Guys
I am in the market research phase of planning to open a linux only computer store in the new york metro area , I have spent the last 4 months testing and evaluating hardware dealing with suppliers ect , also I have looked at over 40 distros I have settled on carrying machine preinstalled with linspire ,suse ,Mandrake and fedora but I will carry all the distros . here is my dilema software , I was in Comp Usa today all the commercial software you could imagine all for windows and mac none for linux , the problem is we have some great software but people who are trying to use linux for the first time dont want to know how to untar a tarball or lauch a rpm install and dont want names like gnucash or xawtv ect they want the flashy box and they want to pay for it ,is there a way that open source software developers can package a complete program like say for instance mplayer complete with a front end skins and codecs along with an installer? is it in keeping with the open source rules that you can yes download it for free and compile it ect but if you want to buy it with an installer here it is....does anyone know the legalities of this? because I cant see going forward with this idea if I cant sell software to new users .Thanks in advance for any feedback.

it is absolutely in keeping with the open source license if you would like to provide stuff like that
just include the license and the source code. free never means free as in no money it means free as in the user gets the source code.
that's is an exact description of what corporations like redhat do

U can preinstall the required software and a charge an amount on the services u provide..

Binary installers (like a windows wizard) are already being used for Java and Firefox , as well as any closed source linux program (Matlab foir intance).

The problem is that open source gets updated so often that it would be hard too have people keep up. You would need the programs to come with to have an update applet.

It seems that the real allure of the store should be in a providing flesh and blood help for linux users who don't want to learn linux.

You would probably have to limit service to the major distros, but it could work.

Well heres the thing , I want to provide a place where regular experienced linux users can find hardware that is tested as compatable I will be selling high end gaming machines as well as budgit pc's all built onsite with the drives already ghosted , but for new users to linux and hopefully these will provide quite a chunk of the business they need to see software on the shelves for us linux users its no biggy but for those still under the spell of bill gates and company they are used to going to staples or comp usa buy a machine with xp and stroll to the software section pick up a game or two and then some publishing software or maybe quickbooks , you guys know what I mean ,

Also , for instance open office is a great product I use it at home and work but is there printed user manuals the updates I think can be taken care of thru say yast for suse and yum ect for fedora my idea say you want a gentoo box I have say 160 gig drives ghosted with a bare system ie kde libs 3.3 mplayer and xine with all the codecs ect packaged say with the regular openoffice and the usual stuff but if that user sees say gnucash [ a great program ] the person if new to linux wont have a clue but if he wants a finacial program and can go to the store a look on the shelf and see a box that says 'money manager' and when he puts in the cd and reads the enclosed manual he can install it without having to go to the terminal and untar the tarball copy to the usr/bin the ./configure ect and all that now I tried to create a rpm for gnucash from source with all the dependancies ect on suse 9.1 it worked great but on mandrake 10.0 I got lib dep errors and this is a problem now I know it can be done because I have baught loki games and star office and the install was simple .What are the requirements under open source for the developers can they come out with a box edition of their software and sell it provided they still leave the source free?
More feedback needed this store is my dream for past three years and now its almost time to commit I start looking at rentals next week .

http://rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/mandra...2mdk.i586.html

no need to go about reinventing the wheel !

i'm not really sure it's a good idea to make it "seem" like windows.....
that's a mistake alot of Linux developers make as well.
most people don't have such a good experience with windows and seems like people would like getting a computer with the sofware they need already on it.

noting is as easy to do as nothing at all..

one thing i like is the idea of highly customized boxes to do different things -- there is a company that will build you a high end recording studio workstation and they charge 400 dollars over hardware price..

since you don't have to pay for the programms for Linux customers can use their money to buy people power.. costom linux guru work

highly customized kernels and kernels for P4 compiled with Intel compiler rather than gcc and high performance stuff like that..

sounds like a good idea customized hardware and software ect and charging for the service.. makes sense , thanks!

Personally I <3 slackware, but I think i would have to push gentoo or debian on the nibs if you think they are going to want to install software ect


what is easier than "apt-get install apache" or emerge blah-blah

want an installer? just write a script that they can click on that will run that command :P


they dont even have to figure out how to download stuff.