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Linux Business

Three LindowsOS PCs Reviewed 352

Posted by Hemos from the making-use-of-them dept.
Eugenia writes "Not one, but three LindowsOS-based PCs (in the value range of $199 USD) were reviewed online by WashingtonPost. A TigerDirect PC, the traditional WalMart/MicrotelPC and one from Nova Computech. The reviewer says that these PCs while are very low-end today, compared to PCs 2 years ago, are actually pretty good solutions for home usage. The reviewer found them lacking in the gaming (no respectable 3D gfx card included), expandibility departments and while he mentions that Linux-based LindowsOS is affordable, is not a panacea as it lacks in good USB support and other demanding areas of our modern times."
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Three LindowsOS PCs Reviewed More

Three LindowsOS PCs Reviewed

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  • No 3D makes Jack a dull boy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:34AM (#6211428)
    no respectable 3D gfx card included

    Thats O.K With Linux, no respectable 3D drivers would be included either.

  • Things Lindows lacks (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:36AM (#6211457)
    while he mentions that Linux-based LindowsOS is affordable, is not a panakeia as it lacks in good USB support

    It also apparently lacks Ispell.

  • a 3 gig drive ! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Squarewav ( 241189 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:39AM (#6211480)
    what year is this again 1998?? so after the OS that leaves what 1.5 gigs, I guess they would make good dumb X terminals. good luck doing anything else
    • I guess since a lot on people have theri computers in the same state as when they got it, they don't need much extra room. But 3gigs is a rediculously small size for most other people.

      • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:3, Informative)

        by arne ( 23792 )
        I am still using my 266 Mhz 96Mb, 3Gb HP-armace 1700 notebook for some quite serious work. (Programming, browsing, graphics, writing). It has as always worked fine but is getting a bit bulky.

        The trick is to NOT use KDE/Gnome and kill openoffice, gimp, acroread, realplayer, xine when you do not need it.

        • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 ) <(moc.tibroni) (ta) (udanax)> on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:15AM (#6211842) Homepage Journal
          The trick is to NOT use KDE/Gnome and kill openoffice, gimp, acroread, realplayer, xine when you do not need it.

          For YOU and a lot of us Geeks around here (myself included), those are accepted options. But this is about the average Joe Six-Pack home user. They need to easily type up a letter to mail Aunt Sally on her birthday and not have to learn vi. They want to watch movies sent to them. They want eye-candy. They want to stream audio and video.

          This is stuff I'm sure you're aware of, but that sentence just doesn't apply to someone like my grandma for instance.

    • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SkArcher ( 676201 )
      Hmmm

      A drive that size would not matter in a small office environment either, where all data (in theory) would be held on a server, not on the machine itself. These machines run OpenOffice and would do well enough for a SOHO environment, which is where Linux needs to move into the Office market.

      The SOHO market typically has tighter profit/loss margins, so it will make sense to move towards an Open Source solution (as most SOHO's allready employ outside Tech support) as the most cost effective.

      • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:5, Informative)

        by nolife ( 233813 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:52AM (#6212320) Homepage Journal
        A drive that size would not matter in a small office environment either, where all data (in theory) would be held on a server, not on the machine itself.

        Not just small offices either. Our laptops and desktops have a minimum of 20GB drives and some are as large as 60GB. The average user has less then 2.5GB total including our non space optimized W2K installs. The most I have ever seen was 5GB from a user that stored backup.pst files from our Exchange servers locally.

      • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 )
        ... so? All they have to do is the same as everyone else does - buy another hard drive when they need more space. The money they save by not paying the M$ tax will buy them another 80 to 120 gigs :-)

      • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:5, Funny)

        by BrokenHalo ( 565198 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:56AM (#6212361)
        I think it's kind of funny that the reviewer describes 1.0 of 1.1 GHz processors as only suitable for word processing and web browsing.

        Seems the Athlon 1.0 GHz Tbird I've been using for the last 3 years for molecular modelling etc is just hopeless, and I should just upgrade immediately or slash my wrists... :-)

        • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:4, Informative)

          by BlackHawk-666 ( 560896 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @10:21AM (#6212668)
          ...and the Pentium II 350 that has been my mail/web/file server for the last five years should also be thrown out...despite the fact it still does everything it ever needed to do. In fact, with RH 9.0 on it I can still have a very nice web browsing and email experience...the 192MB of RAM helps, and Linux being light on memory also helps.

          By all accounts these machines would be powerhouses compared to the 486DX66 I used to use for SOHO tasks.

        • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by savetz ( 201597 )
          (Yes I read TFA. I wrote TFA.) No, they're *perfectly* suitable for word processing and Web browsing. With a bit more memory and a bigger hard drive, these machines would all run circles around the PIII-700, my office machine that I used to write the article. I think any of these machines, with some extra RAM and hard drive that I know Slashdot readers have lying around, would be great Linux boxen.
    • Look at the price again. It's not enough to support a large disk.

      Also, look at the target market. All they're trying to do is provide a system on which they can send e-mail and browse the web. Most of these machines don't even come with decent video cards or a cd-writer; so, clearly they're not intended for gamers or people who save a lot of digital photos.

