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Linspire Inc. and Mirus Innovations LLC Wednesday announced the launch of Koobox, a new line of desktop computers that exclusively run Linux. Starting at $299 (sans monitor), the Koobox PCs come with Linspires Linux 5.0 operating system. They also include the OpenOffice.org office suite, Firefox, and numerous other open-source programs.
“The Koobox line is unique in that all of the computers are optimized for utilizing Linux exclusively,” said Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony.
“In fact, none of these machines even offer Microsoft Windows as an option, which is a new, bold step for a major OEM. The fact that Mirus has devoted an entire brand to desktop Linux shows just how much ground Linux is gaining,” said Carmony.
The Koobox also comes with a one-year subscription to Linspires CNR Gold Service. This is the equivalent of Linspires Linspire Five-0 and a one-year CNR Gold subscription, which lists for $89.95.
The Koobox comes in three versions: a basic machine, multimedia machine with DVD player, and a high-performance machine.
The Essential Koobox comes with a CD-RW drive, five USB 2.0 ports (including a convenient front-side port), keyboard and optical mouse, and a pair of speakers. Under the hood, it has a 2 Ghz AMD Sempron 2800+ processor, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and onboard video and sound.
At $399, consumers may purchase the Multimedia Koobox, which has the Essential Koobox specs plus a 16x Dual Layer DVD+RW drive, 512 MB RAM, and 160 GB hard drive. For a processor, the Multimedia Koobox uses the 2GHz AMD Sempron 3000+.