Fry's Electronics - Selling Linux... Or Not? 479
TheMadPenguin writes "For those of you who may not be aware, Fry's Electronics has been selling a Linux desktop PC loaded with ThizLinux for quite a while now. The question is, are they really selling it? The answer is a definitive no."
well, yeah. its fry's. (Score:5, Informative)
Already dead - full article here (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, their sales staff has no idea how to run Windows, let alone Linux. In reality, I didn't expect anything less from that caliber of employee. What are you going to do? Let's put it this way... I live in Las Vegas and have been to that Fry's location on more than one occasion and stood by while a salesman, approached with questions from a customer, stuttered and spit trying to come up with answers. They usually just end up blurting to the customer that the machine is "just NOT Windows". Nice sales pitch.
To top that award winning sales pitch off, the customer is staring at a KDM login screen which has it's default language set to Chinese. Don't get me wrong, Chinese is a fine language, but hardly appropriate sitting on display in the Las Vegas branch of Fry's Electronics. Not only did the whole Chinese thing confuse me, but the fact that it was running an obscure Linux distribution that nobody has ever heard of really did the trick. Check out their web site and tell me what you think. Where is the support? Even if you visit their 'English' site, it is a bit confusing to the average computer user.
To make things even worse, the distribution is old. It is running kernel 2.4.18 with KDE 2.2.2 as its default desktop, and their Xfree86 version is 4.2.0. It isn't even the latest release of ThizLinux. This is software more apt (no pun intended) to be used on a server system... not on a consumer desktop. Why not use one of the better desktop distros such as Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Libranet, or even (please forgive me for saying this but I have to) LindowsOS? They have better support and usability, are more appealing to the eye, and are far more likely to be accepted by end users than ThizLinux.
What really set me off was my visit to the Las Vegas store this evening. I was simply going to purchase a few peripherals and wandered by the lonely Linux PC in the corner. Sometimes the normally $299 unit goes on sale for around $100. Sure, it's a pretty cheaply built box, but would make a nice toy for such a low price. What caught my eye this time was the addition of a new placard placed squarely on top of the PC chassis. It read something like this:
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
I found that completely unacceptable for two reasons:
They are immediately telling you that the machine is no good. Insinuating that it's in the best interest of the customer to remove the current operating system and install Windows is ridiculous. Even though the sign does not come right out and say "This OS is a piece of garbage", the sign conveys the message loud and clear.
They are offering to charge the customer more money to fix a product which they are selling as 'broken' to begin with. Nothing like wearing your soul on your sleeve. Actually, this way of thinking is pure Microsoft. Since they are selling a product they know is garbage, why sell it at all? To be quite honest, as a Linux user I frown upon the insinuation that my chosen OS is somehow inferior to Windows 98.
Maybe I shouldn't care... and in reality it isn't going to make a difference in my day whether they sell those boxes or not. It just bothers me that Linux is being portrayed this way to the general public. My message to the people who run Fry's Electronics (and any other outlet who may sell Linux PCs) is simple: If you are going to sell Linux boxes, please educate your staff on the subject, rather than allowing them to sound ignorant in front of your customers. It is an embarrassment to you as much as it is to the Linux community. Since you are selling Linux boxes, please make sure that they are set with a langua
/.ed - here's the article. (Score:1, Informative)
First of all, their sales staff has no idea how to run Windows, let alone Linux. In reality, I didn't expect anything less from that caliber of employee. What are you going to do? Let's put it this way... I live in Las Vegas and have been to that Fry's location on more than one occasion and stood by while a salesman, approached with questions from a customer, stuttered and spit trying to come up with answers. They usually just end up blurting to the customer that the machine is ?just NOT Windows?. Nice sales pitch.
To top that award winning sales pitch off, the customer is staring at a KDM login screen which has it's default language set to Chinese. Don't get me wrong, Chinese is a fine language, but hardly appropriate sitting on display in the Las Vegas branch of Fry's Electronics. Not only did the whole Chinese thing confuse me, but the fact that it was running an obscure Linux distribution that nobody has ever heard of really did the trick. Check out their web site and tell me what you think. Where is the support? Even if you visit their 'English' site, it is a bit confusing to the average computer user.