    • what year is this again 1998?? so after the OS that leaves what 1.5 gigs, I guess they would make good dumb X terminals. good luck doing anything else

      I still use a P2-333 from 1998 as my main home PC. It has a 6GB drive. How much space am I using? Around 2GB. ~800MB of that is Windows. ~500MB is used for large applications and development environments. The rest is data.

    • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Eccles ( 932 )
      So go with the Tiger Direct machine, it has a 12 gig drive and an AGP slot. Tiger Direct sells a Radeon 7000 for $20 after rebate.

    • Re:a 3 gig drive ! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nolife ( 233813 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @10:21AM (#6212679) Homepage Journal
      Yeah it would be nice with a bigger drive. So would a LCD monitor, a 128MB 3D video card, 3 piece subwoofer, 512DDR memory, a faster processor, firewire, 10K rpm drives. Of course it would no longer be a $199 computer. As with all computer pricing, there is a price to performance factor. The difference between bottom of the barrel PC ($199) and a decent performer $300-400) is not much but still $100-200 more or 2x the price. $199 is still a very decent price for a full computer.

  • Can't have everything. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by woogieoogieboogie ( 598162 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:39AM (#6211483)
    For the price you get a good deal. $199 for a pc with OS, that is the same price as Windows XP alone. For $199 nobody should expect good 3d cars in the machine because a new 3d card designed to run modern 3d games costs $199. these machines are good for what they are designed for, inexpensive pc's to read email and browse the web.
    • Now with Durons instead of thos VIA chips, they are a really good deal.

    • Yea most Computers at $199 don't come with go 3d Cars. Normally a good 3d car will run you at least $10,000 without a computer. But I kid, especially 9 out of every 10 times I seriously make major typos in my posting. But for $199 People who buy these are not normally doing that are really high profile stuff. They are targeted towards kids as their first computer. College Students who just want it to write papers. Older people who realize that they will need to start using this Internet Thing. Or a good
    • and of course if Lindows isn't their cup of tea they can always replace it.

      Lindows runs as root all the time, so it has very little security advantages IMHO.

      I would also think that peripheral support will be weaker than say Red Hat or Mandrake. Simply due to the type of user using the OS.

    • write your own review. specs below! (Score:4, Informative)

      by leuk_he ( 194174 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:52AM (#6212314) Homepage Journal
      Only the novapcs mentions it is using a sis 730 mobo,

      the wallmart pc uses probably a Integrated TRIDENT BLADE 2D/3D graphics video.

      the wintermart probably uses a Integrated S3 Savage 4 video up to 32 mb ram.

      Now tell me why cannot play quake 3 on either of these? The reviewer should have tried it! OK QII with 300 fps in 1600x1200FSAA is not possible but 25 FPS in 640x480 should work. (Is there a port for QIII?)
      (Warning lots of copy and paste work below.)
      tiger direct [tigerdirect.com]

      Premium Wintergreen Complete Kitâ"AMD Duron 1.0GHz, 128MB SDRAM Memory, 10GB Hard Drive and More!

      This system has all the extras you are looking orâ"a fast AMD Duron 1.0GHz processor, onboard premium video, crystal-clear integrated sound, 10GB hard drive, high-speed CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, 10/100 Ethernet and a 56K modem. Get your barebone kit today and build your dream computer for a fraction of the retail price!

      * AMD® Duronâ 1.0GHz Processor Learn More
      * 128MB PC133 SDRAM Memory Learn More
      * 10GB Hard Drive
      * 56x CD-ROM Drive
      * 3.5" (1.44MB) Floppy Disk Drive
      * 56K Modem
      * Onboard Premium Audio
      * Premium Integrated Video
      * PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
      * Monitor Sold Separately

      wallmart [walmart.com]
      icrotel SYSMAR417 PC With Lycoris OS & AMD Duron 1.1GHz

      $199.98

      Availability: Usually takes 2 to 7 business days to process before shipping.
      Shipping Cost: To see the shipping cost for this item, add it to your cart.

      128 MB memory
      10 GB hard drive
      CD-ROM drive
      Integrated 10/100 Ethernet connection
      Lycoris Desktop/LX operating system (Linux-based)
      Modem and floppy disk drive are not included

      This item is currently available online only.

      Key Features and Description

      Note: Linux operating systems may not be compatible with some dial-up Internet services, such as AOL or Wal-Mart Connect. Microtel can only guarantee Linux-based OS compatibility with factory-installed components. Microtel will not be responsible for the installation and operation of third-party hardware or software used with its computers that have these operating systems.

      The Linux-based operating system in these PCs is not compatible with any Microsoft Windows programs, however, it is great for basic operations such as email, Web browsing and instant messaging and can be easily upgraded for compatibility with Microsoft Office documents that have .doc, xls. or .ppt suffixes.

