[Lvlug] Business Selling Computers

[Randy Kramer]

Ross,

Thanks for your response!

ptis not wrote:
> It sounds like a good idea but -on paper it didn't
> make sense to me because I've tried it.  You can't
> build a machine and be competitive w/Windows machines
> for the price.  IMO.

I know that it's not easy -- we'd have to buy our parts at a better
price.  (Somebody does it!)

> 
> I just built a ECS K7S5A, DURON 1.2G, 80GHDD, 17"
> Monitor, 128MRAMk/b,mse,etc.,altec spkrs,100M NIC
> built in, built in sound, ... easily loaded linux on
> it and was up and running for about $400 in matter of
> a about 4 or 5 hours effort.     A very nice home use
> machine.
> 
> Trouble is that it is easy to find brand new machines
> w/Windows XP that sell for same price.     Basically
> they bundle in the OS and give it away.    I'm kicking
> myself for putting in the effort to do all the
> building
> when I could have just bought one of those off the
> shelf systems (with all the warranty I might add) and
> then dropped my Linux on it.
> 
> IMO it is difficult to see how one can be able to
> compete w/o top notch warranty and technical support
> to go along with it. 

These are problems we'd have to deal with.

   I don't believe you can make
> money selling h/w... 

Somebody does. ;-)

> also I don't think you can
> actually sell Linux (or can you?), just have license
> to use it, right?

Yes, you can "sell" Linux, or any GPL'd program.  Problem is, so can
anybody else at any price,  to undercut you.  Just minor problems. ;-) 
Anyway, we'd be adding value -- what we sell would be preinstalled and
tested.

> If you do it, K7S5A works very nice and it is nice low
> price abt. $50 to $60.   I recommend it.

On board video?  What chipset?  Does it also have an AGP socket to use
an add on video card?

regards,
Randy Kramer