Major Retailer Chooses Linux for its Tills 316
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is running an article on how Matalan has installed several thousand point of sale terminals running Linux rather than Windows. The reason? Reduced cost of ownership. It was a big consultancy that did the work, Capgemini, and IBM on the kit side. Sounds like some people can get Linux to work in an 'enterprise environment' after all."
Work.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Work.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Work.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Work.. (Score:5, Funny)
I used to work in a wine store which ran KDE. In certain cases, having a smashing bottle sound on an error message isn't a good thing...
Re:Work.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Work.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Work.. (Score:2, Funny)
At least one crash per day?? Something MUST be wrong with you setup -- that's WAY too little a number per day!
Re:Work.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd personally like to see studies on uptime of various POS terminals so we can actually quantify reliability of one OS over another.
Re:This /. article is bogus (Score:5, Informative)
Linux in the enterprise? (Score:5, Funny)
Hehe. MSFT is going to be pretty unhappy with Capgemini.
POS (Score:5, Funny)
A Piece O'...
Re:POS (Score:2)
So much for comic timing...
Re:POS (Score:2)
how odd...
Re:Linux in the enterprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bet they have, they actually wrote one of those studies [zdnet.co.uk]
From TFA:
Menzel defended this study, saying that Capgemini provides an independent view, but admitted "sometimes there are situations where you get together with the client and defend their data."
Yeah, sure. Those "situations" would be when "the client" gives you a lot of "their money".
Very objective consultancy.
going "onto the bios" ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this possible with a normal PC motherboard? Or are they using some different type of system which provides hooks for the OS to do this?
Re:going "onto the bios" ? (Score:2, Informative)
Some models of Intel motherboards are able to do this. I am sure that there are others.
Re:going "onto the bios" ? (Score:2, Informative)
Or, with something like a Remote Supervisor Adapter [ibm.com], you can control a server (or POS terminal) remotely, even when it is powered off. Now, this is designed for servers, and is probably *not* wha
Re:going "onto the bios" ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:going "onto the bios" ? (Score:5, Informative)
No magic behind the scenes. At work we have standard serial console servers that connect to com1. In the BIOS we set console redirection to the serial port. Enable that in Linux and viola, you can access the system from BIOS to the login prompt.
Is this possible with a normal PC motherboard? Or are they using some different type of system which provides hooks for the OS to do this?
I think this is done on most server targetted boards and a few home boards. There are also third party ways to do it on boards that do not natively support it such as with the PC Weasel:
http://www.realweasel.com/ [realweasel.com]
the tide, led by POS points (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the tide, led by POS points (Score:2, Insightful)
There was a time that 90% of ATMs ran OS/2 -- didn't help OS/2 acceptance one bit.
Re:the tide, led by POS points (Score:2)
Those of you who have used the old-school NCR ATMs with the green-screen text interface know of
Re:the tide, led by POS points (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple: Advertising. And, I guess, user perception. But mainly advertising.
I agree with the function/performance argument. The new ATM's do seem slower, especially in transitioning from screen to screen. But people like them better: they're more friendly! And the color screen makes the bank look better. Forget selling you on a loan or something: just the fact that when people walk down the street and see a bank's ATM's, they're bright and cheerful.
People select products based on such factors. And banking is a competitive business, like most any other.
Re:the tide, led by POS points (Score:5, Insightful)
It's much cheaper to use an existing OS than developing a custom OS. There isn't even any reason to develop a custom OS, considering both Windows and Linux work quite well for such applications. Not to mention, you can use cheap off-the-shelf hardware and drivers instead of having to develop your own.
For that matter, why would you use an x86 CPU in a cash register?
Maybe because it's cheap and easy to develop for?
The new Windows ATMs are 3 times slower and 100 times less reliable.
They also don't look fugly, are easier to use, and probably cost less to maintain.
One wonders why the rush to abandon the old software that worked perfectly well.
Legacy custom-developed software is typically a money pit. What if all that crap is coded in Assembler for some obsolete CPU? What if you need support for modern networking protocols?
