$199 Linux-based PCs a "hot seller"
Posted by Daniel Fleshbourne on 10 December 2002 - 09:10 · 3 comments & 101 views
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Full name: Daniel Fleshbourne
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Full name: Daniel Fleshbourne
Forum name: Daniel
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline
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#1 Posted by sodapop on 10 Dec 2002 - 16:51
- This is great for poor people who feel left out in the computing world. Everyone needs a PC, Even if it's an old 486.
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#2 Posted by directuniversal on 10 Dec 2002 - 20:29
- This is just an example of how cheap a computer can be if it does not have M$ software on it. If these computers had Windows on it then they would be at least a hundred dollars more, not to mention paying even more for Office. Linux is cheap (free for download), and full distros come with all the software you need.
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#3 Posted by directuniversal on 10 Dec 2002 - 20:38
- A Duron 1.3GHz is only ~$30 OEM. I would certainly go with that chip if I wanted a cheap computer.
The Wal-Mart machines are full-fledged, if low-powered, computers, but they are not loaded with Microsoft's Windows software or the best known microchips--meaning that the average user will not get exactly what he or she is used to.
"It is going to be harder to get people to adopt that sort of stuff" since most consumers want Windows, concluded Roger Kay, a PC analyst at International Data Corp research group.
Although the Wal-Mart machine has a slower microchip than more expensive computers, rival machines may not surf the Web much faster, since the speed of the Internet connection is usually the bottleneck in online tasks, said Rob Enderle, an analyst at competing research group Giga.
"It is awfully hard to beat this for the price point," he said.
Feature List: (Please note that this feature list isn't totaly complete, as there are far too many things that we have changed under the hud. But it should give you a rough idea of what you should expect.)
- Quake 3 shaders
- 32/24 bit Targa and JPEG support
- Cinematics on map surfaces
- Quake 3 skies
- Stencil buffered shadows
- Anisotropic filtering
- ATI Truform support for models
- Optimized renderer for shaders
- Support for large textures (limited only by hardware)
- Water caustics
- New UI (with mouse support)
- New loading screen
- New HUD (incomplete)
- Enhanced console (more friendly typing, colored text, smoother font, etc...)
- Enhanced file system with ZIP file support (.pk2)
- DirectInput support for mouse devices
- International keyboard support
- Background music support
Renderer
Others