Wal-Mart pushes $199 Linux Computer
updated 06:15 pm EDT, Wed October 31, 2007
$199 gPC at Wal-Mart
The $200 PC keeps coming back, this time on the shelves of a retail giant. About 600 Wal-Mart locations will soon begin selling a $199 Linux-powered "Green gPC" made by Everex of Taiwan. Bundling Windows Vista Home Basic and more memory with the machine bumps its price up to $300. The system includes a keyboard, mouse, and speakers, but no monitor. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien told The Associated Press that the company is stocking gPC in about one in eight stores to test the demand for an open-source product. The gPC has a low-end processor from VIA Technologies, 512 megabytes of RAM, an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a combination DVD drive and CD burner. It uses gOS, which is derived from the popular Ubuntu Linux variant. Wal-Mart has sold $200 Linux PCs before, but only online, never on its physical store shelves.
