[H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
> Verily I say unto thee, that BearItAll spake thusly:
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:45:39 +0100, [H]omer wrote:
>
>>> Yup, when you start seeing Linux boxen sold by British supermarket
>>> chains, that's when you know it's reached standard commodity
>>> status.
>>
>> This will mean more to the general English man than the Dell thing.
>
> Yes, when you mention Dell to the average British punter, I'd be willing
> to bet many couldn't even tell you exactly what it is, and of those who
> could, you'd likely just get a scathing comment and a look of disdain
> (IME).
>
>> But I can't help wondering if Tescos is the right vendor.
>
> Well they are Britain's /biggest/ retailer. You can't get much more
> exposure than /that/ in Blighty.
They're *all* the right vendor. Tesco, in particular, are the ultimate
commodity sales channel in the UK, and also have significant presence
outside the UK, too.
>
>> There are bound to be people buying a Linux machine and pick up some
>> PC game or something on the way to the tills. People will buy Linux
>> and not have the faintest idea of what they have bought, do we really
>> want this?
>
> IME few of the kind of people who buy PCs in high-street shops have a
> clue about PCs or operating systems of /any/ kind. If you're going to
> get your feet wet, you may as well do it with a /real/ OS like Linux.
People make mistakes, but it won't matter. Tescos will take returns as
normal, and people will learn.
Most people do *not* buy a computer to play games, they buy a games
console, because making games work on PCs is notoriously difficult,
whereas on consoles, you plug in the cartridge or disk and they just
work.
>
>> Tescos customers services are much better than PC World, Curries and
>> {that other one, I've forgotten its name}.
>
> Three more ... The Link, Mastercare and Dixons (all part of the Dixons
> Stores Group: DSG). Although IIRC they sold The Link to o2, or BT
> Cellnet as they used to be known, before they changed the name to try to
> hide from their horrendous reputation.
The Link was a joint-venture between BT and DSG.
O2 is now Telefonica.
>
>> Personally I think it might help if Tesco selected Linspire as the
>> default distro, including a years access to the Gold Linspire account
>> (if they still do that).
>
> Egads no! I'd sooner they were given Slowlaris than be subjected to one
> of the Monkey-Club distros.
Some people have highly negotiable values...
>
> I just tried Fedora 8 test 3, and even though I'm bound to be a little
> biased when it comes to Fedora, I have to say that it surprised even me.
> It is very, /very/ slick indeed, and it's not even /ready/ yet. Tesco
> could do worse ... much worse. Failing that, Mandriva is gorgeous and
> just as easy. Heck ... give them Slackware 12 ... have you seen /that/
> baby recently? I'll stop short at recommending Gentoo though ... :)
>
For a pre-install, though, it won't matter all that much. Most people
only ever do email, web-surfing, maybe playing some MP3s or a video, a
bit of IM, maybe access facebook, google, youtube, and perhaps write the
occasional document or spreadsheet.
So long as you have a pre-install which covers all of the above, for 99%
of real users, they will be fine.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
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| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
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