Xtra PC......is this a joke?
 

Hey guyz! first of all a happy new year to all of ya. I was introduced to linux just 2 months ago by my dad and fell in love with it. Coming to the topic, have you guyz heared of this thing called Xtra PC? I mean it is kinda old but im just curious that why someone would pay 20 bucks just for some live linux Distro burned into a sandisk nano lookalike pendrive...when you can make it yourself? And does anyone knows which linux are they using? By the look of it, seems like a version of lubuntu. They told me that they can give the source code if requested but still i dont think its fair to sell something like linux which is already free......so what do you guyz think?



P.S..........sorry for my english. :)

If anyone does not know what i am talking about-https://www.xtra-pc.com/

Hi ajhunter, I feel it is a marketing attempt. Various forms of Linux have always been for sale. Some commercially because they have support and special offerings, but also distributions already installed on media have been for sale, at cheaper prices like you see with Xtra PC. You are correct, it is also available for free in other forms, here people are paying for convenience really.

Looks like it's marketed toward people who are very computer illiterate, who might find it a challenge to pick a distro, find its website, choose the right ISO, download it, check the md5, and properly burn it onto a CD/DVD/USB.

Completely legal and ethical. :)

Exactly my thouhts.....looks like companies know how to take advantage of people who have no Idea of Linux or Operating systems in general.

Heh. While supplies last. Seems like something bound to get sued in my country. And probably doesn't work at all for computers that pre-date 2006, when booting from USB was less common (without chainloading from an optical drive). Marketing for sure, recalling a time when knoppix did this sort of thing (functionally). Then ubuntu got popular and didn't use KDE. That snake oil of pay more money and the same product is magically better, faster, stronger, full of super powers.

Meh, I look at it more like oil changing places. Changing your own oil is incredibly simple and easy, yet some people are afraid of it and/or would rather pay somebody else to do it for them. It doesn't mean they're being taken advantage of, they're getting exactly what they pay for, they just don't feel like learning how to do it themselves. Or maybe the couple of hours it would take for them to learn how to do it themselves is worth more to them than the $25 this place charges.

Nobody is taking advantage of anybody. $25 is a totally fair price for an 8gb thumb drive with Linux. You could maybe save a few $ if you shopped around, for example Amazon has them for only $19.95: https://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-Linux-...dp/B01FN1CRYW/

How is this any different than Walnut Creek or any other provider who used to press the CDs and ship them to you? Yes, GNU/Linux is freely obtainable. You're paying for someone to do it for you: providing you the media, setting it up on the media, AND shipping it to you. Seems reasonable to me.

Or they just hate the thought of laying on the ground to do it themselves, and don't have access to a lift.

But yeah, agreed. I don't see people being taken advantage of, but probably wouldn't purchase it myself, either.

Somebody had the idea to make more money than I do.

Oh well. Same thing was done with Cd packs of Linux on ebay back in the day.
I even bought one when I was on dialup. I was clueless as a west Texas hick in
Times Square in NYC when it came to computers then.

A 16 gb SanDisk thubdrive just costs $7.8 on Amazon with free shipping. Speaking of linux....any website has detailed info about about installing a linux in a USB very easily......my general idea is that the people who buy this product do not no that how the "xtra pc" is able to do the stuff which is advertised. Sooner or later when they will come to know the "techiel stuff" behind it, they will surely regret buying it. You can even burn puppy linux in a usb drive... And surely it will also run smoothly in any pc which supports usb boot. Don't forget once a user becomes user friendly towards linux..... He can do much more than just "social media, games, recover old files" as advertised.

Granted, however it takes some time to immerse ones self into Linux to learn the more advanced topics. Ubuntu or Mint are both good starter desktop versions. Both of those sites have instructions how to download and burn to a CD/DVD/USB stick.

So... Xtra PC is charging $7 for the thumb drive, plus $18 to cover R&D, payroll, rent, insurance, web hosting, marketing, advertising, other expenses, and of course, a little left over for profit. Sounds fair to me. Unless you are Amazon.com with a high volume and razor-thin profit margin, you're not going to run a successful business selling $7 thumb drives for $7. Most for-profit businesses charge a markup, otherwise what's the point of getting up and going to work in the morning? ;)

make the grandma test and see which option she chooses:
that, or the whole thing "Just Working" for an additional 12$.
if she chooses the one outlined by you, i will buy myself a red hat just to eat it!

your argument is akin to saying:
"why buy bread when grain is so much cheaper. selling bread is unethical."