“$99, give or take $20, seems to be the new price point for full-featured, consumer-level Linux distributions. This is a great deal for non-technical users, since most of the new-wave consumer Linux products give users a much prettier and easier experience than traditional, all-GPL distributions tailored for a geeky user base. Whether or not the current explosion of Linux use by ordinary people is “good” is still open to question, but I suspect the answer depends more on who is doing the answering than any other factor.” Read the editorial at NewsForge.
The Rise of the $99 ‘Consumer’ Linux Distribution
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
RedHat is still my first choice. I’ve tried all the others (except Xandros) and find that RedHat offers the most professional interface (yes, I’m a fan of Bluecurve) and easiest installation (much easier than Mandrake). It’s the total package, or at least as total as Linux comes, and is FREE. My second favourite four letter word starting with “f”
A hundred bucks sounds high to me. The only time I bought a Linux was Mandrake 7.2 Powerpack Deluxe for $60. Seven CDs, two real books… Releases a version or two old were significantly less expensive than that.
Personally, I can’t stand *f*ootball, but think *f*ish are great!
Why would general public want to spend $100 for the Linux OS when they can get XP for the same price?
I hate it when people rip apart Lindows.com, even though I’m not much of a fan myself. I just hate that “commercial” and “Linux” can’t be meshed.
The fact is that Red Hat is the most professional ook and feel in Linux, and when they come to the user desktop I’m interested in the final product.
Price: I think Linux distros should cost FIRMLY $79 or less. Any more and you’re in XP territory. In my book, $49.99 is the perfect price. It’s cheaper than 50 bucks, psychologically pleasing, but substantial enough to keep a company afloat if their product is worthwhile.
When the distros start charging a higher price i will expect better things, i don’t mind paying but it has to be worth it and the weaknesses of linux would need fixing. SuSE is going the right way what with YAST as a replacement to the control panel and i don’t mind NOT using RPM’s as long as everything i need is on cd. I’m new to linux so i don’t expect to install things and discover ‘RPM hell’ while doing it. I’ll learn how to do that later when i have the time and the need.
But when SuSE charges me £100 for a distro i would like it if improvements were made. Most people know what they are so i won’t bother listing them.
I agree about the $99 as being a bit high. Only RH is that expensive. Both Suse and Mandrake are cheaper (the non pro versions).
One thing to note is that the $99 XP Home is the upgrade version not the full product.
Uh….no. Red Hat is $59.99 for the personal edition, $149.99 for the corporate.
Xandros is $99.
Lindows0S is $119.
Libranet is $99.95 for corporate use
Seems Red Hat 8 is now only $39.95. It must’ve been lowered.
http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/personal/
http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/professional/
Just click Pricegrabber on the left of osnews. The lowest price you can get is $34.
It sounds crazy, but I’d argue that the increase of boxed GNU/Linux sets at that price increase the use of the OS.
People who are concerned about price can still get many distros for free. They may not have broadband, but can probably get a buddy to download and burn them an install iso (http://www.linuxiso.org/). That crowd is not alienated by these box sets, they just don’t buy them.
Who is affected is people with the hang-up that a free (price) OS is inferior to a $199 priced OS. People assume that quality is a factor when a price gap is too large.
Now that the OS will cost them a ben franklin, it’s a deal, not a toy in a cereal box. There is an economic theory about this I remember from my college days, but I can’t come up with the name. Too much beer (as in free) between then and now
Everything in this world has a perceived value. Most people place a value on retail products based on their cost, i.e. the more expensive it is the better it is. In the retail place Linux distrobutions should be selling for less, but not alot cheaper than microsoft products.
If XP is selling for 129.99 retail then 79.99 would be a good starting point for a FULL distro of RH, you could release UPGRADE product on a 6 to 8 month cycle for a measly 39.99 and a new full version product on 12 to 18 month schedule.
The general public wants to pay for products, it gives them a sense of ownership. They would judge linux to be a good value if it does everything they can do on windows for 50 dollars less. Just because something is free or really cheap it is automaticly looked at as inferior. Example if you’re here in america and if a bar is offering $1.00 DRAFT BEER the general assumption is that you’ll be getting really cheap domestic beer, not really good high quality German import. Perception is everything in the market place.
I’m a computer technician and I hate paying for product as much as the rest of you. But we don’t offer our services for free either. So just like we have to pay for our Khakis and Polo shirts, we should pay for our OS too (helps pay those pesky programmers and makes them turn out clean code.) Here’s a great idea, to keep things free for technicians, developers and engineers, you get a free 2 year subscription to the distro of your choice when you get certified through CompTIA on A+, Network+, or RHCE. See I just made everybody happy (and Linux a ton of money).
Xandros is also available for $39.95. Check it out http://www.xandros.com/
The $99 Bucks is for the Deluxe Edition.
