Avoid being tricked into phoney implementations of "Linux Point of Sale"

Some other companies are trying to fool you.
You can protect yourself by arming yourself with the knowledge of what a genuine Linux and UNIX installation looks like.

Trick Number One

Instead of running a Linux multiuser client application in the office, they run a single user Windows file serving application in the office.  Yes, there are companies that do this and claim that they now have Linux POS.  This would be very funny if it were intended to be funny.  It is intended to trick you into thinking that you are using Linux when you aren't and to raise the company's Wall Street value.

Trick Number Two
Instead of using X terminals to serve up the graphical interface portion of the POS client application without sending files back and forth, they use the old PC design which requires computers at every display.  These computers have Linux installed on them and run Java programs at each display, but they are called terminals.  A computer such as this is not a terminal and is not being used as a terminal.  It's a computer being used as a computer, constantly sending and receiving files to make it look like it is a terminal.  But terminals do not share files, they only serve up the interface and accept user input - that's all.  Calling a computer a terminal doesn't make it a terminal.  And running a unique copy of Linux for each user is a stupid way to misuse Linux. way to misuse Linux.

Trick Number Three
Instead of writing POS software according to the UNIX/Linux design of a multiuser application, they port the existing Windows software to Linux.  It's a Windows design implemented on Linux.  It's the wrong thing to do.

Reject POS systems which make use of Linux in single user mode and which do not use Linux on the application host under X Windows.  Single user operating systems like Windows, Windows NT or Windows 2000 are used as a file server in this phoney Linux implementation.  This is not how anyone can truly leverage the low cost, high performance, reliability and speed of Linux.


Virtually every other POS software in the world is based on Windows.  The other high end players are using NT, which appeared in `96.  The last Service Pack, VI, arrived for NT last year.  There will be no more.

Windows 2000, 128 Mb RAM, 500 Mb hard disk installation, 500 Mhz CPU requirement.  Those are some of the reasons other POS software manufacturers will be sticking with a 4 year old OS.  Here's another reason why you may not see Windows 2000 POS systems anytime soon:

Tulsa World reported on Feb 20, 2000, that a version of Windows n Feb 20, 2000, that a version of Windows 2000 supplied to the Oklahoma Court Information System has so many bugs in it that the entire justice system has ground to a halt. The system was installed just before the end of l1999 to minimise disruption from the Y2K bug. It was intended to be the first integrated statewide court system in the US, and mainframe computers were thrown out to be replaced by Windows 2000.  The system is down for days, throwing the entire due process of law into chaos. System errors regularly crash the system, stopping work for hours at a time.   Tulsa World quoted judge David Peterson as saying: "The whole thing's a mess."
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