Re:the tide, led by POS points (Score:2)
Remote Access? Nice. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Remote Access? Nice. (Score:5, Informative)
echo ^g >
most of your cash drawers are connected to receipt printers that when they get the bell command, send the signal to kick open the till.
And in other news (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And in other news (Score:2)
But, but.... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft swears by it's "independent" studies that windows is better, faster, cheaper!
And besides, what about licencing? You absolutely have to have that!
OMFG! And I almost forgot, you actually OWN your installed copy of linux, as opposed to MSWXP! Why, why would you actually want to OWN the software you pay money for? Are you crazy?
Up is down! Down is up! The world doesn't make any sense anymore!
Actually you don't OWN your copy of Linux (Score:2)
Re:Actually you don't OWN your copy of Linux (Score:4, Funny)
The unfettered ability to do whatever you want with a thing is not a necessary condition to "ownership." You may be thinking of "0wnage."
Re:Actually you DO own your copy of Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the same as with a book. You own the paper it is printed on, but the content is not yours, but you are using it with the copyright owner's permission. In-fact, that was a bad analogy on your part. The GPL is much less restrictive than normal copyright law under which the contents
Re:Actually you DO own your copy of Linux (Score:3, Informative)
No, I own the software I run.
That does not mean I own the copyright to the software.
You're conflating two entirely different things. Go back to your analogy with the book.
I have boxes and boxes of books. I own every single book.
I don't own any copyrights in most of them, but I still own the books.
Just like I own the software on my computer.
'enterprise environment'? You mean like this (Score:5, Informative)
Point of Sale Systems are not really enterprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Point of Sale Systems are not really enterprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Jeremy
Wrong! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Point of Sale Systems are not really enterprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Point of Sale Systems are not really enterprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Point of Sale systems are really not enterprise level software or whatever.
Crikey, first in the ssh story, now here.
If big businesses like Matalan rely on this software, then it is "enterprise-ready" by definition.
Seriously, "enterprise-ready" is a meaningless buzzword that is twisted to mean whatever the speaker wishes it to mean. When the proprietary ssh company was talking about openssh not being "enterprise-ready", they meant "apart from the fact that massive organisations like Cisco etc rel
Other retailers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Other retailers? (Score:2)
That's a name from the past.... (Score:2)
Wow, must be 15 years since I've seen Pick. Didn't know it was still around.
Re:Other retailers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Other retailers? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Other retailers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Other retailers? (Score:4, Informative)
AutoZone's entire in-store setup, including the POS stations, the green screen terminals for parts lookup, everything, is running off of Linux servers in the back of the store. They have 3500+ locations across the US and Mexico/Puerto Rico.
If you're been in there recently, you might have noticed their new thin client machines. They use a green-screen terminal emulator to access the older software, and they seem to be rolling out some sort of web-based software using these devices. The one I saw was running Mozilla and had some graphics showing how to install an alternator or something like that.
Missed GNU/Linux's advantages in embedded apps (Score:5, Informative)
Articles like this might be important to show some people, but I feel like the Slashdot crowd should be beyond this. Slashdot readers should know that GNU/Linux is a great operating system. They should also know that it isn't the be all and end all of software (I'm DEFINITELY not saying that Windows is).
For me, this article says stupid things like "abstraction is bad". Abstraction is good most of the time, but it criticizes Windows for it. Really, it should have said that Windows doesn't offer you an alternative to their abstraction and we wanted to hack some code that would communicate right with the BIOS and Linux allowed us to do that because with free software the attitude isn't 'my way or the highway'. I really wish that the article talked about how, because GNU/Linux is a loose association of tools rather than a monolithic package, one can pick and choose which tools to include for an application like a cash register without all the crap you don't need. That's especially important for the embedded space (and something that isn't important for most/all desktop users) and something that GNU/Linux allows that Windows doesn't. That's something to point out.
Maplin allready use Linux for POS (Score:5, Informative)
They allready use Fedora for all their equipment.
