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Open Source Linux Based POS Systems?

Posted by Cliff on Thu Jun 12, 2003 08:45 PM
from the third-time's-the-charm dept.
Software Linux
tha_mink asks: "I am currently working for a number of clients that have very similar needs for a cost-effective POS system that may be integrated online. (read : cheap if not free) These are all small business clients with small budgets and so I would like to suggest something Linux-based, with a nice GUI, and a database I can get at through the web (PostgreSQL would be great). I have searched for and read the past Slashdot articles on the subject only to find that they are old and out of date. I have also done numerous google searches only to find that there is not a clear leader. My clients don't really need things like payroll and purchasing but inventory control, accounting, and customer storage are important. So I ask: What systems are available to fulfill the needs of small business without breaking the bank and without requiring any software from Redmond?"
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[+] Open Source Point-of-Sale - What's Out There? 61 comments
aztektum asks: "I have taken on the task of designing a building a networked Point-of-Sale system for a friends new restaurant/club. We have looked at out of the box solutions, but their upfront costs are a bit staggering, so I suggested a DIY approach. We are going to buy hardware outright, probably using Elo touch-screens and basic white boxes. It's the software that we're coming up short on. We are looking for a system that has good back-end management (running reports for end of day, from a central location and other such features), has a flexible/customizable UI, and as a bonus doesn't suffer from too much proprietary lock-in. Since Elo's screens have Linux support, I wanted to see if anyone on Slashdot has worked on similar projects and has experience with open source POS solutions. I have Google'd a bit and found some options, but I cannot spend a lot time testing out multiple setups because of a firm deadline. Quite bluntly, what's the best but least expensive option that you know of?" This is not the first time this particular issue has appeared on Ask Slashdot. The last discussion on this particular issue was way back in 2003. What has changed since then?
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Open Source Linux Based POS Systems? 45 Comments More /

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  • e-machines (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 12 2003, @08:47PM (#6187447)
    I got one of those cheapo e-machines once.. that thing was a real P.O.S. lemme tell yah...

    is that what you're talking about? :-)
  • Kiss the rat race goodbye!

    Although, the meaning of POS is ambiguous, in this case.

  • Just in clase it isn't clear (Score:4, Informative)

    by Feztaa (633745) on Thursday June 12 2003, @09:06PM (#6187537) Homepage
    POS means POINT OF SALE!

    As in, cash registers!

  • JWZ to the rescue (Score:4, Informative)

    by T-Ranger (10520) <jeffw@NosPAM.chebucto.ns.ca> on Thursday June 12 2003, @09:27PM (#6187620) Homepage
    JWZ's proof of concept pos [dnalounge.com]. Note that he gave up, but IIRC thats because he couldnt find drunk-goon proof hardware.

  • beONix (Score:4, Informative)

    by CertGen (591598) <sniff.scratch@gmai l . c om> on Thursday June 12 2003, @09:42PM (#6187687) Journal
    I know for a fact that these guys [beonix.com] have developed point-of-sale linux apps for big time customers. I've dealt with them before and they're friendly enough to contact. You may want to ask them if they have small-fry offerings that fit your budget.
  • Why limit yourself to Linux? There are many nice POS systems based on Windows CE or Embedded Windows. In my previous job I supported both UNIX-based and Windows-based POS sytems, and I must say that the Windows-based systems are just as stable. The cost of the Windows license shouldn't be much of concern, because the cost of the POS application and hardware would be much bigger. I bet I will be modded down for saying this, but I am just telling my experience.
    • A Linux based POS will run on this [solarpc.com]. A WinCE system will only run on something that is less powerful and more expensive.
    • Because he's looking for a OPEN SOURCE app. That should bring down the cost of the app, so all we're talking is hardware, and if he's satisfied with COTS hardware, that can be driven down as well.

      Plus, there's other factors besides cost : extensibility at a reasonable cost, not being held hostage to a vendor, etc.
    • Just to be contrary, my experience runs the other way. The 2 Linux based POS are just unstoppable, Iâ(TM)m surprised when a day goes by without a support call from the windows POS store.
    • "Why limit yourself to Linux? There are many nice POS systems based on Windows CE or Embedded Windows."

      Because $10,000 for a windows POS system (without hardware) is not acceptable.



      Limit? I wouldn't call it that.
    • Windows in POS systems.... is that why I walked into a Krispy Kreme the other day and noticed that their drive-thru display had blue screened?

