A Review of the $200 Wal-Mart Linux PC 235
bcrowell writes "Wal-Mart's new $200 Linux PC has generated a lot of buzz in geek circles. Although they're sold out of stores, I bought one for my daughter via mail order, and have written up a review of the system. The hardware seems fine for anyone but a hardcore gamer, but the pre-installed gOS flavor of Ubuntu has a lot of rough edges."
But the real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
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Other cards are supported too, Google is your friend.
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it will lie to you about cake (Score:5, Funny)
If you think gOS is bad, you should see gladOS.
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Ubuntu rough around the edges (Score:5, Interesting)
All in all, it is hard to complain about something that is free, and I totally plan on continuing my move away from Windows. But I think anyone would be pretty darn hard pressed not to say that Ubuntu doesn't have some rough edges.
One really nice advantage I see, too, is that it sure if nice not to have my hard drive constantly thrashing from all of virus scanners, spyware scanners, etc., running in the background!
Transporter_ii
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sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Or use synaptic to locate and install it, search for "flash".
Also, I found windows to have these rough edges when I did my first install in a few years. I actually have to
Re:Ubuntu rough around the edges (Score:4, Informative)
As far as flash, someone else here said synaptic. That should be your first port of call whenever you want to install something new. Type in the application type (e.g. email), and optionally google the names of things that come up in order to research. If you just want to suck it and see, the applications with the ubuntu symbol next to them tend to be more polished.
That you made it this far and still use it is a tribute to Ubuntu's ease of use and default app selection. It tends to be a recipe for frustration and failure to switch operating systems before you are comfortable with the FOSS alternatives to your mission critical applications.
Hardcore gamer? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If I had a dime for everytime someone complained about their lowend PC being "too slow!" and then finding out it only has 512MB of RAM, I'd.. well, I would've earned a couple of bucks anyway..
Selling a PC with less than a gig (or 2, if it comes with Vista preinstalled) is downright criminal.
Sure, average moes won't stress the CPU or play high end video games, but visiting a few Jpop-video rich myspace pages, while skype'ing and IM'ing
Re:Hardcore gamer? (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed that for you.
The Everex PC is designed from scratch as a low-end machine and the OS is lightweight to match its specs. You don't put tractor tyres on a Hyundai Excel, and you don't put Vista on this machine.
512M of ram? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the stores just keep pushing faster and faster machines on people, more than what they need. Vista helps with that being such a pig.
In the long term, Vista will help humanity (Score:2)
Re:In the long term, Vista will help humanity (Score:4, Interesting)
To go the reductio ad absurdum route, consider this claim: we should legally prevent anyone from buying anything less than a $20,000 32-processor parallel workstation, because humanity will benefit from the spare processing power.
Artificially raising the cost of computers (by law or by unnecessarily inflated system requirements) is harmful in the same way that raising taxes is harmful: Individuals are denied the opportunity to optimize for the most effective use of their funds.
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I consider myself an advanced home user, and I don't need 1GB ram. In fact, the only things that would probably get mor
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1) What video editing software are you using for Ubuntu? I've been looking high and low and can't find any.
2) What method did you use to get WinXP as a virtual machine? I've seen various different instructions for this out there, but just wanted to get an idea of what software someone used to do it successfully.
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VMWare, works perfectly for me
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Re:512M of ram? (Score:4, Informative)
Video authoring software (to create the final DVD with menus) that is quite good is DVD Styler.
2) I use vmware server. It's a free download from vmware.com, and free for non-commercial use. When you register, you get a serial number emailed to you.
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Until recently she was completely unaware of FOSS, now she uses openSuSE on this laptop, and on the back of that I dropped gOS onto her desktop machine when the WinXP registry crashed AGAIN.
I threw VMware Server on there and installed XP Home under it with the XP key on the side of her beige box so that she can use Photosho
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Use Synaptic to grab it. Easy as pie.
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I consider myself an advanced walker, and I don't need to take the bus.
In fact, the only things that it would probably get quicker for me by spending the extra money is likely the 13 mile trip to work each day, and the visit to foreign relatives 64 miles away (who I rarely go and see). I'd rather use the extra money to buy my daughter a picture of me so she doesn't forget who I am because I spend 8 hours a day comp^
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Nowadays, considering using firefox for a couple days without closing it, and with dozens of tabs open, makes firefox alone chew up 400mb or more, having a gig or so probably helps too.
With regards to photo/video editing, I would presume that unless individual frames and individual photos are bigge
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The Geek never quite "gets" the home market.
The technical hobbyist and the hard core action gamer are only narrow slices of that market, but that doesn't mean the applications others use at home are undemanding.
