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Free PCs and Alternative OSs 56

Posted by CmdrTaco from the match-made-in-heaven dept.
NettRom writes "Salon Tech's latest feature, "A PC in every pot" talks about the free PC and computer-appliance markets and how the companies are relying on alternative OS's due to the cost of MS Windows. Most of the article talks to people that embrace the alternative OS's, so I found it to be generally positive. There's also a bit of the usual "There's not enough applications available. You can't take your Excel spreadsheet with you home." FUD. "
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Free PCs and Alternative OSs

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  • Oops! Forgot the pointer to the proposal! Here [python.org] it is. Doh!
  • Build the server - these days, you could build a decent one for $500-$1000 - heck, even one of the "free" PC's could function as the server. Put a real OS on it (Linux, FreeBSD, etc. - no flames, please). Then find the cheapest X-Window capable NC out there - or build your own from $10.00 surplus 486's! Network them all together. Give one to each member of the family (even the dog). Set up StarOffice or such office suite on the server, as well as other mundane stuff. If you have a games fanatic, have a designated game machine made (like one of those $500-600 jobbers). So if we tally it all up:

    1. Server - $800.00
    2. Game Box - $500.00
    3. 5 custom NC's (you, wife, 2 kids and dog) - $500.00 (and I am being generous)

    Total: $1800.00

    Of course this doesn't take into account the fact that you will have to perform the adminstration and wiring up of the network. But the way things are going, people are going to have networks as an option on new homes (if they don't already), and they better learn something about admin'ing such a network if they are going to have one.

    I have always thought that if you are going to own a computer (even if it is just the cheesy RCX from Lego Mindstorms!), you had better know something about computers! I am not saying I was a computer god when I got my first machine, but I knew enough to start reading the manual that came with it!

    On a side note - why don't people read manuals? People every day buy new cars, then don't read the manual. Later, they wonder about something that is mentioned in the manual (such as where the jack is stored to change a tire)! Is it really that difficult to read a simple book?!
  • FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
    OK, this is true.
    FUD is making a claim that is not entirely accurate in order to scare people away.
    This is close, but not quite true.

    FUD can be composed of truths and often is. A statement is or is not FUD based on the focus of the statement. If it is an objective statement of fact, it's not FUD. If on the other hand, the statement is worded so as to play on existing (or worse yet, instill new) fears, uncertainties, and doubts, then, my anonymous friend, that is FUD.

    For example, of the two statements following, only the second is FUD.

    "One of the problems with Linux, is that many MS-Office documents are incompatible with applications available on Linux."

    "But remember, you won't be able to work on your PowerPoint presentation on Linux"

    Here endeth the lesson :)
  • the 50% of americans who don't have computers could care less about spreadsheets. these are not office workers. they want to get on the internet for cheap. who cares about excel?
  • Went to their Web page and gave them my personal info -- WITHOUT noticing that they claimed to be giving away a million iMacs -- that's like a billion dollars -- and they didn't seem to be affiliated with any company of any kind. I think I just got harvested for junk-mail... stupid me.
  • Paradox? Was supposed to be this "object oriented" system, looked at the language,
    100% procedural. (I should have tried to make
    that into haiku).
  • Um, I think they meant that it can range. You can buy a tv for $150 or as you point out.. 1 grand. Heck, you can find TV's over $2k. Not quite there yet, but the prices of computers might encompass (s?) the prices of tv's on both ends.
  • The author is a woman. This probably explains it. She probably thinks the "Start" button is confusing.

    For your sake i really hope that was flamebait.

    Otherwise, get a clue or get lost!

    Don't hate the media, become the media.

  • I probably shouldn't respond to something that is so obviously a troll, but on the off chance you are sincere and simply misguided, I suggest you check your history.

    Microsoft has a habit of releasing software which is very late (nearly all versions of NT, Win95, Win97 which became Win98, and so on), which, despite the additional development time, have all been terribly buggy and unreliable, especially when first released. One of the reasons Microsoft doesn't do versioning is so that they can sneak updates into the OS via applications (overwriting system dlls with new versions without telling the installer). This not only allows them to behave in insidious ways such as breaking competitor's products (e.g. Netscape) with a dll update, but also lets them actually fix some of the more heinous bugs over time without ever having to acknowledge that there were any bugs to begin with. The version of Windows 98 you buy today isn't the same one you got last year, though you wouldn't know by looking at the version numbers.