      * AMD Duron 1.1 GHz processor with 3DNow! technology
      * 200 MHz frontside bus
      * 128 MB SDRAM, expandable to 1 GB
      * 133 MHz memory speed
      * 10 GB Ultra-ATA 100 hard drive, 5400 rpm (total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment)
      * 52x CD-ROM drive
      * Integrated video with up to 8 MB shared video memory
      * Integrated AC '97 audio
      * Integrated 10/100 Ethernet connection
      * Mid ATX tower case (17.5"D x 7.5"W x 15"H)
      * Available external drive bays: two 5.25-inch, one 3.5-inch internal
      * 2 available PCI slots
      * Serial port
      * Parallel port
      * Two USB 1.1 ports
      * 104-key keyboard
      * 2-button mouse with wheel
      * Audio port (line-in, line-out, mic-in)
      * Stereo speakers
      * 1-year warranty, return to manufacturer

      Software includes:

      * GIMP digital image editor
      * Word processor, spreadsheet, presentation maker, addressbook, calendar
      * Contact manager and time management
      * Digikam digital camera software supporting over 162 digital cameras
      * Mozilla Web browser and email client
      * XMMS MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WA

  • The review is missing one thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:39AM (#6211485) Homepage
    All through the complaints on what they are lacking one point is missed... THEY COST $199.00! they are basically a bare-bones PC. hell add another $59.00 and you can get a low end Geforce 4 and make it scream for games.

    for $199.00 these things are great.

    and the fact they are windows free are even better.
    • Has anyone actually used a Lindows machine. I have a program I want low tech relatives to use, that needs Perl and Tk. The comp would be for that and web surfing.

      Some of the relatives might be freaked out by a cheap, powerful Suse Linux PC from a top notch mom and pop computer store. Believe it or not, they would feel more comfortable with a computer from Wal Mart (kinda mysttfying to the tech savvy I realize).

      Does Perl, Tk and CPAN work on it, out of the box, or does that require buying the upgrade?

    • Not that easy for Joe Sixpack... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:58AM (#6211677) Homepage Journal
      "Hell add another $59.00 and you can get a low end Geforce 4 and make it scream for games."

      And don't forget another hundred or so for a new hard drive that can hold said games, and a few hours to replace the old video card and HD and install the OS on it, and figure out how to install the NVIDIA drivers, and oh shit, this just went WAY beyond the capabilities of Joe Sixpack.

      • The price of convenience is the effort to understand technology. If Joe ServicePack cannot put in the effort, he deserves the latest Service Pack and the associated hell from MS.

        Linux (any flavor) is not for Joe.
        • "Linux (any flavor) is not for Joe."

          And as long as the Linux community maintains this elitist attitude, it will NEVER replace/defeat Windows.

          • "And as long as the Linux community maintains this elitist attitude, it will NEVER replace/defeat Windows."

            And as long as Joe is reluctant to understand (not even learn) Linux, he doesn't deserve it. It isn't elitism, just practical wisdom.

            If Joe depends on hotmail spam to get his education (free diplomas), his money (free credit checks) and his wisdom (sponsored study reports), he deserves what he gets from the present owners of said e-mail service.

            Linux helps those who refuse to believe all they hear.

        • Re:Joe ServicePack can buy WindowsXP (Score:5, Insightful)

          by no reason to be here ( 218628 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:25AM (#6211947) Homepage
          Who exactly is joe service pack?

          My girlfriend doesn't understand tech, but she would be just fine with one of these Lindows PC's. she writes papers and checks her e-mail on her computer, and that's pretty much it. She doesn't need to understand tech, nor should she have to. She doesn't understand how an internal combustion engine works, nor do most Americans, but she can drive a car just fine (in fact, she's a better driver than most people I know, myself included).

          Your attitude is not simply just why Linux hasn't caught on, it's also why people at large hold geeks up to ridicule and scorn.

        • Beyond stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dsfox ( 2694 )
          I just love competing with people who feel they have to decide whether their customers deserve their product. Also those who are convinced that convenience is an impossible dream.

    • Re:The review is missing one thing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A scream for games? What kind of mainboard does it use? I'm sure it's not a top of the line one. I'm sure everything is integrated into the board as well and probably polling the processor for all its worth. Add to that the wonderful 20watt 15 ounce power supply and your just looking for a waste of money sticking a Geforce 4 inside.
    • Exactly. Even for a geek like me, they might be useful. For instance, I'm thinking about throwing a PC in my kitchen to view receipes online whilest cooking. ;) For $200 (incl. shipping), I can put a similarly equipped system together myself [from new or reman parts], or $240-280 (incl. shipping) I can have it shipped to me already put together.

      So I'm paying an extra $40-$80 to have someone put it together (about the cost of the shipping for the Lindows PC actually). It might take me 30 minutes to an h
    • The Microtel machines I have don't have an AGP port...the graphics are all integrated. So bust on upgrading the graphics...the rest of the machine is great though. USB 2.0, Duron 1.1 GHz...for the money they're the best buy in the world.

  • SCO -5; cowardly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:41AM (#6211501) Journal
    Mr.Robertson said recently in the wake of the SCO vs IBM filing, that he'd paid money to SCO to keep quiet, atleast as regards his flavor of Linux.