The home PC is Internet Radio and TV. Home Video. Digital Photography. The pocket 720p HD camcorder from Walmart starts at under $200.
The USB HD tuner card
Re:512M of ram? (Score:5, Funny)
From what I've seen on YouTube, it's not immediately obvious that anyone else agrees with you.
Re:Hardcore gamer? (Score:4, Insightful)
My PC only has 512MB of RAM; built it in about February 2003. Runs Gutsy for most things, has a Windows disk in there for games too. The only RAM issue I've ever really had is that when a Civ 4 game on a big world gets into the modern era, everything slows down horribly - so very many cities and units around the place. I haven't tried to run Portal on this thing yet, though :-)
I might build a new one this year, but... really, this PC's just a net terminal most of the time, or a movie player. Neither task strains it at all. Yes, I'd like to play newer games, but I already have stacks of games I haven't finished that I've accumulated over the years, and if I do decide that I absolutely have to play Bioshock, a 360 is a hell of a lot cheaper than building the gaming box o' doom.
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For the likes of Bioshock, it wouldn't just be the RAM. It'd be a faster CPU and video card, too - which would mean a new motherboard - which would mean I'm basically looking at a whole new PC. At which point I'll compare the price to a 360, and th
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I was writing an explanation of why that doesn't much matter - I browse directories in a terminal window most of the time, that kind of thing - but you know what? Fine. You guys win. Because before I finished writing it Firefox blew up and everything
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Normal Ubuntu installation uses about 120MB of RAM during booting. FYI. (For KDE IIRC it was about 200MB.)
"More resources is better" point is moot.
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GeForce 7600GS, about as good as AGP cards get I think. Got it fairly cheap a while back, just after I bought my widescreen monitor and realised that while it's fair enough on a CRT, 800x600 looks really, really poor when your native resolution is 1440x900 :-)
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average users require fewer resources than even today's cheapest PCs have
If I had a dime for everytime someone complained about their lowend PC being "too slow!" and then finding out it only has 512MB of RAM, I'd.. well, I would've earned a couple of bucks anyway..
And how many of those were Linux users? I ran Fedora Core 5 and 6 on a cobbled together PC with 512 meg memory, a cheap 128 meg Nvidia card and an Athlon 2600 processor while I was making the move to Linux, and it was quite nippy enough. It was more pleasent to use thatn my then 300Mhz Athlon64 running XP Pro.
Selling a PC with less than a gig (or 2, if it comes with Vista preinstalled) is downright criminal.
Agreed for Windows, not for Linux.
Sure, average moes won't stress the CPU or play high end video games, but visiting a few Jpop-video rich myspace pages, while skype'ing and IM'ing at the same time does kinda require RAM.
True enough, although I have found that not so many low end users are really into having several programs running at once.
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Why? Many people can get along fine with half a gig, especially running linux (though not so much gnome or kde...) but also running XP. Sure, both are much better with 1GB...
What I think is truly ridiculous is when a machine which does not support or does not need dual-channel memory comes with half its total maximum memory and all slots filled.
Re:Hardcore gamer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Photoshop is a bad example, home users might dabble with a photo or two in Photoshop SE or Paint Shop Pro which will happily perform such tasks on an average cheap home PC. This is completely different to the sort of professional graphic design activities for which a high-spec business PC is required.
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I used to be a member of a chat community that had forums hosted on DelphiForums and the single largest demographic that used them was 30-50 year old mothers/housewives.
This group used to ask me for advice on creating "sigs" and which program to use.
They all thought that Paint Shop Pro, because it had a slightly shallower learning curve was the one for them, but I told them that the extra initial effort required to learn PhotoShop was worth it, to save learning the whole package f
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No, because he if you read the article, he got the computer because It was time to buy my daughter a cheap Linux system to be used for schoolwork and playing flash games . However, he never actually complained about the hardware being underpowered (which seems to be an assumption of your comment).
Hardware wise, he complained about a low efficiency power supply (which, considering the machine is bra
Not hardware, software (Score:2)
You're much more right than you probably realize. As one of Slashdot's older readers, I remember quite clearly when it was possible to be productive - browse the web, email, office applications - with a machine with a 50 MB hardrive, 8 MB of RAM and a 150Mhz CPU. Shouldn't it be painfully obvious that even the cheapest machine today, being orders of magnitude more powerful than the machines of yesteryear, should be more than capable
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Here are the problems with this:
1, the PC set up for grandma and young children, the bottom of the line hunk of shit, is also usually
Wait a sec (Score:2)
Running ubuntu on VIA mini-ITX (Score:2)
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I use the via driver, running 800x600x24 on the TV out (PAL) and only the cpu intensive H.264 codec is too much for the 1GHz cpu.