    In short, Microsoft has consistently released late, buggy, unstable code which their customers have then been forced, often at great expense, to debug for them. Why on earth should we be stupid enough to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt at this late date?
  • Yeah, I'd hate to use Gumeric to do something useful, like pull current sales data out of an Oracle database, do year to date calculations, figure variances to past years, and graph the results with one button click. Guess I'll have to keep using that technically inferior but will do everything I need it to do Excel.

  • I can certainly see your point, but respectfully disagree. With one expensive do-everything computer, then when my dad is sitting there browsing the web, my mom can't check her email, and my sister can't type in her research paper, and I can't play Quake III. If, instead of buying that (say) $2000 computer, we had bought two web terminals for (say) $400 each, a word processor for $700, and a networked game console for $500, then we'd each be able to do our own thing.

    Of course, the flip side is that then if two of us needed to type a research paper, we'd be out of luck. But my point is that for a given household, there is probably some combination of general-purpose computers and network appliances that is cheaper and that serves the household better than just one or two general-purpose computers. For one family, it might be two game consoles for the kids, a word processor for the older kid, a recipe database for the kitchen, and a webTV. For another, it might be a computer for the hacker and a simple email terminal. I really see the future of computing as a migration from few multi-purpose computers to many, cheap, single-purpose appliances, each filling their own little niche in the household.

  • It is actually somewhat ironic that with the inclusion of VBA in all (or at least most) of the MS Office products, Microsoft probably has encouraged more "hacking" than any other vendors. Some /.ers may scoff, but isn't the notion of using the available tools to make the machine/program function the way YOU want the root of true hacking? MS Office is a de facto standard in most workplaces. Give the VBA hackers credit for using the software intelligently rather than rely on Clippy to tell them what to do.
    >KFW
  • Right on, man! They were stating a fact that is very relevent to the ideas in the article. I, for one, am so sick of people screaming "FUD!" whenever anyone claims that there may be an advantage for some users to using Windows. I love Linux, hate Windows, but I'm not about to close my eyes to the truth.

    "While Linux is superior to Windows is most ways, there may be some disadvantages--"
    "FUD! FUD! FUD! Stop spreding this FUD!"

    *sigh*
  • I totally agree. I would much rather own one or two expensive - do everything machines that I can upgrade and do what I want with, rather than 6 little machines built for a single purpose. That just seems like a lame idea to me.

    ================================================ ======
  • Anyone know what large vendors are paying for the version of Windoz they are putting on their machines? I thought I heard it was $79, but this seems quite high for machines as cheap as what is coming out of emachines, et.al.
  • I agree. If I didn't have VBA available for data reduction, it'd take me 10-20 times as long to do what I have to do (maybe even longer).

    VBA and Excel have been an absolute life saver for me.
  • Check out Dallas Semiconductor's TINI [ibutton.com]. I want the planned single-chip version in everything electronic that involves interaction. This and an IEEE 802.11 wireless ethernet transceiver will make X10 look terribly archaic.
  • They'll have to make some UNBELIEVABLE changes to the Quattro Pro macro language for it to even approach 10% of the power of Excel. Function for function they are basically the same (although QPro still crashes a lot on my wife under NT), but you get someone working with QPro and it's macro "language" versus Excel and VBA - no contest. QPro doesn't come close.

    This starts me wondering - what even makes you think your statement is remotely valid? Do you know of some major overhall in QPro? That sure will make my wife happy since, although she uses it, she envy's what I can do in Excel in VBA.
  • Although I agree with you, what about those that start using the computers and decide they like it and want more? Then they'll be stuck.
  • This is the kind of comment I would expect from someone who really doesn't understand what he's/she's talking about. You see VBA only as a security hole, I see it as salvation - my job would be almost un-do-able without it. You try reducing, graphing, formatting, and summarizing 1000's of test results (report ready) without some type of automation like VBA. If you can give me a viable Linux alternative (that is compatible in full with all my customers (which all use Excel also)), then I'll consider switching. Please note that all the commercial software we have in the lab outputs to it's format or Excel also (still can't believe it doesn't have an ASCII output).

