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Linux Software

Linux to be used in large retail operation 45

Posted by Hemos from the coats-and-machines dept.
desertfool writes " A good article is running about Burlington's switch to Linux. " Of course, ComputerWorld does call Linux a "shareware" OS, but hey-at least retailors are beginning to see the value of Linux.
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Linux to be used in large retail operation More

Linux to be used in large retail operation

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  • ?? (Score:1)

    by whoop ( 194 )
    I'd really love to get into converting this company I work at (tres large, if you know what I mean :)). Two of the major applications we use are Notes and IBM Personal Communications for the mainframe access.

    I noticed Notes had some fairly positive entries in winehq.com's app list. But on the other, under tn3270 things work, but not everything. What we use is a protocol called something like "IBM 802.2 LLC2". Is there anything like this in Linux? Any other pointers?

    Oh, thought of another, we use a good number of Lexmark print boxes hooked up to printers. Is there any info on what protocol they use, or some program to set them up, talk to them? Slowly we're switching to JetDirect, so hopefully once HP gets on the ball we can use at least those from a Linux server.
  • Good lord what a stupid idea.

    Let's check the I-Think-He-Was-Joking-O-Meter:
    00 [..............,.............. / ] FF

    Looks like we have a wie-nner!

  • Spend the money on the hardware.
  • Finally an article which mentions the outrageous
    cost of deploying Windows NT due to its
    unreasonable $500/CPU license. Congrats to the
    IT people at Burlington Coat Factory for pointing
    out the obvious monopolistic price gauging which
    Microsoft claims doesn't exist.

    So Linux is shareware?! Damn, I'd better register
    this copy before it expires! (In case you can't
    tell I'm being sarcastic.)

    ...which gives me an idea for this coming April
    Fools:

    What's say we sprea start a rumor
    that all "unregistered copies of Linux will
    expire on April 2nd, 1999" -- that should confuse
    the pseudo-techie journalists out there to some
    degree and be very amusing.
  • Just a joke kids. I'm a Linux zealot, but not
    much of an advocacy and marketing zealot.
  • Also check out www.linuxgeneralstore.com. I know Joe has been working on one.
  • According to a recent web survey, 90% of surfers are young, attractive blonde women.

    And my girlfriend is one of them. :-)

    Regards, Jochen

  • >if NT systems are commonly used in POS systems?

    It probably depends how you decode the acronym "POS"...


  • For years I have bought my stuff from them. All of my coats, My business wear, And the suit I got married in. They have always had good prices, good service and it warms my heart to see that they have the good sense to go with the operating system that seriously out performs NT.

    --First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
  • Depending on the age of the lexmark boxes they should support lpr. The HP ones definetly do (as long as you get the 'multiprotocol' ones).
  • I worked at BCFW in 1994. Quite an interesting shop. I was only a graveyard-shift MIS UNIX op (a position for which I was ridiculously overqualified :) so I got bored and left quickly. But they sure do have some toys there. They've got what I think is the world's largest installation of Sequent Dynix/PTX servers, with something like 20 Pentium CPU's each, handling a terabyte or so of data warehouse. This is all fed through SQL and TUXedo (another Penguin!) running on a couple dozen Sparcs. The stores had those Sparc-controlled terminals and POS beasties. It used to be all linked together via VSAT dishes and some kind of satellite network, which meant a good-sized thunderstorm could disrupt all the stores in a region. :)

    I'm glad to see they've done this - it's really neat. Not that I'd go back and work there again because of it, mind you. :)
  • You bet! The company is Linux Canada, Inc. and their web page is www.linuxcanada.com.

    These guys are the COOLEST to work with.
  • The motorcycle shop I worked in used SCO for the
    main server, and Pentiums with '95 for the POS
    terminals. This was because the microfiche database
    was totally scanned in so we could just pick
    the part from a picture. Good for, um, less
    mechanically inclined customers who could just
    point at the picture and grunt.

    Our competition just went to an IBM RS/6000
    with dumb terminals this summer. I had some
    serious hardware envy.
  • Can anyone confirm or deny that IKEA Canada uses Linux as the server for their store inventory/POS system? I've heard that they do.
  • Chapters [chaptersglobe.com] bookstores in Canada are using QNX [qnx.com] for salesdroid book lookups and POS. They have terminals around the stores for the droids to key things into, with a nice text-based captive user interface.

    Plenty of power, plus you get QNX reliability and support.

    For my mission-critical system, I'd probably take QNX over Linux too. :)

    And of course, anything is better than NT. Well, maybe not Win95. :)
  • Wow... An impressive the amount of positive
    responses here. Thanks for the support.

    I'm one of the project managers heading up this project at BCFW. If you want to make queries of
    any sort you can forward them to me at:

    Matt.Fahrner@COAT.COM

    and I'll make sure they get to the right people.

    Thanks again,

    Matt Fahrner
    Manager of Networking
    Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse
  • '... DNA Plant Technologies Corp., ... information systems manager Rob Narberes. ... "I would rather choose to have my leg bitten off than to buy NT," Narberes said. ...'
  • if NT systems are commonly used in POS systems? I would think not - they seem to be usually old SCO or Sun, or even IBM midrange stuff.

  • It would be great if we could gather data from all of the willing commercial sites that deploy Linux. I would love to see a side by side comparison of Linux and NT as they are deployed in these enterprises. If this has already been done, let me know, if not, we should do it.
  • I'd be more than happy/willing to take more than one of those old/outdated sparcs off of his hands =]. Who do I get in touch with?

    --e/C
  • After I (and apparently many others) pointed out the error of refering to Linux as "Shareware", David Orenstein, the author of the story, sent me this e-mail...

    > Oh, no problem. The feedback I have received
    > has been very helpful, so I welcome it.
    > We are actually planning to run a correction
    > that sets the record straight.
    > Linux is NOT shareware and we won't refer to
    > it as such again.

    ...sounds good to me ;)

  • It's my understanding that there are already a few retail chains using Linux for POS terminals. It makes sense, with that many machines to equip the savings must be intense. I love the quote from the Article:

    Linux is free and it runs like the wind.

    How about:

    NT is expensive and it blows like the wind.
  • Here in the UK, all our NatWest cash machines (the bank I'm with) use NT
    and I've seen a couple of blue screens. I'm pretty sure the cash
    register at Oddbin's (grog shop) was using NT too .
  • We currently support some 1500 stores running Linux. Thats stores, not PCs. There are various reasons for choosing Linux, the two main ones being reliability and maintainability. Price comes third.
  • There is an open source project to develop retail software. Check it out at:
    http://members.iweb.net.au/~steveoc/gtk_pizza.ht ml

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