I do plan on either upgrading Ubuntu or installing FreeBSD 7.0 though, depending on how good the driver for the Terratec audio card is.
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Unprofessional Review (Score:5, Insightful)
It's full of inconsistencies;
- The guy claims to be experienced with Ubuntu, but didn't know to type his user password at the sudo prompt.
- He manually installs the Flash plugin and calls it unintuitive, when all you need to do is go to a website with Flash content, and it'll automatically install for you.
- He can't find the "log out" menu item...
- He thought installing Gnome would fix a network problem.
And so it goes on. There's almost no real review of what's installed, how easy it is to use, or even how to solve the problems he encounters.About the only thing you learn from him is that a little knowledge is dangerous.
Re:Unprofessional Review (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because it's not very hard? Because it's explained in the pamphlet that comes with the PC?
If you're planning on reviewing a product, you need to put in enough effort to be sure you've got the basics right. This guy didn't.
Use the Start button or right click anywhere on the desktop and select "My GoS", then "Shutdown" from the popup menu [reviewlinux.com].
There's a much better review of the OS here [linux.com] anyway.
Re:Unprofessional Review (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the author of the review.
how is anybody buying it expected to know?
Because it's not very hard? Because it's explained in the pamphlet that comes with the PC?
I have the poster that came with it right here in front of me. It's not explained there.
Use the Start button
I tried that. I didn't get the menu items you're talking about.
or right click anywhere on the desktop and select "My GoS", then "Shutdown" from the popup menu.
That's good to know, but the documentation never suggests right-clicking on the desktop.
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If you read TFA, you'd realise the guy created his own network problem, so yes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
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OTOH, I find the jab 'intalling Vista is criminal' to be pretty funny and a good c
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However, I bet the GP was misled by the fact that the layout looks absolutely horrible: an almost unreadable piece of text slammed to the left of the browser window, using only a fraction of the screen width.
You probably made a good choice installing vanilla Ubuntu on the thing. Look at the memory usage comparison over here. [kde.org]
I found that very interesting. Even though there are very lightweight WMs out there, after you load them with apps, you ge
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Can you tell me what doesn't work for you in Konqueror?
Sure I can and I hope that it helps. The text displays at the width of the image without a left margin and contains a number of characters that did not display for me. The first sentence reads, "It was time to buy my daughter a cheap Linux system to be used for schoolwork and playing flash games well," but the mdash printed as an annoying symbol instead of a dash. Looking again, I see that you have used a stylesheet so this should not be hard to
Re:Unprofessional Review (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to use Slackware or Gentoo as they worked.
I put Suse on my computer to see what it was like, and the sound was not working.
My first reaction was to open a console and lsmod, then cat
The card was there, but the modules were loading in the wrong order, so the motherboard soundcard was loading first and being used by default. So, I started to edit
My friend, who does not use Linux, was watching me do this and I explained what I was doing.
He said 'Why not look in the menu?'
In the menu there was a way to set up the sound card in Yast and select the default.
For some reason, my technical long term Linux user brain never even considered this as a first and obvious thing to do. I think I probably acted like this guy did, instead seeing how the distro was designed to be used, or reading any documentation, I just assumed I knew best and was going to fix it by brute force.
I think it's perhaps a throwback to when the autoconfig stuff was a bit dodgy on Linux and I really did not trust it much, so even if it was there I'd ignore it, and it got to be a habit. Nowadays I use Ubuntu and am happier to let the distro take care of configuration and the little details.
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On this Xubuntu brings up a menu or press the power button and it goes into shutdown mode.
'He thought installing Gnome would fix a network problem'
Anyone here suceeded in getting the WMP54G card working on Ubuntu, perhaps you could help the man out
One thing this does tell you (Score:5, Insightful)
It shows that a 'random' person couldn't get the system/OS to work according to his wishes. To be really fair, you really should ask yourselve wether a 'random' person could get other system/OS combo's to work. This includes asking yourselve how well the average random person would deal with installing windows. If you ever had to deal with tech support you would know that most users stumble just as hard with MS software as with OSX and other unixes. Hell, people stumble with their toasters.
To be specific, the SUDO bit had me wondering too, but as I am neither familiar with Ubuntu or sudo (don't use either on my own linux systems) I really can't comment. If Ubuntu does use sudo a lot then it is odd, but does the box say you need to be an experienced Linux user? Couldn't they have provided a help function? Please type in your password?
As for flash, it would have been better if it had worked out of the box, but yes, recently installing it from your browser when prompted has been known to work. This however was not always the case, especially for Opera users.