    BTW, I'm not a strong programmer either so programming something in C++ to do it isn't a viable option for me.

  • Actually, I had to provide a way to edit an Excel spreadsheet quickly and all I had running was a Linux box. Imagine my surprise when Gnumeric loaded and edited the spreadsheet with no problems at all. Only I then saved the spreadsheet in Gnumeric format so that the reverse was true. Now the user has to use Linux because the wimpy Office product can't read their spreadsheet.

    But they don't care, they like Gnumeric. Ah, Life is good...

    -Brent
  • another more insidious way the general populace is getting screwed on their pc choice is the new compuserve rebates on machines. this is the same old demon back to rear it's head for the world. people just look at the big price and say 'OooOOOooOo, that's cheap enough to buy' and then they are locked into 3 years of very poor compuserve service.

    oh well. a fool and his money are soon parted, right?
  • Did you guys forget about StarOffice, I did all the school work that was supposed to be done on Excel with it, even complicated charts opened and with no errors when my friends had used excel and all I had was my Linux box. Also all the presentations that were supposed to be done with PowerPoint, done in no time with StarOffice too ...
  • Well at Linuxworld there were 2 apps: Word perfect 8 which is 3 years old and good old Netscape 4. The rest was still more system tools. The OEMs can't improve their bottom line on anything but basic system software and not many Linux hackers want to use it for anything but coding.
  • It comes as standard on most machines. Your just getting the cost absorbed into the machine. I personally wouldn't download it if it was free (you would still have to end up paying to buy it).

    How much of the cost of a PC does the O/S take up anyway? Would the PC makers push this deduction onto the public?
  • "You can't take your Excel spreadsheet with you home." FUD. "
    I hate it when people say things like this is FUD. This is mostly fact. Mostly, you can't take the newest app versioned data home. Quite a few people don't know they can save alternative to the native app's format. But people who generally don't know their software well don't know they can do this and require someone to mention it. This isn't fud, its just plain ignorance.

    As for PC prices, anyone remember when CD Players were $300.. and 300meg hd's were $300? Now you can get enough storage for $150. It's just the way of the economic world. I'm quite sure that a crash in the stock market will bring things back to earth unfortunately...

  • No, it's not technically free; it it's a noticable (and sometimes significant) part of the cost of a machine you buy. From what I've heard, you're paying anywhere from $35 to $75 for Windows. It's claimed to be the second most expensive component in low-end machines, after the hard drive.

    It's certainly a lot more noticable if you buy clone PCs from local manufacturers, rather than brand-name PCs, because the cost of Windows is often a separate item on the invoice.

    As for `You can't take your Excel spreadsheet home with you' being FUD, how is this? As far as I can tell, there is no way of running a reasonably sophisticated Excel spreadsheet on Linux. I think this FUD thing has gone too far; Linux advocates are now claiming that the pointing out of any deficiency in Linux is FUD.

    cjs

    cjs

  • I use Visual Basic heavily in my daily Excel use. How well does that transfer over to StarOffice?

    I sure don't want to do the hundreds of repetitive functions that I have to do manually!
  • There's also a bit of the usual "There's not enough applications available. You can't take your Excel spreadsheet with you home." FUD.
    On the appliances described in the article, you can't take your Excel spreadsheet home. These appliances have Linux or BeOS kernels, but they have their own GUIs and a restricted set of applications built in. Who knows what utilities and libraries they left out for the sake of conserving disk space?

    The people who will buy these machines don't know how to download and install the latest version of Gnumeric from a command line. The people who manufacture these machines probably have no interest in (a) playing catch-up with Microsoft's file formats and (b) making it easy for users to update their machines to use the latest filters.

    Besides, the people who need to take their work home can probably afford to buy one of the cheaper Windows 98 machines.

  • should i ever need W, i'll copy it.