To make things even worse, the distribution is old. It is running kernel 2.4.18 with KDE 2.2.2 as its default desktop, and their Xfree86 version is 4.2.0. It isn't even the latest release of ThizLinux. This is software more apt (no pun intended) to be used on a server system... not on a consumer desktop. Why not use one of the better desktop distros such as Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Libranet, or even (please forgive me for saying this but I have to) LindowsOS? They have better support and usability, are more appealing to the eye, and are far more likely to be accepted by end users than ThizLinux.
What really set me off was my visit to the Las Vegas store this evening. I was simply going to purchase a few peripherals and wandered by the lonely Linux PC in the corner. Sometimes the normally $299 unit goes on sale for around $100. Sure, it's a pretty cheaply built box, but would make a nice toy for such a low price. What caught my eye this time was the addition of a new placard placed squarely on top of the PC chassis. It read something like this:
This computer is running the Linux operating system. It is easily removed and can be replaced by Windows 98 or higher by formatting the hard drive and loading Windows. We will perform this service for you for a fee.
I found that completely unacceptable for two reasons:
They are immediately telling you that the machine is no good. Insinuating that it's in the best interest of the customer to remove the current operating system and install Windows is ridiculous. Even though the sign does not come right out and say ?This OS is a piece of garbage?, the sign conveys the message loud and clear.
They are offering to charge the customer more money to fix a product which they are selling as 'broken' to begin with. Nothing like wearing your soul on your sleeve. Actually, this way of thinking is pure Microsoft. Since they are selling a product they know is garbage, why sell it at all? To be quite honest, as a Linux user I frown upon the insinuation that my chosen OS is somehow inferior to Windows 98.
Maybe I shouldn't care... and in reality it isn't going to make a difference in my day whether they sell those boxes or not. It just bothers me that Linux is being portrayed this way to the general public. My message to the people who run Fry's Electronics (and any other outlet who may sell Linux PCs) is simple: If you are going to sell Linux boxes, please educate your staff on the subject, rather than allowing them to sound ignorant in front of your customers. It is an embarrassment to you as much as it is to the Linux community. Since you are selling Linux boxes, please make sure that they are set with a langua
Mirror here. Site /.ed (Score:3, Informative)
quetionable veracity (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, they *do* sell Linux, just not well.... (Score:2, Informative)
At any rate, please read the article before you complain about how worthless it is.
Re:well, yeah. its fry's. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fry's vs. The Rest Of The World (Score:4, Informative)
AND!
I had to go back 3 days later to replace on of the hard drives I had just bought. I was in and out with a brand new HD within 15 minutes. And I didn't even have the packaging, just the reciept!
Maybe we're just lucky up here.
Re:Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
I bought one (Score:3, Informative)
I think that is the purpose of this machine. It avoids the Windows Tax, and introduces people to Linux, which is far from user friendly. As for the decision to include this distro over others, who knows? Maybe Thiz gave them a better deal on media? Maybe they gave more support for creating the install image (not that it did any good). I don't know. It's still a pretty kickass machine for 1 bill.
Re:Fry's vs. The Rest Of The World (Score:2, Informative)
I bought it (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that it runs some linux distro was imprtant for me that hardware is compatible with Linux.
The first thing I did was to reformat it with RedHat Linux
Machine works perfectly and I am very happy.
I bought one - Hardware is OK, ThizLinux is junk (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing you absolutely have to do is expand the memory. 32 Mb of the RAM is used for video so expanding it from 128 Mb (96 Mb useable) to at least 256 Mb (224 Mb useable) is mandatory. KDE barely loads in the original (128/96 Mb) configuration. I'm using 256/224 Mb right now and it is much better.
There is a reason why the KDE menu includes uninstall instructions, as does the manual. ThizLinux is a piece of unmitigated garbage and even they know it. It looks like a bastardized version of RedHat 8 converted to a combination of Chinese and English (Thiz is based in Hong Kong). Fry's probably receives these machines as-is from Hong Kong or China.
