Linux in the Real world.

[Infatuated_iPod]

I started workin part time at Burlington Coat factory in august, i am a sales associate. Anyway, it surprised me that the store used Red hat on all of its computers instead of windows. Most stores in the mall are stuck on windows and are afraid to use anything else. I was very surprised and excited that my store had been using linux for years and they are not afraid of anything bad happening. The best part of it all is that everything works flawlessly. Stuff in the store goes wrong all of the time, but there has never, ever been a problem with the computers! It is amazing, i am almost positive that if they were using Windows things would be going wrong all of the time and they would need an IT expert there to fix all of their problems. The linux revolution is alive and well, first burlington , next the whole world!

[Magneto]

wow never knew any large chains used linux for POS
IBM has the market on lockdown but maybe not for long
One more reason to shop at Burlington
Hey infatuated let me get a leather coat half off:)

[adbak]

I'll have to start shopping at Burlington Coat Factory now.

[BWF89]

Whenever I go to Lowes Home Improvement (a major chain in America) I see that they have some sort of Linux installed. I can't tell what distro it is, I think they might use their own because their equivilent of a linux start button says "LOWES" and has an animated picture of a Lowes store under it. They also use this program called "Genesis" to check their invintory, see what time they are working, and everything else...

[Magneto]

probably aix if the computers are ibm- if they are hp - hpux possibly as400's too but I doubt it
the logon screen -start button etc can be manipulated in most operating systems

[Infatuated_iPod]

I dont even get them half of magneto, haha :o

[maxkelley]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I visited Lowe's today and have more info. They are using a themed version of KDE, mostly on XTerms/low-resource machines (some are full-blown IBM P4 desktops, however. I saw one today with Xpdf and Mozilla open.. the Xpdf usage sorta interested me. I figured they would have used a proprietary (such as adobe) reader, but they were just using Xpdf.

[teet]

Whenever I go to Lowes Home Improvement (a major chain in America) I see that they have some sort of Linux installed. I can't tell what distro it is, I think they might use their own because their equivilent of a linux start button says "LOWES" and has an animated picture of a Lowes store under it. They also use this program called "Genesis" to check their invintory, see what time they are working, and everything else...

I was in Lowe's a few months ago and also noticed that they were running a non-windows OS. If I remember correctly, they were running some version of KDE. Of course, I have no idea if it was actually linux...can't BSD, solaris, etc run KDE or gnome as well?

Anywho, I just thought it was really cool. A lot of times businesses seem to be running programs that were hand made for them. Why waste money on a windows license when you really only need your computers to run one custom program?

-teet

[aysiu]

This is "the real world," but it's not stores:
Linux kiosks come to the aid of natural disaster victims (http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/16/1949219)

[IYY]

- My university uses RedHat for most of the machines in the CS department.

- I visited a youth hostel in San Francisco that had various distros on the guest computers in the lobby (although they were rather poorly maintained).

[mkc84]

This is a kind of old thread but I just wanted to say that I know that Lowe's uses Linux. This is due to the fact that I work there and that I restarted one of the computers today to watch it reboot. It called the OS "Lowe's Linux" and use the 2.4 kernel. It also uses mplayer to play the little videos and things we have to watch, and a mozilla browser of some type.
Thats all I really know.

[jflaker]

Home Depot is 100% Linux, for Point of Sale at least.

The IT department can connect to and correct any store's back office system or point of sale register. From an administration standpoint, Linux has cut their costs in licensing as well as support.

There are MANY other retailers who are Linux that you wouldn't think were.........

[bruce89]

/me wonders why this has been bumped.

[mr.propre]

Pearl (a Dutch/Belgian Optician) use some kind of Linux system to handle there order. I was shopping for new glasses and when they showed me the computer screen I saw a real huge KDE clock.

I thought about telling something like "wow, you use Linux", but they probably don't even know it and it would have spoiled the moment. ^_^

[jomiolto]

Wow, some serious thread necromancy :)

Another funny thing is still seeing those 80x25 text mode applications used these days. There's this electronics store near where I live that has all the systems running in text mode (I'm quite sure they are running on XP, though, but I couldn't be sure).

