Microcenter and Linux
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| pat Nov 25, 2005 8:00 PM EDT |
Microcenter has a (singular) Linspire desktop in their main store in Columbus Ohio. No advertising about it other than a small place card listing the price. In other words Microcenter is pulling an OS/2 on Linux and I'm sure they have Microsoft's blessing to do it. I noticed the machine last January. I took a look and found, well, nothing. No openoffice.org, no games, nothing. I sent an email to Linspire and they sent it off to their tech support asking if I needed assistance. I'd be glad to share the emails, I'm sure I still have them. |
| tadelste Nov 25, 2005 8:15 PM EDT |
I know the drill. I bought one at the Richardson store just north of Dallas. Not much fanfair there either. But, I was really tired of bad motherboards from Fry's. It takes 5 times as long to return one as it does to buy one. I bought the Power Spec and would up changing the power supply to quiet it down. I added a speed control to the fan, changed the hard drive and now it's pretty quiet. The Linspire was replaced immediately. I have around $300 in this one and it's fine. I can't imagine someone buying one of the Linspire systems and using it. You have to sign up for their CNR program, pay extra money and then clean it up. That's still pretty much a hobbyist job. It's the same situation at Fry's in DFW. Just has a little different looking case and a different label. |
| number6x Nov 26, 2005 6:10 AM EDT |
Microcenter advertises this one model in the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune at least once a week. They have two locations in the Chicago area. They have also advertised linspire laptops on rare occasions. |
| jkouyoumjian Nov 28, 2005 7:14 AM EDT |
I have purchased six of the low-end PowerSpec "Linspire" machines (model 1405 and 1415) and I use them in high-availability, Linux Virtual Server clusters to run applications such as Apache, JBoss and MySQL. I have four other PowerSpec computers as well. With the exception of one, all are running CentOS 4.2, which is a clone of RedHat RHEL4. The base price of $249 (or $299) is excellent for a computer that comes already assembled, in an all-metal case that opens with only two screws. Building them from scratch would cost me that much in labor at least. These machines use Biostar M7VIG-400 PRO motherboards with the KM266 chip set. They all work very well with Linux (I run them with 2 GB of RAM). I really like the build quality and appearance of these units. I am going to be offering training workshops through my consulting firm aimed at Windows users who are looking for an alternative to Windows for their scalable server applications. I plan to use 50 of these PowerSpec machines (5 clusters of 10) in my workshops for participants to practice installation, configuration and load-testing of various application clusters. At under $500 per machine for a 2GB setup, these machines represent an excellent value. I am hoping to convince MicroCenter to sell them to me without Linspire, since I don't need it, reducing the cost even more. At least I don't have to pay the Windows Tax, which can be as much as $100 for an OEM license of XP. It would be great if MicroCenter offered their PowerSpec line with a "no OS" option. -Joe (joe_at_strongarch.com) |
| tadelste Nov 28, 2005 7:26 AM EDT |
Quoting:It would be great if MicroCenter offered their PowerSpec line with a "no OS" option. They have and I have one. Model # SBB1. Everything but the hard drive and memory. |
| jkouyoumjian Nov 29, 2005 7:04 AM EDT |
Thanks, Tom! One of the things I like about MicroCenter is the ability to walk into the store and see the stuff before I buy it. I have been going to the Cambridge, MA store for a couple of years and they have been great. I will ask them about SBB1. -Joe |
| tadelste Nov 29, 2005 8:18 AM EDT |
Glad to help. I really like them except for the way they price. They seem to have a lot of mail-in rebates. |
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