    This sounds so cowardly and backwards for true Linux enthusiasts. Those who really buy Lindows to use the bundled Linux can load other and better distros as well.

    It doesn't sound right - being aggressive against Microsoft and a weakling against puny SCO.
    • Take a lesson from the Germans in WW2 -- don't fight a 2 front war, especially if they're both bigger than you! Lindows as a company is using its size and maneouverability to dodge any direct confrontations with established market players...Dell, Microsoft, SCO. Lindows is relying upon flying below the radar of Microsoft long enough to solidify themselves as a company, create a stable product, and build a customer base. Microsoft knows of them, but hasn't brought down the full weight of their arsenal upon t
    • If they have permission to use SCO IP in the GPL Linuc kernel, shouldn't that allow everyone to use it.

    • This sounds so cowardly and backwards for true Linux enthusiasts.

      If you saw a war approaching between two (relative) superpowers, and involvement would probably mean instant defeat, what would you do? Lindows is simply taking the path of least resistance, in this case, which is simply good business.

      Microsoft is different, however, because MS is right in Lindows' cross-hairs. If they weren't agressive with MS, then Lindows would have lasted months not years.

  • Linux replacement (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:41AM (#6211506) Journal
    I don't know but I didn't find Lindows a good replacement for Linux for those who want to try the *nix world, especially that it costs money and doesn't come with all the software a good distro comes with, anyway, I guess it maybe good for those who think that windows is the only OS.

  • Rather Biased (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:42AM (#6211511) Homepage Journal
    I got the impression they were biased from the beginning.

    'they cant perform' due to the fact they are not cutting edge technology.

    So what? most people don't have brand new stuff and get their jobs done just fine.

    In business 99% of the computers are idle, waiting for the user to do something. Even in home life ( games aside ), the computer is NOT being taxed.. its mostly just a expensive heat generating device.

    The idea you HAVE to keep this current cycle of upgrades going is really irritating. Efficient programming and some commonsense goes a long way.

    • Re:Rather Biased (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:01AM (#6211710)
      I'll echo your sentiments. Perhaps barely a month ago, reviews of a 1.2Ghz budget machine (1.2Ghz, 256mb ram, cdrom, floppy and 20gb HD) in the local paper mentioned that these computers were good for "Word processing and maybe some light internet browsing but not much else".

      Bullshit. That's pure and simple buying into a "let's sound smart because I know there are faster machines available" mentality. a 1.2Ghz machine will run MS Office very well, it'll handle an mp3 collection, digital photos and pretty much ANYTHING internet related. It'll run photoshop or gimp just dandy and do near anything most people need for audio. It'll store documents, run a few versions of windows or linux, or act as any kind of home server.

      No, it's not brand new and latest/greatest, but it is a friggen 1.2Ghz machine. about the only things it would be painful for is doing continual strong number crunching tasks.

      efficiency rocks.
      • Mod parent up.

        I have a 700MHz PIII with 384M RAM and it runs everything an ordinary user would want. It's even decent for simple photo and video editing and mp3 ripping.

        --Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

  • This is the second story I've seen where the text on the main page didn't match the text of the real story. On the main page I see:
    mentions that Linux-based LindowsOS is affordable, is not a panakeia

    and in the story:
    mentions that Linux-based LindowsOS is affordable, is not a panacea

    Obviously a correction of a typo, but why doesn't it show up on the main page?! (I'm not caching the page either, this happens on PC's that I've never used to visit slashdot.) Sorry for the OT post, but I'm losing m

    • Re:What the crap?! (OT) (Score:4, Informative)

      by kalidasa ( 577403 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:00AM (#6211694) Journal
      The panakeia / panacea error is not, technically speaking, a typo. It is a language error: panakeia is the Greek spelling of the Greek word, panacea the Latin transliteration. In English, words "naturalized" from Greek before ~1900 are spelled with the Latin transliteration (because most often they were, in fact, borrowed from Latin, which had borrowed them from Greek); after ~1900 with a stricter transliteration. The English spelling is of course panacea.
      • The panakeia / panacea error is not, technically speaking, a typo. It is a language error: panakeia is the Greek spelling of the Greek word, panacea the Latin transliteration.

        It may not be a typo, but having two spellings of the same word definitely isn't oikonomical.

    • You may not be cache the page, but Slashdot certainly is doing it.

      Since most visits is probably just viewing the main page, it makes sense to make this a static page that is updated regularily instead of making it purely dynamic. This saves Slashdot SQL-queries and makes the site run more smoothly.
    • It's prolly the standard server farm effect, like the variable numbers for result from Google searches. Give it a while and it'll propogate over, whether manually or not.

      J.

  • Self-contradicting? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:43AM (#6211523) Homepage Journal
    "...these PCs... are actually pretty good solutions for home usage."

    And then...

    "The reviewer found them lacking in the gaming, expandibility departments... lacks in good USB support and other demanding areas of our modern times."

    Now maybe I'm just being picky here, but at least based on the headline, it would seem that this reviewer is contradicting himself.