Just goes to show that bling-bling graphics aren't everything ;)

[-grubby]

It seems like it's almost a bi-annual thing to bump this thread.

[smartboyathome]

It seems like it's almost a bi-annual thing to bump this thread.

Two year difference between these two posts makes it not even close to bi-annual :P


I dont even get them half of magneto, haha :o


Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I visited Lowe's today and have more info. They are using a themed version of KDE, mostly on XTerms/low-resource machines (some are full-blown IBM P4 desktops, however. I saw one today with Xpdf and Mozilla open.. the Xpdf usage sorta interested me. I figured they would have used a proprietary (such as adobe) reader, but they were just using Xpdf.

[3rdalbum]

I used to work at an electrical store where the Point Of Sale was running on Red Hat. It was a text-mode program run over SSH, with the local computers running something similar to Putty on Windows. But the backend was Linux.

I now work at a furniture store. I'm not sure if it's Linux or Unix, but they are definitely running FVWM on top of X11.

[mr.propre]

Offtopic:

Sorry for the bump but if I made a new topic, it probably would be closed with links to this treath. Don't know if there is a
if($topicAge>$xDays){ makeNewTopic();} - policy

[handy]

In 1990 I worked for Kodak where we had Sun workstations & I was one of the few who had the job of fixing the evil IBM photocopiers; they weighted 800kg, had twice as many moving parts as the average family car & were built to hurt the people that serviced them. :-|

[Jusdogmatik]

I know this is an old thread (Came across it in a Google search trying to find a copy of the Lowe's Linux) I work there and can say that they are are running Linux. A version aptly titled Lowe's Linux. When you boot it up you see a penguin drawn out in text with the tittle drawn out next to it. From what I saw the registers alone are running lintel 4.2 gig processors. I didn't catch the ram. That seems like a lot for that but who am I to say. I believe there also using KDE but I'm not that familiar with KDE so don't quote me on that. They are using a version of Firefox and xpdf. On most of the registers (all except for commercial sales) the computers boots straight into the Genesis system. Which having to use it a lot I can say that I is much more simple to use than you would think. In fact all of the computers in the store except for one in the training room run Linux. The self check outs run windows so as such they are always giving us problems. (Not surprising that is the most hated station in the store)

[dragos240]

This is "the real world," but it's not stores:
Linux kiosks come to the aid of natural disaster victims (http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/16/1949219)

Don't you just love 404 not found errors?

[aysiu]

Don't you just love 404 not found errors?
About as much as I love people quoting posts from almost three years ago.

Here's the Google cache of the article (http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:FRv86rxfBR8J:www.linux.com/feature/56512+linux+kiosks+come+to+the+aid+of&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us).

Don't quote this post in February 2012, okay?

[t0p]

Don't you just love 404 not found errors?

aysiu posted that link in August 2006 - that's nearly 3 years ago! So it's hardly surprising that it goes nowhere now...

[hanzomon4]

About as much as I love people quoting posts from almost three years ago.

Here's the Google cache of the article (http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:FRv86rxfBR8J:www.linux.com/feature/56512+linux+kiosks+come+to+the+aid+of&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us).

Don't quote this post in February 2012, okay?

It would be awesome if he did

[LiQuidAiR]

it would be awesome if he did

lol

[Kareeser]

I don't really see a problem with resurrecting old posts... as long as they're good posts.

I like this post.

===

Anyway, I believe some stores use text interfaces only because it's got a sort of "focused" attitude to it. Less can go wrong when you're dealing with a bunch of text, and not a buggy GUI with crappy error handling.

[MaxIBoy]

The cashiers at Taco Bell run SCO Unix... or did, I'm not sure anyone would want anything to do with SCO anymore.


Anyway, back on topic... I've been seeing more and more Linux on netbooks these days. I don't really go to stores much more these days (better deals online,) but I do see a lot of Linux books in the bookstore.

[yoasif]

autozone in the US also runs linux (http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=AutoZone).