Robert Pogson

In the good old days of monopoly, M$ was spreading FUD with SCOG and it stuck:

“After an extensive evaluation in which RadioShack compared Windows® and Linux, the company selected Microsoft® Windows Server System™ and Windows XP Embedded because the platform offered lower long-term costs, less risk, better alignment with long-term technical strategy, stronger vendor support, and better use of existing development and IT operations skills. The company’s move to Windows will reduce the number of servers in its stores by 50 percent and save millions of dollars”

That was in 2006 when RadioShack had a server with M$’s burden and a POS stack with a UNIX operating system. Of course it was cheaper to eliminate the UNIX server but it would have been cheaper still to have eliminated the server lugging under that other OS and going with GNU/Linux alone…

Flash forward to 2012. Rather than worrying about “risks” of selling/using GNU/Linux RadioShack is selling PCs with GNU/Linux.

see "RadioShack Saves Millions of Dollars by Choosing Windows over Linux" (2006).

see More information on the Ubuntu laptop sold at Radioshack (and Computer Shop) (2012)

see it sold in Egypt… (today)

I fondly remember shopping at RadioShack in the old days, buying the odd battery or part. I even bought stuff from RadioShack while in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. Ahhh the good old days… Today is a better day, though, if you like freedom with your software. I recommend Debian GNU/Linux but Ubuntu GNU/Linux will do, I suppose.