  • The divide at last (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Groote Ka ( 574299 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:45AM (#6211541)
    Does this mean that we will finally have the divide between high-performance office machines (I'm talking PC here, not SGI and HP9000) and machines for the demanding home user (video editting, gaming and the like) on one hand and the simple processing machine for the man in the street doing a few simple games and some administration and perhaps a little internet browsing?

    Or... You plugh in the Lindows tinies as work stations in your kitchen (to access your recipe database) and bedroom, next to your server. When the Wall Mart stuff support Wi-Fi, that is...

  • Okay ... you missed the point ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <[be] [at] [eclec.tk]> on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:46AM (#6211550) Homepage Journal
    "The reviewer found them lacking in the gaming (no respectable 3D gfx card included), expandibility departments and while he mentions that Linux-based LindowsOS is affordable, is not a panakeia as it lacks in good USB support and other demanding areas of our modern times."

    What part of These computers sell for $200 did you miss? This isn't the late 90's era of "best bang for under a grand", this is a review of "best bang for an average lower-class can be paid for in a pay check" system. These computers aren't designed to be top of the line, these are a super happy medium between price and performance. If you want a gaming machine for less than $200, got get an PS2, XBox, or GameCube, these computers are meant to do what computers cheaply do. Surf the net, write papers/emails, dink around, etc.

    What USB support is lacking? These computers are meant to be useable for Joe Average computer user. You can still visit slashdot with the damned things, no one thought to mention that as a high point. Lindows with a low price system makes a perfect computer for folks wanting to get on the internet and type up some christmas cards. This isn't meant to play Doom III, please remember that, there is a market that wal-mart sells to, and that market is designed for this computer.

    • Re:Okay ... you missed the point ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:06AM (#6211756) Homepage
      What USB support is lacking? These computers are meant to be useable for Joe Average computer user.

      Well, from the article:

      "But Lindows has drawbacks, notably poor support for USB peripherals such as digital cameras and scanners."

      Which cameras and scanners? Dunno. Didn't say. But I think we all know that Linux still isn't up to the level of Windows when it comes to this -- some manufacturers simply aren't releasing drivers or developer info on interfacing with their devices, and that leaves Linux in limbo.

      But this is exactly the kind of thing that Joe Average computer user wants to be able to do, and do without ANY issues. More importantly, the user is right -- there is no reason they should have issues with this kind of thing.

      I dunno why I'm astounded that people didn't read the article, but come on... it's shorter than some of these posts (like this one). And the last sentence reads "But if your computing tasks are limited to light work and you can get by without tech support, one of these PCs can do the job nicely in a home or small office." -- hardly a damning of the computers in question, not even a backhanded compliment. The submitter made a bigger deal of the shortcomings than the Washington Post did.
      • Which cameras and scanners? Dunno. Didn't say.

        Okay lemme first touch on this part of your comment ... Why would someone who has a $200 computer be buying a $100 digital camera? ...

        Basically it comes down to this, if people want more portability they will change the default setup (upgrade, diff OS, etc.) but they won't already just have a digital camera laying around they'll want to plug into it. If they hit the market for a digital camera they will more than likely ask a simple question (will this work

      • "But Lindows has drawbacks, notably poor support for USB peripherals such as digital cameras and scanners."

        I've never used Lindows, so maybe its not up to the standard of other distros, but two years ago, I installed Mandrake on my PC, and out of the box it supported every peripheral device I have, including my cheap USB scanner and digital camera, and my 4 year old printer which is completely unsupported under Windows XP.

        I don't remember the last time I was able to plug any new hardware into a Windows

  • 3 gig (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kadagan AU ( 638260 ) <kadaganNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:49AM (#6211581) Journal
    The machine is agonizingly slow because of its tiny 3GB drive, which the manufacturer said was recycled from an old notebook computer

    Apparently the reviewer doesn't understand all that much about PC hardware. (S)he claims that the machine was slow because of the size of the hard drive!? The only way I can think of that mattering is if it causes you to have less swap space. Yeah, that drive is deinitely too small, but that won't make the machine slower! If it's a slow drive, then that will cut back performance, but when it comes to the speed of access "size doesn't matter". You could make a 3 gig drive that spins at 7200 rpms, and has 8 mb cache, and could be blazing (almost) and still small. That comment discredited everything (s)he said to me. Also, if it's taken from an old notebook, does that mean it's a 2.5" drive?

    I have one more question that (s)he never answered. (S)he said that all but one of them didn't have a monitor included, but never said which came with one. Either I mis-read it, or there's some important information missing here. A 1 GHz system with a monitor for only $199 is incredible. Anyone have any info on that?
    • It would make a difference. Laptop drives average something like 4200 RPM (somewhere in that neighborhood) and the "fast" ones are 5400 RPM. That's slow, Einstein.

    • Re:3 gig (Score:3, Informative)

      by thedbp ( 443047 )
      well, to be fair, if it was scrounged from a laptop, and it is a 3GB drive, that means its probably old and spins at around 4500 RPM. That will definitely impact the performance of the machine. Especially if its an ATA-33 drive.

