http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/19/1519219
This is a great move. WalMart must be monitoring this board (re
George's comment of replacing Lindows with Mandrake).
Text that follows was originally posted at Newsforge:
As early as next week, Walmart.com will begin selling Microtel PCs
<http://www.buymicrotel.com> loaded with the Mandrake Linux
<http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/> distribution.
Keep your eye on Walmart.com <http://www.walmart.com> for new Microtel
systems bearing the Mandrake logo. The systems will sell alongside the
newly announced Lindows-based PCs
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/14/1316203&tid=23>, say
sources. And continue to look for more online retail envelope-pushing
from Wal-Mart's online wing, of all places.
MandrakeSoft CEO Jacques Le Marois confirms the news this morning, and
company spokeswoman Margaret Waters says, while a contract with Microtel
has not been finalized, the company is working on getting Mandrake
certified to run like clockwork on the Microtel systems. Waters is
hopeful that the dotted line will be signed and PCs up for sale by the
end of next week.
Walmart.com and Microtel are getting a lot of press lately, mostly
because Walmart.com is the first major retailer to offer something other
than the standard Windows PC. With Walmart.com taking the first leap,
it's possible that other stores will follow in selling bare systems
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/29/0218241&tid=7> and those
with Linux preloaded.
Walmart.com has a few well-placed electronics buyers who are savvy to
Linux, and a management team looking for ways to reinvigorate stagnant
computer sales numbers. The combination has resulted in innovations like
the Windows-free Microtel line and has generated strong sales and low
return numbers, a trend Walmart.com may hope will continue with the
introduction of Linux systems. According to sources, the buyers chose
Lindows first because of perceived user-friendliness.
But the move to Mandrake may be seen as a better one for the Linux world
and for people who want to purchase the Microtel systems with Linux,
because Mandrake has been around for years, is already on the brink of a
9.0 release level and has an established reputation for providing
support. In support of LindowsOS, however, Rich Hindman of Microtel says
that as of Monday, June 17, the version of Lindows that lives in the
systems sold through Walmart.com is LindowOS 1.1, not the beta SPX
mentioned in a quote from a Lindows PR spokeswoman in Tuesday's report
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/18/1344258&tid=23>.
A source close to Walmart.com says that Lindows itself is "ready to
roll," and that drivers are the only hold up. The Walmart.com units
contain special custom drivers written specifically for the Microtel
project. "The only way someone can get Lindows 1.1 is to buy a computer
with it pre-installed," says Hindman, vice president at Microtel.
There has been some disdain expressed in the Linux community over the
perception that Lindows has been reluctant to release source code under
the terms of the GPL. Brad Kuhn of the Free Software Foundation
expressed some concern that Lindows was going to market at Walmart.com
without a fitting EULA. "We have promised [Lindows CEO Michael]
Robertson a rewrite of his EULA, and it is waiting for time from our
general counsel to write one. We do wish he'd told us in confidence that
this Wal-Mart deal was imminent; we could have expedited the work on the
EULA if we'd known.