I think the $99 dollar distros have their place. The REAL PROBLEM is people who grew up with the “hand-holding” style of computing. Neal Stephenson is right, we need to meet the computer half-way in order to get more done. A general computing class should be more than just learning MS Office (like it was at my school). If people learned how to use an editor and WHY you use an editor, they would be better off. If people learned WHY you would use the CLI instead of a GUI then they would be better off. A PC is a GENERAL piece of equipment designed to do many things but not necessarily great at any one task. Maybe word processing is the exception to this but an OS has to provide services for a wide range of users. If you want a hand holding OS then buy a hand holding OS. But realize that it will have limitations and learn to work around it. Windows cannot do everything well. What it does do well is because of hardware and software vendors supporting it. The linux/open source community has done a fantastic job reverse enginneering alot of this on their own. If you want to really use linux then you need some skill beyond the average Joe. OR you can buy Xandros, Lycoris, Lindows, et all and stay with point and click. Even in the Windows world the power users learned all the little tricks to get more from the system. People tend to forget that and bash linux for being too hard to learn. Educate yourself and you have more options. Like the article said, he has money so he pays others to do things, when he didn’t have money he learned how to do it himself. Pay 99 or more dollars for some more support and “ease of use” or learn and download a free version and work with it.
There’s an interesting economic dynamic here with these distros like Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, etc. You’ve got a critical mass of folks fed up with Microsoft OSes and willing to give something else a try. You’ve got a lot of new Linux options vying for that free spot on the hard drives of the disaffected, but they’re trying to charge $99 for their product. Then you’ve got companies like Red Hat and Mandrake who’ve been players in the Linux market for longer than these upstarts and they’re offering downloadable ISOs for free. Or, for the slightly more savvy, you’ve got Debian and SuSe with network installs. And I keep spinning my wheels trying to figure out why I’d want to pay for Xandros, Lycoris, or Lindows when I can have a try-before-you-buy (or try-and-never-buy) alternative. Sure, it takes a tiny bit more know how (along with a braodband connection) to download and burn an ISO, but even non-techie folks with good CD burning software could do it with little to no instruction. So, what’s the draw here to distros like Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, et al? Even if they have a better offering (which their packages all look dated, so I’m not convinced), I’m so addicted to the try-before-I-buy aspect of RedHat that I’m at a loss for how these companies plan to draw customers.
99 dollars for business isn’t too bad especially becuase they will get non-publicized volume discounts.
For home users it is too high. Linux is still competing
with Windows. 30- 50 is a good range imho.
Over 50 is too pricey for home users.
Price is still one of the cornerstones of Linux’s appeal.
It is way too early to think you can get rid of it.
You would have to be insane to blow 199 on click and run.
Any Debian Distro plus synaptic and you are good to go.
Xandros did the right thing by issuing a standard distro
for 39.00
Hat off to them
Boxed Linux distros represent poor value for money. I’ve been running win2000 for 2 years and have had three free service packs. A Linux user would have purchased about six boxed sets in 3 years to keep current.
Anyone with a burner and broadband can simply get a pirated copy of XP Pro (and any other Windows software)for free.
A far better Linux distribution model is a cheap bundled PC, broadband and free software repository for the duration of the contract. This would be, say, $15 a month more than the broadband cost alone for a minimum of 2 years. Think AOL and Lindows with a Microtel PC.
Anyone with a burner and broadband can simply get a pirated copy of XP Pro (and any other Windows software)for free.
And I can go out and steal a mercedes benz so that makes it cheaper than other cars right?
This is a badly flawed argument.
“And I can go out and steal a mercedes benz so that makes it cheaper than other cars right?
This is a badly flawed argument.”
I’m not defending piracy just admitting it’s reality. $99 Xandros can’t compete with $0 pirated Windows XP in the home market.
If they could steal a Mercedes without fear of punishment many (most) people would.
If they could steal a Mercedes without fear of punishment many (most) people would.
Are you certain?
Does that say that windows users are lawless and reckless? I don’t think so.
My point is that using the steal it for nothing therefore the product is cheap. Isn’t a valid argument.
Why don’t people steal Xandros?
So bascically XP is only good if you steal it?
Most people like to get their OS included when they buy their computer. It is hard to try to sell the OS afterwards. How would a new OS benefit the customer? Changing from preinstalled Windows to Linux does not make sense if you do not get any additional functionality. The price has little to do with it. Why pay even $10 for something you already have? (I am talking about functionality here, not the pleasure of supporting free software).
Of course most Linux distros include much more than Windows does when counting applications. A Windows installaton typically only provides me with a browser, e-mail capabilities, a media player, cd-burning software (included with the cd-burner, Windows software only).
But if you add the free Openoffice.org suite you have a complete office desktop. The thing that is missing is software for development and Joe does not care. Functionality, not numbers, matters.
My home computer runs Windows XP Home (included at circa $130) with Openoffice.org and a couple of other Free/Shareware applications. I also have a small partition with Redhat 8.0 for testing purposes. (Redhat looks nice, but is sooo slow. I takes forever to open files and applications)
“So, what’s the draw here to distros like Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, et al? Even if they have a better offering (which their packages all look dated, so I’m not convinced), I’m so addicted to the try-before-I-buy aspect of RedHat that I’m at a loss for how these companies plan to draw customers.”
Don’t bunch Lycpris in with those other ones….you can try Lycoris before you buy. It is a freely downloadable ISO, and Joe Cheek has said it always will be.
The major draw to Lycoris is ease of use and configuartion. Alost everything is ready to go right out of the box…flash, java, etc….all installed and configured by default. It requires the least bit of tweaking of any distro I’ve used yet….though I haven’t tried Lindows or Xandros…for the same reasons you state…I want to try before I buy too. Lycoris les you do that.
I agree totally. You buy a PC with Windows pre-XP installed. You download a lot of free/opensource Windows software. Why go to the trouble of and expense of installing a new OS.