'No virus' Linux PCs break into supermarkets

France's number one supermarket chain, Carrefour, has launched a pilot project to sell PCs that come equipped with an OS not often sold by the retail big boys - Mandrake Linux.

Called "Compubox" by the supermarket, the PC is available from Carrefour's internet site to shoppers from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Monaco, with the machines rumoured to be sold in one or two Carrefour stores from August.

If the pilot works out, Carrefour may widen the initiative to all of its supermarkets in time for one of the biggest retail pushes of the year - when kids return to school in September.

Carrefour has, for the moment, declined to comment on the pilot but Mandrakesoft's French arm is feeling a little more talkative.

"It was Carrefour that came to see us about the project", Paul Giullet, Mandrakesoft's commercial director said. According to him, Carrefour is following the example of Wal-Mart in the US, which is selling PCs with Linspire's operating system or the Java Desktop System. Moreover, the French supermarket giant is "sensitive to the maturity of Linux".

"From our perspective, it represents a good occasion to woo the public when our customers are, at the moment, in businesses," Guillet said. As is the custom in the world of open source, Mandrakesoft is counting on earning a huge amount of money from the distribution deal - in the contract with Carrefour, each copy of Mandrake Linux will earn the company €30, according to Guillet.

The purchase of a Compubox entitles the buyer to one month of technical support - only via the web, mind - from Mandrakesoft, one month of security patch downloads and one month of membership to the Mandrake Club, which offers updates to its programmes.

If a user wants to carry on with the help after the initial month, they will have to spend €95 for a year of technical support, which covers up to five incidents; €20 for the patches and €120 for Mandrake Club membership.

The trial is an important one for Mandrakesoft. If it works, the other players in big retail could show some similar interest. "I think LeClerc [supermarkets], FNAC [a music and entertainment chain] and others could follow and we're going to get in contact with them, not with a view to the start of the school year - that's already too late - but with a view to next Christmas," said Guillet.

Carrefour is selling the Compubox PC for €299 without a monitor. The supermarket also highlights on its website that the PC "isn't delivered with Windows XP OS" and that it's meant for users who are "well-informed" about different computing methods.

It goes on to say "the near-ubiquitous Microsoft have found their counterpart in Mandrakelinux… Mandrakelinux can be modified at will while Windows is a lot less flexible," and adds "there are no Mandrakelinux viruses".

The text was written by Mandrakesoft but Carrefour has checked every word, according to the supermarket chain.

Christophe Guillemin writes for ZDNet France