Another Linux Computer Flipped.

From: Kenny Dugan (kdug29Q_at_rmail.org)
Date: 11/06/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 19:01:36 -0500

My sister calls me the other day saying she is having terrible problems
with her newly purchased desktop computer system.
I asked a couple of questions and from what she was telling me I
admit I had no idea what the trouble was. She also told me her
boyfriend and also her neighbor looked at the system and they
couldn't figure out what was wrong either.
The only thing she kept saying was "I've never seen a version of
Windows that looks like this and neither has anyone else I have
shown this thing to".

So I drive over to her house and take a look for myself.
Hey, who is going to turn down home brewed beer!

Turns out that she unknowingly bought this thing:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3762911

She was trying to install AOL from CD along with Office 2003, some
games and some software that she needs to use for her business which
is mostly home grown stock analysis programs. She also complained
that her laser printer did not work (I did make this sort of work
but not at the higher resolutions and not in toner saver mode)

I recognized Linux immediately (Linspire) and told her that she
didn't buy a Windows PC but a Linux PC and that it would not run
most of the Windows programs she already owned.

She went NUTS (not at me, but at Walmart).
...how can they sell this junk
...Linux? WTF is that?
...Am I stuck with some pile of *** here?
She called Walmart and they seemed to know all the answers to this
problem which led me to suspect this was a common occurrence.
The bottom line was that it would cost her almost $100.00 to ship
the POS back so we had to come up with a better solution.
The solution was a copy of Windows XP from Staples at $79.00 on
sale.
She was not happy about having to spend more money on this adventure
but she, her boyfriend and everyone else they talk to are at least
educated about Linux.

Another Linux machine flipped to Windows XP.
I suspect many of these so called Linux machines end up like this
mostly because people just don't know they are being hoodwinked into
an operating system that virtually nobody is using.