Now, as far as Linux distros that work on this machine, I'm typing this on my Fry's machine running Slackware 9 right now. It seems to work fine. RedHat 8 also works OK (as well as RH8 has ever worked but better than ThizLinux).
Mandrake 9.1 is a problem. The sound doesn't work (ALSA driver problem? It works in Slackware and RH8 with no ALSA) and neither does the wheel in the mouse (but it does see it as the middle button). Everything else seems OK, but I don't recommend Mandrake for this machine. It may be useable, but it shouldn't require this much work.
The SuSE 8.2 Live-Eval CD doesn't work with this chipset either. Don't even bother to try it. X won't even start. I tried installing it 4 times and it never was functional. That doens't mean a "regular" SuSE install won't work, but I don't have the full distro so I haven't tried it.
I haven't tried Debian, RH9, FreeBSD, Gentoo, or any other distro. They may work or they may not.
Same with any version of Windows. I would guess that at least Win98 would work. Based on other "odd" hardware I've tried to install it on, Windows 2000 might be a problem, but I haven't tried it on this box since I don't have it.
Overall, my recommendation for this cheap hardware is Slackware 9. This machine should only be purchased by those who can install their own OS.
WalMart does Linux, but only on line (Score:4, Informative)
WalMart's description of Suse notes:
Some of it is the customers, though... (Score:3, Informative)
The person I dealt with didn't ask me what was wrong; he just printed off a return/restock label and proceeded to give me a refund. I said, "Uh, there's something wrong with this particular combo. It had [description of actual failure mode] and should be tested before returning it to stock." He then printed out a different label indicating testing required and put it in the other bin. I asked him what they'd do and he said it would indeed get tested.
I had forgotten to bring in the cables that came with the bundle, tho; took that in the next day and found the same guy who did the return. His jaw literally dropped when he realized I came back in just for this; he thanked me profusely and went over to his supervisor to show him and point me out (I had already walked away). I thought for a minute they were going to hoist me on their shoulders and parade me around the store.
So I think Fry's has created a problem with its liberal return policy; people must just want them to take the stuff back, so they don't volunteer any information that might endanger that. If so, I lament this "lowering of the bar". I just did what I thought was right, and clearly that's not what most people do. Bummer.
- Leo
The running joke about Fr'ied Employees (Score:2, Informative)
Now, what self-respecting geek would want to work in such a hostile environment making minimum wage?
Re:well, yeah. its fry's. (Score:3, Informative)
If you've been going to the Sunnyvale Fry's (aka Nerdstroms), you can save time, hassle, and even money. About 4 blocks away, there's a place called Action Computer [actionsurplus.com] that has every kind of cable you need, as well as hard drives, laptops, and all the usual PC hardware, frequently cheaper than Fry's. And here's the kicker: the staff know what they're doing. They are helpful, friendly, and also have a good return policy. And no, I don't work for them. I just give them a lot of my money every month.
Now, if you don't live in Silicon Valley, my point remains. In many cities, especially college towns, there's a grungy storefront in a strip mall with an unlikely name like Zero-Gee Electronics, or Servo Systems or something. That's the place to go for your hardware. They may not have an espresso bar, but they'll know what kind of fan you need for an Alienware case.
As a matter of fact, some helpful soul has posted a list of these places here [repairfaq.org]
Re:heh (Score:5, Informative)
They can't legally enforce that without good reason to think you're stealing something -- otherwise, they can be legally sued for false arrest by detaining you as you walk out the door.
It's really happened, too (at least in Texas).
This isn't the case for places like Costco because agreeing to let them look through your purchases is in the agreement you sign when becoming a member.
I have two of these machines. (Score:4, Informative)
The article's attitude bewilders me. Fry's is doing a good thing by distributing Linux-based machines, and letting people avoid the hidden MS tax. Why slap them in the face?
It's true that these boxes come with a lot of prominently displayed info on how to erase Linux and install Windows. So what? Let's be realistic -- Windows has 98% of the desktop market.