Thunderbird for e-mail and firefox for web browser.
Linux everywhere (Score:3, Informative)
I work at Pizza Hut (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I work at Pizza Hut (Score:2, Interesting)
I hear on the grapevine that their system now runs on most of the Unix-alikes: SCO, Linux, FreeBSD, etc.
Re:I work at Pizza Hut (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I work at Pizza Hut (Score:3, Informative)
The interface on the SCO boxes does look like DOS, but it definitely isnt.
thrills? (Score:5, Funny)
Linux turns me on too...
Post your POS * Backends here (Score:3, Interesting)
RadioShack:
POS: Windows XP Embedded
Backend: SCO Unix (I believe its version 5, I might be mistaken).
In fact Microsoft has posted a story on how RadioShack supposedly saved millions of dollars by using windows. I can say personally that is far from the case and Linux would of been the better choice.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/Ca
"Major Retailer?" (Score:2)
Re:"Major Retailer?" (Score:3, Informative)
They're a large clothing discount chain here in the UK. See here [matalan.com] for more info.
Re:"Major Retailer?" (Score:3, Informative)
Company info [matalan.co.uk] from the first page foound by Googling "Matalan".
Re:"Major Retailer?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Clash of the acronyms (Score:2)
I really wish I'd had Linux, GTK and Postgres back when I was first starting out in the industry. We probably would still have kludged together solutions to fit our needs, but t
I've seen other UNIX POS terminals... (Score:2)
Other stores (Score:5, Interesting)
But Windows... (Score:5, Funny)
My experiances (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, our system just crashed last week, and with it, our admiration for windows waxes.
Re:My experiances (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My experiances (Score:2)
Lowes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lowes (Score:2)
Never mind the fact that SCO Linux never existed until a few years ago. SCO was Santa Cruz Operation 10 years ago, and sold SCO Openserver and later Unixware, and no other Operating Systems. The SCO Group was in-fact known as Caldera 10 years ago, and thus their products were called Caldera Linux, not SCO Linux. SCO Linux only went on sale after Caldera changed their name to the SCO Group in 2002
POS? Weird... (Score:2)
Ooooohhh, you must mean Point Of Sale. Never mind, then...
Experience talking (Score:2, Interesting)
OS/2 Warp (Score:2, Interesting)
Not Exactly a Shining Star of UK Retail (Score:2)
Aren't POS systems usually dumb terminals? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course I could be totally wrong about this, but from everyone I talked to while working there, I gathered that this was pretty much the norm.
Re:Aren't POS systems usually dumb terminals? (Score:5, Informative)
The registers CAN run Windows or OS/2 but 500MHz Celerons (or lower) tend to die. So, like you said, it tFTP boots a basic OS which includes a funny little Java Virtual Machine and some TCP/IP utilities (I think you can telnet into them, but I haven't tried). The JVM will load whatever frontend the vendor soaked you for (usually some kind of Java/XML type deal that pulls stuff from the database back on the store controller). We use a really god-aweful Swing app for display. The registers usually have uptimes in the 3 month range unless something bad happens on the store controller (like IBM Deskstar hard drives).
The mother of all redundant posts (Score:3, Funny)
Linux, MS-Wormholes and Gomer Pyle (Score:2)
If you know MS-Wormware, it's straightforward to set up MS-Wormware, and linux is a right royal pain.
As Gomer Pyle used to say in the olden days: "Surprise, surprise!"
Work (Score:3, Interesting)
Our Retalix system is a piece of shit, by the way, there are all kinds of bugs in it, mostly just annoyances, but a few of them are pretty bad (i.e. potentially allowing an employee to steal cash). However, I don't know how much of this is my company sucking and how much of this is Retalix though.
airport displays (Score:3, Interesting)
Software and TCO (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the software running on the terminals is HORRIBLE. I have never encountered such sub-par coding and attention to detail in my life. For example, on our box office stations, if a customer decides to purchase tickets on a credit card and swipes the card through the reader before the cashier has a chance to push the Pay -> Credit button sequence, the application rings the sale up as a cash sale, then promptly crashes. Huh? The average student in an intro CS course can write better VB than these clowns.
