Both the band Wham! and Wal-Mart's customers implore you to make it big.
Let it be known that I do not particularly care for Wal-Mart. While offering an abundance of cheap shit to consume, they manage to keep some of it cheap by raping their employees with shitty healthcare coverage. Way to put people first, Walton.
However, this is not a post about lame-assed Wal-Mart gripes. It is a post about whether or not Wal-Mart selling a Linux PC for $200 dollars is a good idea for Linux in the long run.
Some might say that Linux needs any form of publicity it can conjure up. This may have been true once, but at this point, even your grandmother knows the name Linux. She may incorrectly identify it as a presidential candidate running for the Green party or something due to the preponderance of greasy hippies wandering around with Linux shirts, but she will recognize the name. Linux needs only good publicity at this point, especially desktop Linux. long touted as being "just around the corner from kicking Microsoft's ass in the desktop market!"
This is an egregious misstatement. Desktop Linux, while it has improved, still needs some serious help in the user-friendliness department. I have horrible visions of people buying these PCs and trying desperately to plug in ancient, obsolete printers and scanners and PDAs, and being enraged when they aren't supported immediately. Now I agree that some of this detritus wouldn't be supported in Windows, either, but these people are likely to believe that it is Linux fucking them over, not their innate cheapness.
Consider the following enchanting repartee:
Jim: "Hey Bob, bought one of those cheap two hundred buck peecees I saw on Wal-Marts web site. I know why they's so cheap now!"
Bob: "How come, cuz?"
Jim: "They's missin the Windows! They work, but none a my files work with em. Technical support says they don't support none of my Word stuff. Says they only use Leenucks."
Bob: "What's a Leenucks?"
Jim: "It's a part of the computer machine that keeps my files from workin!"
and so on.
Now, some of you (whoever you are) reading this might believe this to be an unfair representation of Wal-Mart's customers. "Hey !" you are thinking to yourself, "I shop there! And I am technically savvy, too! He's just an elitist jerk."
Not so fast, cheapass. Consider this quote from the Wired blog:
"Even at the low end, however, image is everything. The gPC is built using tiny components, but put inside a full-size case because research indicates that Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated they equate physical size with capability." --Rob Beschizza, Wired Blog, 10/31/2007.
And now you see why George Michael's goofy album adorns the top of this post. And why maybe a bargain-basement PC marketed to a relatively unknowing crowd isn't the best way for Linux to break into the desktop market.
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