Enlightenment is a WM that does things a bit differently and the screenshots make it clear it is NOT a straight windows layout copy like KDE and Gnome use (By default). Perhaps he really just didn't know how to get it. Under E17 (The sequel) it is left mouse click on the desktop -> system Might be confusing to a person who normally would NEVER left-click anywhere on the desktop.
He didn't think it would fix a network problem, he just couldn't get the tool too work. That is different. If you know how to setup your network in Windows XP and not in Vista then installing XP again 'fixes' your problem. Granted it does sound like "oh they are not doing everything 100% like I am used too, it sucks" but that is how most users are.
So is it a good review? No, but it does tell us something and that is that Joe Average is a moron who doesn't like change and that it is very hard to develop an OS for that guy. See it not as a review but one of those usability reports usability experts so love to go one about. It might help you to develop an OS for average user.
And no windows ain't that OS either and NEITHER is OSX (before the Apple fanboys pipe up), if ANY OS out there was the perfect OS for the clueless I wouldn't constantly be asked by the clueless to help with their machine.
Recently I had to help people setup their network under Vista and OSX, and none of the users seemed to know how to do it. None of them make it very clear or easy. (Why does Vista break with DHCP run on linux anyway?)
I do agree with your end conclusion, give me a clueless user who knows he/she is clueless anyday, they ask, you answer, they listen, problem fixed. The ones who think they know a little ARGUE with you over the solution. ARGH! If you know it better, why ask? But the horrors of support is another rant.
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For fucks sake.. (Score:2)
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He wants to install some flash games (I don't know what he's talking about, but surely it should be handled by the package manager?) not any website. It's not intuitive that you need to browse the web to get some offline(?) flash game working. If it's online h
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YES! I installed gOS on a laptop to play around with it, and I got caught up with "Password for admin tasks? It didn't ask me for a password for admin tasks when I setup my user password. I don't think this *has* a root password." It took a while, until I
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He manually installs the Flash plugin and calls it unintuitive, when all you need to do is go to a website with Flash content, and it'll automatically install for you.
Well, he doesnt say its unintuitive, he just doesnt try any way other than installing it in the terminal. It was when he said that I knew this review was completely useless. And then again in his summary he says
On the other hand, I was also being repeatedly frustrated with my attempts to get things done by the standard methods I'd use on a normal Ubuntu system.
Im pretty sure Walmart are not aiming this pc at the average ubuntu user. I would have been much more interested in how usable this machine is by people with limited computer knowledge. Can they find the major apps, do any errors crop up, etc.
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If a moderately experienced user can't figure things out, what hope does a novice have? I have yet to see any Linux distribution that I would consider even remotely comparable to Vista or OS X. Ubuntu is definitely one of the friendliest, but there are still far too many pitfalls for new users, especially when it comes to configuring hardware.
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That is a bad example. I don't know about gOS, but Ubuntu comes with Synaptic [freshmeat.net] installed. No apt-get command line required. Even though I think it is a piece of crap, any MS Windows user would probably be comfortable with it.
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I certainly wouldn't criticize anyone who has never encountered sudo's strange default configuration for assuming that a security feature popping up an administrative password box during setup would want the root password rather than the (pointless, no?) user password. Confused me also when I first encountered it years ago. Does Ubuntu ship with the default sudo configuration? Betcha not.
Re:Unprofessional Review (Score:5, Informative)
Hi, I'm the author of the review.
The guy claims to be experienced with Ubuntu, but didn't know to type his user password at the sudo prompt.
You have a valid point there. I normally use fluxbox, however, not gnome, and I normally do administrative stuff as root, not using sudo. Also, it demanded the administrator's password even though I hadn't initiated any administrative action other than logging in for the first time. Remember, this review is also talking about what the experience would be like for someone who's in Wal-Mart's target audience.
He can't find the "log out" menu item...
That's because there is none. Here you just didn't read the review carefully enough. It isn't Gnome, it's gOS's custom flavor of Enlightenment. There's no "log out" menu item in the WM. As I also explained in the review, they replaced the normal gdm login manager with their own, and it also doesn't have the normal menus, either.
He thought installing Gnome would fix a network problem.
Again, you don't seem to have read the article very carefully. As explained in the article, Gnome has a GUI called Gnome Network Manager, which I'd used successfully in the past to get the same wifi chipset working on Ubuntu, without resorting to the command line. gOS has something called Exalt, which failed with an error message when I tried to run it by clicking on its icon.
