/home/nand

The other day when I saw Wal-Mart launching their ubuntu-based PCs, I basically froze. Whoah, the first live experiment will begin.

Yeah the first. Because until now, Dell and others manufacturers were explicitly Linux branded, and were distributed on selected areas (e.g. Linux pages). Here it is mainstream on hypermarkets, and it is branded under the Gos name. And the main question was : How will the average person react to a new and different OS? Are old habits too hard to change?

It is probably too early to tell. On the product page, the feedback is good to very good, but note that a good part of the comments come from customers knowing about Linux.

Now my fear is Linux being viewed and perceived as a low-cost (and consequently low-quality) OS. Right now in the public perception, we have Windows, IMO perceived as the normal, classic OS, and we have Mac OS X, IMO perceived as a polished and very high quality OS. For Linux we have two alternatives. Either it can succeed to impose itself as a Windows alternative, or it will end up perceived as a low cost solution (and often low cost induce bad quality in people mind). Will the myriad of Linux distribution sold by low-cost computer makers confuse people? Will bad-QA distributions affect the whole Linux image? That’s what I fear…