Wal-Mart Gives Up on Linux

The superstore caves to demand for Windows; but did the alternative OS fail for the right reasons?

By Gregory Mone Posted 03.11.2008 at 11:40 am 4 Comments

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A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart announced yesterday that the chain will no longer sell Linux-based computers in its stores—apparently its customers far prefer the more familiar Windows operating system. In October, Wal-Mart stocked an inexpensive Everex machine, the gPC, in several hundred stores, but even with the low price tag of $199, the computer failed to keep pace.

One blogger suggests that the problem might have been the fact that it didn’t actually come with a monitor—Wal-Mart shoppers might have been more taken were there a total package. This isn’t necessarily the end of Linux’s charge into the larger market, however. The good news, for those who hope to see open-source catch up with the industry behemoths, is that Wal-Mart isn’t giving up on Linux. The company will continue selling the gPC online, and has also added the CloudBook laptop. Based on our review, though, the Cloudbook probably isn’t going to be Linux's savior.
Via SFGate

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4 Comments

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dontbother

03/11/08 at 1:29 pm

in the middle of the second paragraph: "the good news...is that Wal-Mart isn’t giving up on Linux." Doesn't that directly contradict the title?

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Semmster

03/13/08 at 2:51 am

Like Unix, Linux still requires just a little too much technical proficiency to be mass-market acceptable. Windows is still the easiest to play with, the key to it's success to date.

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rnojonson

10/11/08 at 12:18 pm

I agree, Apple has had the slogan "the Mac is not a typewriter". To try to make Linux appear to be an appliance for anybody's effortless use is misleading. I also think technical proficiency (another word for high learning curve) is not that big a hurtle. The point and click interface is simple enough. But Linux is a whole different world from Microsoft, the same as Macs are. If I wasn't prepared for that realization, I would return the Linux PC also. Computer buyers need to be told up front Linux is not Microsoft. A better solution would have been to offer MS XP at a lower cost than Vista, loaded with all open source software. Now that's a bargain.

All you retailers should repeat the mantras "Linux is not for everyone!", "This is not a Microsoft product!" "Most people have never seen this before." and "If you can explain it, they might maybe actually think about trying it out, so they can compare shop and consider if it is a thing they want besides a cheap computer to own and not be stuck with an item they have no clue about and return later."

Wal-mart was selling the easy desktop interface on a cheap PC, with no regard for Linux or customers.

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WebThingy

06/11/09 at 4:06 pm

Ok, two things:

1.) The title and that later sentence completely contradict each other. Very misleading title that might give people a bad idea about Linux for no reason.

2.) While I am a Linux user and lover, I have to admit, gOS annoys me and in it's aim to be simple makes some things that should be easy complex. If you've tried one of the Everex PC's with gOS on it, you'll see why it's failing, it's just a poor experience.

If Wal-Mart wants to make some money off cheap systems running Linux they should try selling the Dell computers with Linux preloaded, or get Everex to use a better distro than gOS, because gOS might be built on Ubuntu, but gOS is buggy, poorly maintained, and is often released before it should be.