and deploy.

    I can think of a thousand uses for this. You could rig a kiosk in the lobby that would only let people view the company webpage. You could rig some workstations that would allow visitors to view files you have made available in a public share but they can't save anything there or locally. You could rig that perfect PC so grandma could check her e-mail and thats all it does.

    With no data kept locally, and no possibility of OS corruption, your only support requirements are to tell people to reboot. Or have the machine reboot once a day, etc. If you ever need to change anyting, reburn a disc with new settings. If the CD ever goes belly up, put in the backup. If it still won't work, you can be sure it's a hardware issue.

    Lindows, SO CLOSE. Please (or Knoppix) someone take the OS-on-CD to the next level. Yes having Knoppix and LindowsCD is great, but no one wants to have to setup their mail settings each and every time the system reboots. Give us the tools to create our own custom task-oriented OS CD.

    As an alternative...flashram? A CF reader and a 32MB card cost what, $25 on the street? More than enough to keep mail settings, bookmarks, etc.

    - JoeShmoe

    • As a matter of fact... (Score:4, Informative)

      by poptones ( 653660 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:42PM (#6546388) Journal
      Very early in lindows launch they made this quite clear. They offered the lindows "developer kit" for some ridiculously low price (I think it was $99) and, after signing a licensing agreement you could develop and market your own co-branded lindows distro.

      Back then most people laughed. And described like that it still sounds laughable, doesn't it? Why would you pay money for an SDK and then sign a license for X$/install to sell a linux distro when you can put one together, based on debian (as lindows is) or redhat, for free?

      Well, now look: lindows has a reasonable amount of brand recognition and press. You can put together a distro of redhat and try to get your compu-idiot clients to use it, or you can offer the same thing with a distro that is being sold at wal-mart and gets favorable press in all sorts of consumer press. Which do you think offers the better marketing opportunity when it comes to the technically challenged?

    • ThinkNIC used flash ram in its cd-based PC, actually. It was quite handy.
    • Lindows gave you the CD to create the LindowsCD OS for the computer. Think about how incredibly useful that would be!

      Actually, the Lindows part of this seems pretty lame, since you have no hard drive (which most windows software, even most games, needs to be installed to befoe it will run!) and can't pop out the Lindows CD to read a windows application CD. For surfing the web and a lot of other stuff Knoppix will do just fine.

      I do agree with the basic premis, more needs to be done to make thinks like thi

  • Add a NIC, mod the CD = Firewall (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MadCow42 ( 243108 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @05:18PM (#6546946) Homepage
    I've been wanting to have a Linux firewall that boots from CD (with no HD) for security reasons... script it to reboot every night a 3am, and you could be pretty confident in it not being cracked.

    Any idea if the Lindows version has anything special to enable it to run 100% from CD? Is the entire CD GPL'd?

    MadCow.

  • eMachines is a better deal (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @06:27PM (#6547268) Homepage Journal
    Compared to the rock bottom eMachines which includes WinXP home, a hard drive, speakers, keyboard, mouse, 6USB ports, CDRW this iDot doesn't look so good. That is if you want a complete PC. If you're just for an upgrader and you're planning on dumping your HD, CDRW and all your other gorp into this then it's a pretty good deal in so far as it's a complete MoBo, CPU, cabinet and power supply upgrade. But compared to what? It's pretty low powered and doesn't offer more than what you probably already run. Of course I'm a cheap ass so it looks way more powerful than my 8 year old boxes at home. But I think I'm the exception not the rule. I'd still rather go with a preassembled eMachines box since my time is worth more than the 70 bucks or so (actually it's more expensive once you add WinXP yourself) you might save.

    I'm getting to the point where I think that low end computers should have a "No customer servicable parts inside" sticker on them. For the coupla hundred bucks they're almost disposable.

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