  • Is the author unhappy that these info appliances don't save everything to the desktop? The last time I saved a file on a windows machine, I put it in a directory with all the other files for that particular project. A hierarchical directory structure is a Good Thing, it isn't just a crazy techie Linux thing, and I think the author is creating a bit of a straw man in this case.

  • I'm leery of internet appliances, just like I'm leery of game consoles. I'm leery of all specialized home-use computers. If you have an internet appliance, a game console, a desktop publishing machine, etc. they add up to greater cost then just buying one real computer, and you have the ability to use it for new things later. Plus, most of those systems are closed. I can't hack my game N64 to use cheat codes, I have to buy some goofy gadget to do it for me. I can't freely upgrade my web box to the newest Netscape, I have to buy a goofy card. I don't have good reasons for my fears, just vague worries. Opinions?

    Also, Every time I post an article, when I reload, it's been posted by someone else. I think they're going to start filtering me out soon. :) Happened with this one.
  • And no one uses Quattro Pro.
  • I wanted to switch instrumentation PC here at work over to Linux and use StarOffice for the macro I was developing, but when I opened the Excel file in StarOffice, the macro was stripped from the file when I resaved it in Excel format. Damn! This was with StarOffice 5.1.

    Apparently, StarOffice has StarBasic which has syntax very similar to VBA, but when I used it there was no documentation yet. :-(

    However, I do foresee either StarOffice or some determined developer adding that functionality. ;o)

    --topdown
    "If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing."
  • We will see when the almighty Quattro Pro comes out for Linux. Quattro Pro blows Excel out of the water on Windows.
  • I remember when 5meg hard drives were $1500. Speaking of which, since when do these free PCs cost as much as 'a nice television set'? My 35" Sony TV cost quite a bit more than your average decent system (about $1k for the TV, as opposed to $500 for a pretty high-powered PC if you build it yourself - not counting monitor, of course - and only $100 or so for a "free" PC).
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • I think these I*Net appliances have a great future, especially in a family environment. Personally, I'm tired of waiting in line behind the kids playing a game or the wife doing something off line just to get to my email. I'm installing Linux on an old 486 to build my own Internet appliance, but most home users aren't that geeky :) They will be spending $150 on one of these things to get a second computer into the house.

  • Imagine my surprise when my I tried to load my Macro-laden Excel spreadsheet up on Gnumeric and it died.
  • Sounds like Gnumerics is using 'embrace and extend' tactics.
  • I ran across a grant proposal written by Guido van Rossum, the author of the Python [python.org] language. He proposes to use Python (which is very easy to learn) to make programming literacy much more common that it is now. His idea is to extend the open-source notion of parallel coding and debugging efforts to include millions of people rather than today's thousands. Not clear whether this is really a feasible idea, but it's an interesting one, and even if it fails, it will produce something good and useful.
  • Object hierarchies (preferably with some links) are great. They are the best way known to mankind to organise to general everyday stuff a user might accrue. It is my opinion that the the desktop would be a much better place for everyone if all hierarchical and list-based data was available for manipulation in one object tree.

    Sadly Windows makes hierarchies seem really complicated and hard-to-use for nontechnical users thanks to its unstoppable spreading of system data around the place, its habit of partitioning the hierarchy into different spaces for different applications, using confusing 'other' hierarchies like the way the Desktop area works, and the registry, metabase and Start menu.

    Windows and Unix both also make hierarchies less useful through their complete lack of encapsulation. So when you install a new program, it'll stick something in bin, something in lib, something in the registry, something on the start menu. On Windows, uninstalling it then requires a special uninstaller, that often doesn't work, leaving your system in a limbo where you can't install or uninstall and unless you're capable of tracking down everything the app installed by hand, you'll have to reinstall the OS again.

    This is why appliances like this and the network computer are marketed as 'hierarchy-free! You don't have to manage your applications!' - if installing a program was simply a case of copying one (1) object onto your HD, de-installing it meant deleting it, and you could easily move it into a different directory if, say, you acquired a few other similar applications and wanted to group them, then people might even *like* managing their applications.

    RISC OS was a bit like this, once. (But that's enough minority-platform whinging for now. -Ed.)

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