Also available at ZaReason (Score:5, Informative)
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The Real Reason They Sold Out (Score:2)
Windows adverts in a Linux review .. (Score:2)
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Let me Summarize (Score:5, Informative)
The machine is not actually available in some Walmart stores at this time, but you can mail order it and get it shipped to your local store (aside: No way in hell -- I'd rather drive in Boston than navigate the parking lot at that place). Everex has this in other stores besides Walmart now. What Walmart has in your local Walmart store maybe is a $300 version that runs Vista. A Monitor is extra in all cases so it's really a $400-500 PC.
Hardware is fine -- really. Power consumption is OK. Not great, but OK. OS has some rough edges including, but not limited to, no obvious way to shut the thing down. The author scrapped the included gOS and installed vanilla Ubuntu which is, he thinks, what most users should do.
All things considered he says, it's OK except for the OS.
Review is rough around the edges. (Score:2)
Others have done a better job [slashdot.org].
Available at my store... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Which Walmart employee are you - the guy that is exploited for low wages with no benefits because of your lack of education or the guy that is destroying small town America?
Missing the Target (Score:2)
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I popped up a terminal window and installed it using "sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree."
I didn't spend any time trying to figure out if a naive user would have been able to get through this step.
These are both issues related to the author, not Linux or this distro.. He could have just as easily installed with Synaptic, or as the other poster says, the web site... I also notice you using html tags, which is about as complicated to understand as the terminal apt-get.. I gu
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Yes, I used html tags...poorly, even. And ye
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If you are a particularly fast typist
The gOS has something to say to you... (Score:4, Funny)
Look at the first screenshot, the "f" icon on the bottom menu bar is followed by the word "you". I guess the "you" is half of the youtube icon. They need to reorder that menubar.
very good, for a non-gaming machine?? (Score:2)
alot of non gameing uses may want a DVDRW and they cost about $10 more then a DVD-ROM/CD-RW.
And you can buy 1GB of low end DDR2 for about $30 after rebate higher end DDR2 800 2x1gb dual channel kits with times like 4-4-4-15-1T and heat spreaders are only about $50 after rebate.
A 80GB HD is ok but a lot of non games may need more space.
VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics
Fishy facts (Score:2)
OpenOffice.org Writer starts in 10 seconds, which is actually slightly faster than on my dual core 2.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+!
He doesn't mention what OS the Athlon64 box runs, but my ancient AMD Athlon 1 GHz with 1 GB of RAM running Vista Business starts OpenOffice Writer in 12 seconds. This is with multiple open Firefox windows, Winamp, IRC client, Thunderbird and phpEd running at the same time and all the Vista graphics effects turned on.
Why change desktop environments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then later
To be fair, I ended up finding out that there had been a regression in wifi support for RT2500 in recent versions of Ubuntu, so it wasn't exactly smooth sailing on the new system.
Why do people insist on thinking that changing the desktop environment will change anything about the experience. I've run in to endless wifi problems with my old ubuntus, and it's nothing to do with the desktop environment. Yet, I would still sometimes get people writing back saying "kubuntu sucks, go install ubuntu, everything just works!".
Linux is basically Linux, and if hardware doesn't work under KDE it's not going to work under GNOME, or IceWM or anything else. Why do people insist on this sort of thinking? Can someone point me to a situation where *hardware* recognition or functionality didn't work under Gnome but worked under KDE (or the reverse, or anything similar)? Especially something like a wifi card?
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Of course it's rough, they say it's alpha (Score:2)
They just recently changed it (since it still said the OS was in alpha stage after Walmart sold out of them).
Winmodem => no dialup! (Score:2)
I've run Linux on her machine via LiveCDs but I've had no joy with her winmodem and she is strictly dialup. An external modem from the local (very small town) computer shop is about $90. The Walmart specs for their $200 Linux PC say it has a modem. I figur
awesome web design (Score:2)
FYI: Another Review (Score:3, Insightful)
For those that don't follow enlightenment, it's e17. All the gee-whiz graphics without the overhead. Errr, except:
1. The thinkgos.com package builds are buggy as hell. These don't even qualify as Ubuntu quality. I certainly get better builds out of Debian unstable.
2. udev wierdness. It's an odd situation where udev does the right thing according to dmesg, but the desktop environment (DE) doesn't work right in common situations.
3. No system tray or task bar. Stalonetray works far better than trayer, but you still have to work at it a bit and it's a nasty hack that hangs off the end of the bottom panel no matter what. The head-honcho at e17 does not feel whatever standard exists for system trays is sufficient.
3. I can't tell if the desktop environment is supposed to have sound effects, but I got pulseaudio working (finally) and it plays stuff, just no desktop environment sounds.
4. No transparency. For whatever reason, there's no Xorg transparency support. Someone please point out how to do it. I'd love to be wrong.