The article gives the impression that ThizLinux is a totally crippled OS. Well, I'm currently running FreeBSD on both my Fry's machines, but I did play with ThizLinux for a little while when I got the first machine. Everything was in English, not Chinese. It seemed like quite a nice system for somebody naive about computers. You could surf, send e-mail, word-process, and play games. Guess what? -- that's all your typical home user wants to do with a computer! It's true that the ThizLinux web site seems to be only in Chinese, but I'm sure plenty of people in China use Linux distros that have English-only web sites.
I've been very happy with these machines. For $150-250 (the prices fluctuates based on the phases of the moon), I got hardware that feels essentially the same as my wife's $2000 new iMac. I've never had any hardware problems at all. My only complaint was that some of the hardware documentation was a little skimpy and/or incomplete. I did have to buy an external modem for my home box because it apparently came with a Winmodem. Also, they seemed to have changed sound chips between the time when I bought the first machine and the time when I bought the second one, and I was never able to get sound working on the second one -- maybe someone with a little more savvy would've been able to solve that problem.
The Walmart Linux boxes seem to get all the attention, but I'd recommend the Fry's machines to a friend instead. For one thing, you can buy them in the store, which saves you money on shipping, whereas AFAIK the Walmart boxes are only available online.
I have one of these (Score:2, Informative)
I dunno, but I was pretty sure that if you sell a computer loaded with one operating system, they should support it.
Oh yeah, and they don't even explain the undeniable fastest way to put windows... delete the partition information and make a new fat32 entry into the partition table... duh
Re:Fry's will sell anything... dissastisfied custo (Score:4, Informative)
Fry's is a place to go when you know what you want and you know how to use it. Never expect an honest and/or correct answer from a Fry's employee. The honest comes from the fact that it's a retail outlet, and the correct comes from the fact that they pay as little as possible. That is why, on average, 50% of the employees of any given Fry's store will be asian girls. They have small fingers which are good for hitting the buttons on cash registers, and no one expects them to know anything. (Whether they do or not, well, that's up to you, but none of the ones I've talked to at any Fry's have known their ass from... what's that round thing in the ground over there?)
However Fry's can be a great place for you to pick up items on the cheap if you are close enough to get their sale circulars. They are definitely one of the stores with the least clue about the internet, they owned their domain for YEARS before they did anything with it, even a phone numbers/locations page, and their locations don't map or anything. They do some online sales through outpost.com but that's guaranteed to be their least exciting deals because you know they wouldn't bother putting anything with a lot of price fluctuation online. If you go to Fry's once a week, or read the ad circular, you WILL end up seeing a ton of items for good prices. These items will never be a motherboard, memory, or a CPU, unless you end up with most of a system (needing drives and video for example.) Their video cards are also always horrendously overpriced, as are cables, which is no shock.
(A word on cables: Always buy cables over the internet unless you know someone at a computer store who will get them for you at cost. A cable that costs $25 at fry's will cost you $5 via mail order, this is literal, I just got the cable in the mail, and it's a 6 to 6 pin 6' 1394 cable.)
In general I have had little trouble returning things to Fry's (I've never purchased software there though - at those prices? ha ha!) but I have definitely noticed the problem you describe where people return things broken and they just re-shelf 'em. What's really amusing is that people are constantly returning boxes with the wrong (old) product in them, and THOSE end up back on the shelf. Once I purchased a LVD SCSI controller from Fry's and got it home only to discover that it had an ISA Fast/Narrow SCSI card in the box. Needless to say I was pretty pissed and I took it back and I was pissed enough to where they didn't argue, in fact they gave me $20 off the better SCSI controller I ended up purchasing because the card I bought had gone off the market. Well, the card I thought I'd purchased, anyway.
So, to make sure you don't get ripped off, open everything before you buy it. Shit, I've been known to open spindles of CDR media while standing in the aisle to find out what color they were, back when that mattered. Anything that looks like it might have been tampered with gets opened up and rooted through and if I don't like it, it goes right back on the shelf like that, fuck 'em. That's what they get for not running a tighter ship.