      Now, for the price, this kind of performance is fine. But it is viable to say that this hard drive could theoretically be slowing things down. Sounds like the system could be waiting for the drive to feed data if it is as low end as I've postulated.

    • Re:3 gig (Score:2, Insightful)

      by verbatim_verbose ( 411803 )
      Actually, it does make a difference. If you only have 3 gb of data, a 3gb hard drive will be somewhat slower than 10 gb of the same rpm, cache size, etc. in general use, due mainly to seek time. On the 10gb, the data will be spread around the drive, so when it wants to write, it will only have to go a little way to find an empty spot. The 3gb will have to jump all over the place to find empty spots, and likely fragment data more. Makes sense right?
      • If you only have 3 gb of data, a 3gb hard drive will be somewhat slower than 10 gb of the same rpm, cache size, etc. in general use, due mainly to seek time. On the 10gb, the data will be spread around the drive, so when it wants to write, it will only have to go a little way to find an empty spot. The 3gb will have to jump all over the place to find empty spots, and likely fragment data more. Makes sense right?

        No, that makes no sense at all. You are comparing a fragmented drive with an unfragmented drive

      • Re:3 gig (Score:3, Informative)

        by Admiral Burrito ( 11807 )

        "Bigger" drives are faster when all else is equal, but not so much for the reason you've stated (fragmentation).

        You mentioned seek time, which is one reason, but not because of fragmentation... If you're only using 3GB of data, on a 3GB disk a read may have to seek from the innermost track to the outermost track and back. With a larger drive 3GB full, it would only be using the outermost tracks, and would not have to seek as far.

        Bigger drives also pack the bits more densely. This means that for every ro

  • I know it's commonplace, but (Score:5, Interesting)

    by loomis ( 141922 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:50AM (#6211588)
    I know it's commonplace in newswriting, but the contradictory style of the author is particularly annoying in this review:

    "A $200 Computer Can Perform, Barely" [emphasis added]

    "[. . .] but they generally worked surprisingly well and offered room to grow"

    And soforth. Why not just put a positive headline as opposed to putting a negative headline and contradicting it throughout your article? I know I know, negative headline increases readership. Feh.

    Loomis
    • I know it's commonplace in newswriting, but the contradictory style of the author is particularly annoying in this review

      You seem to assume that the person writing the article also writes the headline. That's not commonplace.

  • I'm sorry, I still have a hard time figuring out who Lindows is aimed at. It seems like J. Random User is going to be far more comfortable with Win*, and stay there. Linux newbies are probably going to prefer Redhat or Mandrake (or a Knoppix install), and Linux wizards are probably already using debian or gentoo or [insert your favorite distro].

    It seems to be a distro aimed at software-review journalists.

    I'll end with my favorite lines from the review:

    Although it's possible to install Microsoft Windows on these machines, it can be tricky. Plus, a copy of Windows XP Home Edition costs about as much as one of these PCs.

    Something about this strikes me as being really funny, but I'm not quite sure what it is. (Though I know XP home is only about $99, now, but, whatever...)

    • someone who wants a dirt cheap computer strickly for e-mail and a little web browsing. They may occasionally write a letter or paper for class. Someone with no money who doesn't have access to e-bay.

      Say, my mother or my sisters.

    • I'm sorry, I still have a hard time figuring out who Lindows is aimed at. It seems like J. Random User is going to be far more comfortable with Win*, and stay there.

      J Random User is equally unfamiliar with all operating systems and doesn't care which one the computer is running. For these users, the browser is "the internet." They don't care about the control panel or the command line.

      --Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

  • Not reviewing Lindows, just the bare bones boxes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jon323456 ( 194737 ) * on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:57AM (#6211664)
    Yet another disappointing review whose title should really be âoeA review of the barebones hardware you can get for $200 at Walmart.â There are two, count em, two sentences about Lindows in the whole story:

    All three came preinstalled with Lindows, a version of the Linux operating system designed for home users. But Lindows has drawbacks, notably poor support for USB peripherals such as digital cameras and scanners.

    Dissapointing that they missed the opportunity to really talk about if this is the PC for grandma, or the other novice users who would be buying a PC so low on the dollar spectrum.
    • Grandma, or Joe Sixpack, aren't going to change out the OS, or even apply service packs. For that audience, it makes sense to review hardware and software as a single unit.

      And they did mention that they could run games on the thing, which means that Lindows was working.

      Jon Acheson

  • Not what i got.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by 222 ( 551054 ) <stormseeker@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:57AM (#6211668) Homepage
    Im not sure at which point this year he picked these machines up, but within the past month ive picked up a few of the walmart variety, and ive got to say that theyre fine. I purchased the 200 dollar model and i got a 1.2GHz Duron,128,nic,sound,video,20GB HD...(Ironically, im installing mandrake on one now).
    For the low low price of just 217 (My shipping was much lower than his?), i got this guy shipped right to my doorstep. Honestly, theyre great. Fantastic.
    Although i wasnt the biggest supporter of Lindows before, after seeing it in action, it really is what my grandmother would need to use Linux. (It even comes with a recovery CD)
    Its also worth mentioning that for an extra couple hundred (was $397 for me with shipping) you can have a 14.1 inch flatpanel included with that. As far as the quality goes, its nothing id use for proffesional imaging, but for surfing and sims its more than fine.
    Sounds like a deal to me.
    And NO, i dont work for walmart.com :p

  • I Wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:58AM (#6211674)
    I wonder how many people will catch on to the quote at the end where the author mentions that Windows XP Home costs as much as the entire PC + Linux. With luck, it'll make some folks think.

