Desktop Linux's main selling point over Windows is its low price tag, but determining whether its lower dollar cost is worth some of its disadvantages turns out to be not a very simple thing to do. The price difference between a Linux system and a comparable Windows system may be a couple hundred dollars -- but what exactly does that mean to a typical computer user? To some people, Windows may seem to have certain advantages that justify its extra cost, while others say that Linux, because of its reliability, is even cheaper than it appears.

On Wal-Mart's Web site, you can buy a bare-bones PC running either Lindows or Lycoris for $199. These machines -- equipped with a 1-gigahertz processor, a 10-GB hard drive and an Ethernet card, but no monitor or modem or floppy drive -- are most likely the cheapest new retail PCs on the planet, and during the last holiday season, both companies sold out of them. The identical Windows system -- all of the machines are put together by the hardware firm Microtel -- sells for $300. On average, though, buying a Linux machine rather than a Windows machine will save more than $100, say Linux advocates. That's because with Linux, you'll use a lot of free software and you'll need to upgrade your system less often than with resource-hungry Windows, so the long-term costs of owning a Linux machine are probably less than those of owning a Windows system. "Our average consumer will save about $200," says Jason Spisak, Lycoris' marketing director.

There is, though, a cost to using Linux, one that even the desktop Linux companies will freely discuss. In the words of Paul Murphy, a computer consultant who has written extensively about the costs and benefits of both systems, Linux has a "hassle factor," mostly having to do with new software for the system. Lindows and Lycoris have each built good online services to make sure their customers can easily install software that the companies have preselected for their systems. (Lycoris' service is free, while Lindows charges an annual fee of $100.) But Murphy and others point out that it's still easier to find and install new software for Windows. That has partly to do with the way Linux software is distributed, and the desktop Linux firms are trying to address it; but it's also true that much of the retail software industry is geared toward Windows.

"There are definitely people who come to us and say, 'I have these three or four programs, and I really want to get rid of Windows but I want to run these things -- can I run them?'" says Joseph Cheek, Lycoris' founder and president. "Our strategy is to try to move them to Linux alternatives. For instance, if they're using Office XP, we tell them, 'Well, you can run our ProductivityPak."

Still, Cheeks says that people often ask, "'How do you get this software?' That's a big question for people who are used to going to their local store and buying a boxed copy of software. All of a sudden you might not be able to do that, and some people say they really need to have that."

From a simple cost-benefit analysis, then, you'd have to ask whether desktop Linux's low price is worth its hassle. For some people, the hassle might not matter too much -- cost is king.

Miguel de Icaza, an open-source developer who founded Gnome, a Linux desktop environment, says that he doesn't think Linux will topple Windows as a mass-consumer OS anytime soon, but he believes Linux is well suited to certain environments where software needs are limited and low overhead is essential. These are large companies and government agencies that "want to simplify large-scale deployments, they want to easily administer hundreds of systems, and they can identify a few tasks that the computer will be used for," de Icaza wrote in an e-mail. Such tasks require basic software -- for office work, Web browsing, and e-mail -- and "for all those 'major' uses, Linux is an acceptable solution, as those applications exist today, they are usable, and they inter-operate with the Windows-side universe."

"In short," de Icaza added, "call centers, retail, accounting, secretaries, engineering, imaging, modeling and others have needs that are addressable today, and given that the scope is finite, and well defined, Linux will work there."

Many PC sales analysts say that for home users, the price difference of $100 or $200 between Windows and Linux is not going to push people over to the open-source OS. Few people who consider a $300 or $400 Windows PC too expensive will decide that a $200 Linux PC is what they want. "It's very hard for me to believe that for the one-third of households that don't have a computer, price is the main impediment," says Steve Baker, an analyst who tracks PC sales at the research firm NPD Techworld. "You can buy an entry-level Windows PC for less than $500, and there's lots of places where you can get free financing if you can't come up with $500. So I don't know that price is the main barrier for those people."

Michael Robertson, of Lindows, believes just the opposite. "Cost is always a factor in any buying decision, and it could be the huge factor here," he says. When Robertson looks out at the PC market, he sees an endless opportunity for low-cost machines, even among people who might not have thought they needed a computer, or for households where, in the past, just one PC seemed enough. To Robertson, the logic of his business seems plain. "It's not a very secret recipe for business," he says. "When you lower the cost of an item, you see more demand." After all, whether you have a lot of money or a little, why wouldn't you be interested in a $200 computer?

"It's really like asking, Who flies Southwest Airlines?" Robertson says. The answer is that everybody flies Southwest Airlines. And that's exactly the same thing you're seeing with low-cost computing. We're seeing people say, 'I outfitted my whole school with the Wal-Mart $199 PC.' Somebody else says, 'I set it up as a media server in my house.' It's like, when you lowered the price of cars, who bought them? Everybody bought them. The poor people who couldn't afford one car bought one, and the rich people who already had a car bought another one."

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