Speaking of Linux...
I received an email from TigerDirect tonight with one of their usual incredible sales at the top. As other readers have pointed out, if you can catch one of their sales and avoid getting lost in rebate heck, TigerDirect is a great place to get some deals. This particular deal was on a barebones PC kit, complete with Pentium D, a gig of RAM, a snazzy case, and a power supply for $150. You supply a video card and hard drive and you're ready to go. Not too bad, right? Certainly a nice project machine for my computer club or an introductory computing class (or a college student, or a high school kid, or...well, you get the idea).
A smaller picture underneath the main ad suggested that I "Add an OS to [my] kit". For the low, low price of $139.99, I could be running XP Pro. $199 would score me Vista Ultimate. While it's true that I could certainly beat this price with academic licensing deals from Microsoft, I'm still getting a little too close to the price of the computer just for an OS.
And now, my point. Why would I possibly put Windows on this machine? Keep in mind that, despite my pro-Linux bias, I run a largely Windows shop. Windows just plain works, and as I noted in my last post, confused, upset users aren't usually worth the potential benefits of open source operating systems. However, if low acquisition cost is my goal, then Microsoft will not help me achieve it.
George Ou posted a really cool article on building your own all-in-one PC. He managed to do it for $380 and probably could have squeezed prices further by scaling back some of his components. For $765, he built himself quite a nice all-in-one workstation. At these budget prices, though, it's very hard to justify adding licensing costs. As the title says, speaking of Linux, when there are great, free alternatives out there that function remarkably well, even adding $60-$70 depending on your licensing scheme is tough to swallow.
A lot has changed in the last year in terms of Linux. Purchasing equipment from a major OEM with Windows installed is one thing. If you're rolling your own, though, with the upcoming releases of OpenSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10 this month, I can't think of many reasons (outside of serious PC gaming which is irrelevant in education) to license Windows. Can you? Talk back below if you can.