  • Good value (Score:5, Informative)

    by h00pla ( 532294 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:59AM (#6211689) Homepage
    On a business/pleasure trip to the US back in October (2002) , I bought a Lindows machine from Walmart. I ordered the modem for it and that brought the price up to 226 USD (because where I was going to be staying didn't have DSL in the area). The keyboard was total crap, but I went to a local mall and forked over some cash for a decent one. Lindows pretty much did everything I needed it to do and it ran pretty well. First thing I did was to create a user account for myself. (don't wanna be running as root, do we?)

    When my trip was finished, it fit into my big Samsonite and I took it back with me. I did two things when I got back home - move the power supply button to 220 and the switch the OS to SuSE Linux. I changed to SuSE because I like that distro more than Michael Robertson's 'apt-get' for a fee'. That's the weakest part of the whole deal.

    I just put Red Hat 9 on the box about a week ago. It runs a little slower, but pretty well all in all. I think it was a good value. It's on all the time and it stands up pretty well. If it runs for a year, it's paid itself back.

  • Good enough? (Score:4, Informative)

    by stevenp ( 610846 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:01AM (#6211703)
    >> Despite their scaled-back features, these computers run on AMD Duron 1.0- or 1.1GHz processors, making them speedy enough for word processing, Internet access, working with digital pictures and playing some games.

    I think 1GHz is MORE than good enough for word processing and internet browsing. I was doing the said activities on a 100 MHz machine back in the old days without much trouble. Otherwise the review is fair and notes that the machines are able to do what they are designed for.
    • This is true; but, 100MHz doesn't run modern (read as: current) incarnations of X or KDE well. That, and, you can't get 100MHz chips anymore, except for embedded applications.

  • My Fervent Hope (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:02AM (#6211716) Homepage Journal

    is that in the drive to push the price of Lindows PCs down far below Windows PCs and to sell to a mass market, that some good means are made available for utilizing software modems (a.k.a. Winmodems) that have plagued Linux users for years as (i)being ubiquitous, (ii) having proprietary, hard to decipher interfaces.

  • This isn't a review. This is a freaking ad for these things. I've seen more in-depth info on freaking packaging. This isn't even a good *description* of these things, just a tiny blurb.
    I wouldn't buy *anything* based on information this limited. Well, maybe if it had really complex and shiny packaging. That makes *any* product better.

  • Just bought the $200 Wal-Mart machine (Score:5, Informative)

    by EisPick ( 29965 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:05AM (#6211749)
    I've had it for a few days now. A few reactions:
    • Only real disappointment is the lack of an AGP slot. You're stuck with the onboard video.
    • Wal-Mart promised a 10 GB hard drive, but it shipped with a 20 GB.
    • I got a no-OS box and installed Red Hat 9, so I can't speak about Lindows. But I can say RH9 installed easily with no driver problems.
    • 128 MB of RAM just isn't enough for RH9, X-Windows and a few apps. I spent $25 for another 128 MB (it takes PC133).
    • The Post article said shipping costs $80. I'm guessing that's for overnight. I paid $25 for UPS ground. So my total out-of-pocket was $200 + $25 shipping + $25 RAM for a decent machine that's faster than the Win98 machine it's sitting next to (that cost $800 when I bought it a few years ago).
    • The fan is a little louder than I'd like, but that's not surprising for a Duron-powered machine. But it's maybe 1.25 x as loud as your average PC, so it's not horrible.
    • # The Post article said shipping costs $80. I'm guessing that's for overnight. I paid $25 for UPS ground.

      Between the misreported shipping price and assuming the one PC was slow due to the size of that 3GB drive, the review is irresponsible and probably done by a journalist operating at the boundaries of their experience.

      Reviews that misreport information are worse than useless, because uninformed readers are hungry for information to make decisions. In this case, unfortunately, a retraction is too late-

  • Happy with our 4... (Score:5, Informative)

    by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:06AM (#6211762)
    We set 4 of them up for junior employees... They happily chug away with Mandrake on them. Lindows was kind of neat, but we wanted machines that would listen to our LDAP server (running OS X). We just mount the OS X Users share point via NFS and away they go. Each machine has Mozilla on it plus an email application, and they are useful for our web researchers.

    They don't have the maintenance headache (and cost) of a Windows machine, and are cheaper than the eMacs that we otherwise use for low end computing.

    Alex

  • No real surprises here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:18AM (#6211870) Homepage
    Just what I expected. The review barely qualifies as such, but its overview covers what most suspect -- that these are low power machines built for low power work. That being said, I think the concept is fantastic. For the starving students out there this can be an utterly cheap solution for having a PC to type stuff up on. This would also be good for having "dumb terminals" for other rooms around the house.