At any rate, because of the sheer shoddiness of the software, we have enormous support costs. Managers who know their way around computers (me) are forever restarting the POS application or troubleshooting some issue or another. When we tech-savvy managers aren't around, the mere mortals are forced to ring up transactions for the rest of the evening using calculators and paper records until one of us or an IT guy can come in. (The IT guys, by the way, are based over a hundred miles away.)
Because of the poor quality of the software, our current Windows solution is not cost-effective. However, if these clowns wrote a Unix-based POS application, our TCO would still be high simply because we are always having people support the application as opposed to the platform. That isn't to say I wouldn't be thrilled if we ditched the software and moved to Linux...or even better, OpenBSD (cue the Netcraft spam).
By the way, if you are in the IT department of a large movie theatre corporation and you are considering a POS solution, don't touch Splyce [eims-inc.com] with a ten-foot pole.
Damn (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2)
Most places do run 95, 98, Embedded NT4, or Embedded XP, though...
Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2)
I'd thought the same, but I've just had a closer look at some of the POS registers at the local supermarket, and they have touchscreen tablet computers that look a bit like small iMacs. They're hanging off what seem like fairly old NCR cash registers, and the PFY behind the counter said they ran Windows CE.
I couldn't be sure, but it looked like the CE tablets were a retrofit to the cash registers. Maybe the
Re:But what about.... (Score:2)
Our subway system [wikipedia.org] is controlled by four 25 year-old PDP dinosaurs... On a recent media tour of the control center, the head of operations went near the computers, pulled-out an organizer from his pocket and said that his agenda had more computing power than the four big irons there...
Re:But what about.... (Score:2)
Oh please, hard drives are not a limitation. Next trip to Walmart (or Target) and look at the RF scanners they use on the floor. Most are using Symbol PDTs (6846s are common) These are DOS based 802.11 (or Spectrum24) wireless. OS and apps fit nicely on flash drives.
DOS hmm, you say "well DOS is so small, that's nothing special". Ok, take a look at Symbol'
Re:But what about.... (Score:2)
if you want something modded up, just write a lengthy piece with no actual content and use buzzwords like realtime.
basically if he would only have wanted to bring the point out he should have said:"there should be no extra services running on the systems". or he wants to keep using dos.
Re:easy decision (Score:2)
mod parent down (-1) copy & paste (Score:3, Informative)
However, He did change "In contrast, " to "though", but I don't think that constitutes a new and insightful thought.
Quoth the article:
Both Windows and Linux met the security requirements set by Matalan, but Linux was preferred by the retailer as it was less of a target for malicious code, according to Menzel. The evaluation
Re:easy decision (Score:2)
Linux is a great idea but it also seems similar to "I keep driving into trees in my car, so I bought an SUV."
Re:easy decision (Score:2)
AIX? OS/2?
Seriously, IBM has *LOTS* of products. Linux is just one of many.
Re:easy decision (Score:2)
Re:easy decision (Score:5, Informative)
It was also a popular OS for vertial applications such as bank terminals. NationsBank grew from a tiny bank to the 6th largest bank (before they were bought by Bank of America) on a plan of aggressive acquisition. A large part of this strategy was their computer infrastructure. It was heavily based on OS/2: Each branch had a single centrally-administered OS/2 Workspace on Demand server. All computers in a branch would actually boot from the server (LTSP-style), with all of its applications ready to go. If the bank wanted to update their software, they could push these changes from a central point to each branch overnight (or over time), and schedule the switchover. The next day, everyone came in and was completely updated.
You can do the same with Linux (I already mentioned LTSP [ltsp.org], but this was almost 10 years ago.
Like they say, what's old is new again.
Just because it's not in the US? (Score:2)
Matalan happens to be a major retailer in the United Kingdom.
Re:Tills? (Score:2)
US of Americans seriously don't use that word? Wow.