Attention WalMart Shoppers - You Can Find Linux Computers Next to the Ironing Boards

David Einstein's review pans the WalMart Linux PC, and deservedly so. With a slow processor, small disk drive, miserly memory, and no monitor, for $300 you could get a lot more system building it yourself. Admittedly, the kind of shopper WalMart is selling a Linux PC to is probably not "top drawer" when it comes to computers, so it may seem a good enough "bargain" to them. But it is a bad bargain nonetheless.

David is correct in noting that Linux / Unix systems don't support as much software as Windows, especially for certain apps like Quicken, and support for printers like Epson has always been difficult. This is why the stats say 80% of the aftermarket Linux PCs have bootleg windows copies placed on them over Linux in Asia. This is to be expected as legacy apps are converted. In the meantime, it's hard to compensate with open source without expert assistance, as in a company.

But it can be done. And here's how to do it.

I switched my kids three years ago from Windows to Berkeley Unix. I just got sick and tired of removing spyware and viruses from the kids PC *every* week. And it wasn't as bad three years ago as now. If you judge by time spent in annoying maintenance removing junk that shouldn't be there in the first place, is it any wonder people have contempt for computers and technologists today, and are even contemplating using open source to avoid this pain?

There were far fewer apps supported then, and they had to give up Windows games, which wasn't easy. But over time, things improved. They learned to play the many open source games on the web - which they find superior now. We got early versions of openoffice working, and over time they were able to do reports and graphics just fine. Support for doing things like pdfs is quite adaquate now. They've got digital cameras and video edit software in open source - they don't need the package Windows versions anymore - and it all works just fine. It's finally starting to be comfortable working with the open source browsers, players, windows emulators - you name it.

The hardest part earlier on was dealing with teachers who "required" certain windows apps (not even Mac). But we got around it and made it work.

So David's actually a bit out of date here regarding what is needed in software apps and what's not. He's speaking as if we are at the state of things of three years ago, when we began our kids Berkeley Unix experiment, and the state of the world has changed very rapidly in that time. Listen to what the kids are doing - they have more incentive to change than adults, and aren't as afraid of "breaking things". :-)

And good things happened. My kids program more. They understand systems and their limits much better. They understand support issues more comprehensively. Ben's learning C and loves python *on his own*, so he's more technically astute, and has learned a great deal about maintaining all types of systems, including Windows, and has been paid for fixing Windows systems, and he's 14. Rebecca does video processing work that UCLA film students would envy *on her own*, and she's only 9!

In other words, instead of spending time removing viruses and spyware and updating service packs and patches for broken software, they learned about disk drive installations, updates and maintenance, utilities, networking, and even applications programming. Would you say the time has been better spent these last three years?

They even got those darned Epson printers working - and that's not easy! It can be done.

What's the cost? They spent $200 and with parts from Frys built their "dream machine". They didn't need to buy a WalMart piece of junk. They didn't waste their money on the latest version of office, or the latest video game on cdrom, or a windows license for a system they won't use. They bought and built their new PCs themselves. How many kids understand what to buy, and what not to buy for their OS?

So with the Walmart Linux systems, we are seeing a definite trend away from Windows. It will be slow, and Windows will hang around a while (although my son is finding his latest installation of wine to be pretty darned good), because of the legacy software issue. But progress towards usability is definitely accelerating.

And you can't beat the price. It's the new low price leader.

And like WalMart, isn't that what wins?