  • No Quake3? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:19AM (#6211875)

    computers run on AMD Duron 1.0- or 1.1GHz processors,...The machines aren't fast enough to do intensive work like... playing Quake III,

    So I guess I was just imagining it when I played Quake3 on my Celeron-533? Even if it's got a crappy graphics card, a Geforce2MX would be plenty good enough and costs like $30 or something. Finally, cheap computers with "good enough" performance.

    • considering that when I upgraded to a newer system SEVERAL years ago to play Quake3 (dual 400mhz Celerons, 128mb RAM (still have this), and a Voodoo3 w/16mb of RAM) and it worked just fine what would stop it from working just fine now?

      As a side note, I am still using that same system with the SAME configuration running WindowsXP *JUST FINE*. It has only recently started seeming slower because I was just upgraded to a 2.66ghz w/1024mb of RAM at work.

      Give me a break.

  • Slashdotters, stop complaining! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thedbp ( 443047 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:22AM (#6211910)
    So far a lot of the comments have been of the following types:

    1. Hey, that's a really shitty review.

    2. What great/terrible hardware for $199.

    3. Lindows is/isn't a good choice for home usage.

    I think ya'll are missing the big picture - the fact that a Linux based PC even got reviewed in such a mainstream news source! Its not posted to Slashdot because it is a complete technical review, nor to let all you l33t fuckers know about the crazy good hardware inside to make your little coder jaws go slack in awe. It got posted to slashdot because, holy shit, its a review of a Linux-based PC in a very prominent online news source that the majority of readers who visit have probably never laid eyes on Linux before. Its called EXPOSURE (and not the bad, get registered to a sex offender database type, either.)

    Especially in the face of all the FUD surrounding Linux cuz of those SCO bastards, its really nice to see an average Joe type news source with an average Joe type reviewer gving space and consideration to a rather new, highly feared and doubted, but otherwise relatively UNKNOWN (to most people, not geeks) solution to the problem of a new PC costing too much money.

    And if mom and dad or grandma and grandpa can send email, surf the web, use their digital camera, and play some Sims, what the hell are they missing? When was the last time your grandma bragged about her frag rate? That doesn't count if your grandma is Italian and runs hits for the mob.

    Anyway, my 2Â.
  • For $200 plus another $80 in parts we recently purchased 10 machines that we are using for 20 users (via RedHat 9 and the multiple XFree86 hack). They are working quite well for data entry via the internet and at under $150/seat (purchased more RAM and a video card) they're quite a bargain if you ask me.
    • For $200 plus another $80 in parts we recently purchased 10 machines...

      If the Lindows PCs were used as X Terminals or used NFS for all read-write filesystems, these $199 PCs would be literally disposable office desktops. Just buy a couple spares for less than $500 and trash the ones that break. Seriously, these PCs are cheaper than any hourly support costs I can imagine (time == money).

  • Consumer Reports also reviewed the Wal-mart PC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by willutah ( 556976 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:41AM (#6212170) Journal
    A short and free review by Consumer Reports can be summed up by the quote: We weren't impressed [consumerreports.org]
    Although you can argue that these PCs are sufficient for most tasks, the fact that they are being sold at Wal-mart opens them up to criticism like this because, really, are wal-mart customers going to know the difference between buying a Windows PC and a Lindows PC? I would buy one of these as a techie, but I wouldn't recommend it to most folks that shop for electronics at Wal-mart.

  • One thing I'd like to see: CD-RW for backup. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thag ( 8436 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:47AM (#6212249) Homepage
    If you're making a system for Grandma, it would be better if it had a CD-RW drive instead of a regular CD drive. That way you easily back the system up for Grandma when you come to visit.

    I did that for my parent's P133 system just this past weekend with the drive we got my Dad for Father's Day.

    Jon Acheson
    • If you're making a system for Grandma, it would be better if it had a CD-RW drive instead of a regular CD drive. That way you easily back the system up for Grandma when you come to visit.

      Now that CD-RW drives are less than $25 (usually after a rebate), upgrading the Lindows PCs would be very affordable. However, if Lindows does not have "drag-n-drop" type support for burning CDs, a Grandma-ized front-end to mkisofs and cdrecord might be needed.

  • Conspiracy! (Score:5, Informative)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:53AM (#6212334) Homepage Journal
    The submitter is Eugenia Loli-Queru, who regularly writes "reviews" on OSnews.com that the /. crowd usually considers to be flamebait.

    Just mentioning what I happened to notice. Conclusions, if any, are left to the reader.

  • Couldn't find the Walmart Lindows PC for $199 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by woogieoogieboogie ( 598162 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @09:56AM (#6212360)
    Walmart had a Lycoris OS [lycoris.com] pc for. $199 [walmart.com].

    Some of the Microtel systems come with an MSI 6390 board [msicomputer.com]. The MSI Metis barebones [msicomputer.com] ( $138 at Newegg [newegg.com] also uses this board and I have used these boards extensively due to their tight integration, small form factor, high degree of reliability and stability.

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