<snip />
Let me see if I can succinctly restate my position:
1. If Macs were cheap, people would use Macs, not PCs (possibly a
false premise, otherwise the Mac Mini would be more successful).
2. Linux/SuSE or some other distro has the potential to be like a
cheap Mac. It needs
a. the GUI and apps to be ready for prime time, nearly Mac-like.
Getting there.
b. the hassle factor to be at the level of that for a Mac. A list
of absolutely compatible systems would help *on the hardware side*.
With respect to Wal-Mart, I think their system fails at (2a) above.
With respect to a list of standard systems increasing the cost of a
linux box, I don't understand this point. But it is in the interest
of the vendors of distros to know which systems *are* absolutely
compatible and to publish such a list.
Tony, I'm obviously not going to convince you, but let me just say
this. You say, "If Macs were cheap ...". That's the whole problem.
Macs can't be cheap because they rely on expensive components to work in
the very reliable and praiseworthy way that they do. They are tied to
their hardware.
You say, "Linux ... has the potential to be like a cheap Mac". There
can't be a cheap Mac if you're going to retain the positive things about
it that you seem to be after. Once you make it cheap, it stops being
desirable, because it's the expensive, reliable and predictable hardware
that makes it a Mac.
The Mac route is not available for Linux. Even if it was, we'd only get
the same sort of market share as the Mac has, and we've probably got
something close to that already. Linux has to run on commodity
hardware. The fact that it does so well is little short of a miracle
IMHO. The solution to the market penetration problem for Linux is not
to be found in comparison to the Mac; it is to be found in comparison to
Windows, where the problems of getting the OS to work on commodity
hardware has been shifted to the OEMs
You can get boxes like this. As I posted earlier, you can go to
Transtec, for example. It just has to become more common. And it will.
Eventually.
Peter
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