Sub $200 Linux machine is a sell out

That's great news, not everyone can afford to spend mega bucks on a machine, and it does the job for web browsing. e-mail and general office work.

@ Andrew - why would you want to spoil this PC by installing XP? Extra ram and a Windows licence isn't going to be that cheap.

I thought these PCs have these MicroATX boards in then: http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered/pc2500_mainboard/index.jsp

I think I might download the OS from here and have a look: http://www.thinkgos.com/

Rob

This is an excellent idea, not everyone plays the latest and greatest games or needs 500GB of storage. A great machine if all you need is office and surfing the web etc or would make a great second machine in a home. 

If it becomes available in the UK I will be buying one, without a doubt.

here in England you can't even buy a mini itx mobo with C7 for £100, never mind a whole system.

looking at the full spec it should run XP ok (if you have to) you can always stick double the RAM in.

If it ever makes it across the pond i bet it costs £200($400) and then not so attractive

The motherboard/CPU bundle used in this machine is still available from ClubIT in the US for $60 (incl. free groud shipping to US address, excl. any local taxes). You need someone who is a US resident to sign up on the site for an account, if you're not one already, but if you do know such a soul then you can get a rather nice C7 based board (with a copy of gOS) for about 30 quid - huzzah !

For more details see

http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001

You can get the Cpu, Mobo, and a 1GB stick of Ram for 60$ here
http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001

I've taken some old machines out of mothballs and downloaded gOS (the OS used by the $199 PC) and it works very well. After I added Adobe Flash and customized the application dock-bar, I was able to give the PC to my 11-year old. Where she had previously complained about XP being slow on my wife's newer PC, she's right at home with her "new" gOS box. 

This lightweight OS does a pretty good job and is definitely worth a look by anyone that wants to take an old box and give it new life as a web-surfing-document-writing workstation.

"Under the bonnet is a cut down version of Ubuntu, called Enlightenment."

Englightenment is a desktop environment, Ubuntu is a distribution. Does the machine use Ubuntu + Enlightenment as the DE? Or is it another distribution under it all, with just Enlightenment as the shell?

"Having a look at the screenshots, Enlightenment looks like a green version of the Apple operating system."

Errrm.... right. Because it has a dock, it is a green OSX clone? Ok. That green will no doubt just be a theme. In fact, there might even be an OSX-clone one :)

This news item would have been interesting if it was written by someone who knew what they were talking about.

Err... just wanna correct you here:

You said, "Under the bonnet is a cut down version of Ubuntu, called Enlightenment. This GUI is a lot lighter than Gnome or KDE and is a hell of a lot faster than Vista. It also does not need much of a spec to get a decent effect."

Enlightenment is a "Window Manager/Desktop Environment". Ubuntu is the operating system. Ubuntu can have Gnome or KDE desktop environments, or the Enlightenment desktop environment.

The operating system is still just Ubuntu, there's no difference between it and any other copy of Ubuntu, apart from which packages are installed, of which I assume there are fewer. Is that what you meant?

Anybody could also install Gnome / KDE if they wanted, nothing's stopping them from doing so.

Enlightenment is only a window manager like KDE or gnome.

Ok to the jet powered propeller head zealots relax. I'm a huge Linux fan and I just so happen to use Ubuntu. 

Now to clear everyone up on this.... since i downloaded gOS 3 days after it was released(wow The Inq is slipping, I got there first this time;) and played around with for a few days. This is as some of the jet powered propeller heads mentioned is that Enlightenment is a desktop not an OS. If any of you zealots would have checked, guess this newer generation is getting a little lazy... the repositories used of updating the system is ubuntu repositories and it also has a googlepc repository since ubuntu does not have E17 in it's repository list, ubuntu has E16. 

gOS system uses E17 which is very new and it is very pretty. I would say that on the non-standard hardware.... this is a via based mobo and I have a nvidia based laptop using nvidia based mobo, therefore not the normal hardware that has been tested and developed with this gOS .... I've had a few glitches mostly around icon themes (seems if an app does not have a specified icon in the current theme it shows no icon and when you try to change it the gui crashes and restart... minor nuance but it is still in alpha stage when download the image for thinkgos.com). 

I do hope I hear much more about this system selling out because this might just force Mr Microsoft to finally realize they don't own the world and they can't force software and methods upon it's citizens.... Don't get me wrong, I do want MS to stay around and not die because they do some things well but they need to be taken down several notches and start playing nice with EVERYONE!!!!! on EVERYTHING!!!! no technology tie-ins, no stupid "only works with MS products" BS that they are guilty of since ever.

So chillax on the "I am holier than though" crap and let the man speak. This is big stuff, especially for the 60+ percent of people who really can't justify spending (at least here in Canada costs 150.00 OEM for basic version of Vista, which to some people is half a month of eating or more... free os and I get to eat for the next two weeks, or buy windows and hope I don't die in the process.... and yeah that sounds extreme and you may be asking your self why would someone like that need a system if they are so poor.... wake the hell up, here in Canada there is very little you can do when dealing with anyone, especially the government these days without a computer)

FYI gOS is based on Ubuntu 7.10(Da Gutsy Gibbon) using mostly ubuntu repositories and googlepc repository... kinda funny codename for this iteration is "painful".

This machine makes for a great home user Linux starter machine, but with the new high graphic 3D games coming out for Linux everyday the average user will have to buy a new machine in a fews years if they expect to play these types of games.

I've looking at the machines over at InaTux.com and they seem perfect for the average home user and for the average Linux gamer, if you're lookin' to do that kinda stuff you slould consider them.