[luau] Mandrake to be on WalMart PCs

[W. Wayne Liauh]

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/19/1519219

This is a great move.  WalMart must be monitoring this board (re 
George's comment of replacing Lindows with Mandrake).


Text that follows was originally posted at Newsforge:

As early as next week, Walmart.com will begin selling Microtel PCs 
<http://www.buymicrotel.com> loaded with the Mandrake Linux 
<http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/> distribution.

Keep your eye on Walmart.com <http://www.walmart.com> for new Microtel 
systems bearing the Mandrake logo. The systems will sell alongside the 
newly announced Lindows-based PCs 
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/14/1316203&tid=23>, say 
sources. And continue to look for more online retail envelope-pushing 
from Wal-Mart's online wing, of all places.

MandrakeSoft CEO Jacques Le Marois confirms the news this morning, and 
company spokeswoman Margaret Waters says, while a contract with Microtel 
has not been finalized, the company is working on getting Mandrake 
certified to run like clockwork on the Microtel systems. Waters is 
hopeful that the dotted line will be signed and PCs up for sale by the 
end of next week.

Walmart.com and Microtel are getting a lot of press lately, mostly 
because Walmart.com is the first major retailer to offer something other 
than the standard Windows PC. With Walmart.com taking the first leap, 
it's possible that other stores will follow in selling bare systems 
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/29/0218241&tid=7> and those 
with Linux preloaded.

Walmart.com has a few well-placed electronics buyers who are savvy to 
Linux, and a management team looking for ways to reinvigorate stagnant 
computer sales numbers. The combination has resulted in innovations like 
the Windows-free Microtel line and has generated strong sales and low 
return numbers, a trend Walmart.com may hope will continue with the 
introduction of Linux systems. According to sources, the buyers chose 
Lindows first because of perceived user-friendliness.

But the move to Mandrake may be seen as a better one for the Linux world 
and for people who want to purchase the Microtel systems with Linux, 
because Mandrake has been around for years, is already on the brink of a 
9.0 release level and has an established reputation for providing 
support. In support of LindowsOS, however, Rich Hindman of Microtel says 
that as of Monday, June 17, the version of Lindows that lives in the 
systems sold through Walmart.com is LindowOS 1.1, not the beta SPX 
mentioned in a quote from a Lindows PR spokeswoman in Tuesday's report 
<http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/18/1344258&tid=23>.

A source close to Walmart.com says that Lindows itself is "ready to 
roll," and that drivers are the only hold up. The Walmart.com units 
contain special custom drivers written specifically for the Microtel 
project. "The only way someone can get Lindows 1.1 is to buy a computer 
with it pre-installed," says Hindman, vice president at Microtel.

There has been some disdain expressed in the Linux community over the 
perception that Lindows has been reluctant to release source code under 
the terms of the GPL. Brad Kuhn of the Free Software Foundation 
expressed some concern that Lindows was going to market at Walmart.com 
without a fitting EULA. "We have promised [Lindows CEO Michael] 
Robertson a rewrite of his EULA, and it is waiting for time from our 
general counsel to write one. We do wish he'd told us in confidence that 
this Wal-Mart deal was imminent; we could have expedited the work on the 
EULA if we'd known.