If anyone is wondering what Fry's IS good for, besides returning your bad hardware in the box for some other, probably newer hardware, and getting a free upgrade; They often have sales on CDR media or assorted home electronics like DVD players. Their open box deals (this only helps you if you live close and go often) can get you some great stuff; I passed on them like a dolt but they had two $300-retail progressive scan dvd/svcd/vcd/mp3/photocd players (a real brand, not apex or something) for $99 each, I should have bought them both and then taken back whichever one was wonkier. And when they have a sale on cases, that's a good way to get a case at a good price without paying sales tax. They're also a reasonably economical and convenient way to get electronic components, heat shrink tubing, and so on.
Re:Glad I'm not your friend (Score:4, Informative)
The modem and sound worked fine with ThizLinux. I couldn't get them to work with Mandrake or FreeBSD, but I'm not a guru, and it's possible that someone sufficiently knowledgeable would have been able to get them to work. There is some documentation about the sound chip, but I just wasn't able to use it to get sound working on FreeBSD. Since the ThizLinux kernel is GPL'd, and includes a driver for the Winmodem, I assume you can get the driver from ThizLinux, if you know enough Chinese to navigate their web site
I was partly responsible for this (Score:4, Informative)
One day at the corporate office when I was doing the ISP thing for them (John Fry had a hard-on for doing an ISP because he wants to be in some business with low-cost recurring service revenue, or something), they drop one of these boxes in my lap and said "give me your opinion of this thing". So I poke around and find out that it's a cheapo Asian Linux distribution with the then-amazing Linux port of PowerDVD so users could play DVDs on their Linux machine. Someone else and I grabbed a random sample DVD from the buyer's cubicles (an awful horror movie iirc) and tried to play it - worked mostly fine.
Then they wanted me to come up with installation procedures for Windows on the machines. I asked them why so I would have some context, and John did everything but say outright that they wanted to sell a machine that people could put their own operating system on. The reason why is because Fry's has this low price leader mentality where they feel something's wrong unless they have the lowest price on a certain product, and the Windows tax is applied pretty equally among the large computer manufacturers. The idea is that they could undercut everyone if they had a computer without an operating system... the fact that we were going to be supplying something with the machines (a set of instructions for installing Windows on the machines) demonstrated how important this was to them, because as a rule Fry's doesn't sell anything except what the vendor sticks in the box.
Regarding the posts about how there are people in the buying chain who understand Linux - yes, there are. There was a buyer who did do mainly Linux stuff, and had little stuffed penguins spread around his desk all the time. I was in there a lot asking about whether we would be carrying various things, or letting him know where he can get stuff from Loki to put on the shelves. At one point, they actually stuck the Wasabi distribution of NetBSD on the shelves, although it didn't sell very well.
Linux is actually pretty important for Fry's - at one point they were selling more of it than Windows, although I'm not sure that's still true now that the "hobbyist" feel is fading. The fact that Linux was outselling Windows was one of the main driving factors for Fry's to start sticking various infrastructure systems on Linux instead of Netware or Windows, which is what they've run in the past. They're still mostly Netware or Windows, but they're looking real hard at moving parts of outpost.com (their online sales group) onto Linux from Oracle/BEA/Solaris.
Re:Fry's will sell anything... dissastisfied custo (Score:3, Informative)
Fortunately this location seems pretty good about labeling their returns. I don't think I have had an experience buying something that appeared new that was infact a return.
Though like the other Fry's, this one is very similar -- you cannot go in there without knowing what you want and doing your homework and knowing what products are good.
My BIGGEST gripe was recently. They were selling Western Digital 200GB drives w/rebate for $130 (after rebate). Stocked on the shelf were only returned drives with the UPC removed on every single package! Naturally, knowing my way around Fry's, I bugged a floor drone to go in the back and get me a non-returned drive, however, I feel for all of those people who go to the store, pick up a drive, install it then realize after installing the UPC was missing. What a joke.
In anycase, I never recommend Fry's to anyone unless they are tech saavy and do their homework. Atleast other places (the compusas, bestbuys, circuit city's, etc..) seem to stock better overall products (even if their prices tend to be a bit higher)