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The shelves may be empty, but the disk is full: Not even Linux can resist the bork at times

Walmart Canada takes a break from slinging ads

Bork!Bork!Bork! In today's edition of sickly signage, we have a prime example of transatlantic bork from one of Canada's finest retailers.

Snapped by Register reader Ralph Grabowski, in an Abbotsford Walmart, the afflicted Samsung screen can normally be found encouraging shoppers to buy more stuff.

Now it is simply bereft space. Crammed to capacity, the disk is likely groaning under the weight of... stuff. Unlike some shelves at certain retailers where once essentials such as toilet paper and cleaning products enjoyed pride of place.

LILO, the Linux loader visible on screen, was to be found in many distros back in the day and lingers on even as the likes of GRUB have supplanted it. Similarly the INIT line: that version 2.78 speaks of gentler times, back when this particular bit of kit was put together.

Sadly, the boot process is now festooned with storage errors before stalling at runlevel 3. We're guessing this is something along the lines of multi-user mode with a bit of networking, but have no doubt that someone will be along soon enough to correct us.

"Using Linux," Grabowski observed dryly, "is probably how Walmart saves shoppers money."

A good thing too. The company's financials for the last quarter (PDF) saw a small drop in net sales for Canada, although profits and income were up. Its UK tentacle did not fare so well. Clearly needs more Linux.

Walmart modestly declares itself as one of Canada's top 10 most influential brands – ahead of Visa but some way behind YouTube – and its more than 400 stores serve over 1.2 million happy Canucks.

Sadly, it appears that among more than 85,000 "associates", it has yet to find one that understands Linux.

Just like much of the rest of the world. ®

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