      Imagine how productive business could be if the donut making machine ran windows ... When not being crashed, imagine how inconsistent the donuts produced would be!

    • JavaPOS, anyone? It's platform independent, and it's becoming pretty popular. Unfortunately, supporters of it also trust MS OPOS. But, this wasn't supposed to be a MS roast, just a "what can this guy do to use Linux, because it's free".

  • OneSystem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by whatparadox (560642) on Thursday June 12 2003, @10:28PM (#6187969) Homepage
    We use OneSystem - www.onesystem.com , in our pizza stores. I cannot comment about the cost, as it worked for the company before I did, But the system is simply great.

  • here's one. (Score:4, Informative)

    by anon mouse-cow-aard (443646) on Thursday June 12 2003, @10:34PM (#6188000) Journal

    never used it. it's been around for many years, used to be a SCO app (so it's politcally a propos ;-) and they're still in business. Seems about the complexity you are looking for.

    http://www.linuxcanada.com/pos.html

    you can download evaluation rpms for free.
    • Quazar is a fantasic system.

      The back office app is written with the Qt libs, it's i18n-ified (which was terribly important to us) and can handle multiple tax configurations (Canada's mix of HST - one tax, GST/PST - two taxes and a few bizzarre tax-on-tax situations we have as well).

      At the checkout you can either use the backoffice app, or a dedicated POS app. It's written in TCL, so it can be customised any way you want. It is also suitable for running in the root window (ie: dickless machine with no WM)

  • ex-support supervisor (Score:4, Informative)

    by lostindenver (53192) on Thursday June 12 2003, @11:39PM (#6188268) Homepage
    It depends on what type of POS you need. C-store, Qsr, Big store, Mom & Pop. I have worked POS most of my computer career you need to be A LOT more direct as to your needs. I know of several that the MS tax is less than you think. Contact me for questions.
    • Retail baby. I am currently dealing with three retail clients. (clothing mainly) The inventory is all in one spot and none of the clients really have what I would call a large inventory. Their needs are basically the same in that they need to have ONE terminal in the store to do cash/credit transactions as well as track inventory, customers, paid-ins/paid-outs, etc.

      The catch is that they all have websites that need to have an accurate inventory that is synced daily if not live. (live obviously being b
      • If the Compiere suggestion I made doesn't fly ($1,500 is close to $2,000, but worth it IMHO), and wine doesn't either, then perhaps you can check into SQL-Ledger. It has already been integrated with Interchange, the best open source e-commerce package out there.
  • Last summer, I accepted a contract with a client to customize and install a Linux POS solution based on L'ane POS [sf.net], a Perl/Tk/PostgreSQL point-of-sale system designed for touchscreen-equipped terminals. The basic codebase was decent, (if typically under-documented) but since this particular customer had some very weird pricing and product bundle logic requirements, I ended up building them a custom app using Ruby, its Gtk+ bindings, and PostgreSQL.

    Needless to say, it was a fair bit of work to buird a full backend and GUI "while they waited," but in the end it was a much better-adapted system for their needs. So I would personally recommend that you keep in mind the possibility that you (or someone else -- I'm available for contract development work, of course ;) may need to develop (or at least heavily customize) an open-source solution to really meet your customer's needs. Just like any buy vs. build question, you just need to look at the time pressures, special requirements your customers may have, etc., and come up with some numbers and feature lists for each of the options.
    • It's true and obvioulsy I had thought of writing my own but if I can find something that I can use, I would rather spend my time elsewhere. I looked at L'ane POS and found it to be kinda L'ame. I wanted to avoid re-inventing the wheel if I could.

      With all the fuss over open source these days, you would think that there would be something out there that can compete with the bigger Windows based systems. Seems to me, with the growth of Unix based servers and e-commerce going hand in hand that someone woul
    • I'd like to see how you did it. (-:

  • Do you need credit card processing? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I do tech support for PC based credit card processing applications at one of the biggest credit card processors (at least the company tells us they're one of the biggest) and if you need this software to run credit cards I can tell you it's unlikely you'll find a free version.

    The reason for this is that the processors require the software vendors to "certify" every version with them before they allow merchants to use a given piece of software on their system, and the processor charges the software vendor a
    • ..."and if you need this software to run credit cards I can tell you it's unlikely you'll find a free version."

      Actually, that's not really true. If you have an internet merchant account(which my clients do...), credit card processing is a snap. iBill, for example, has a nice little API for doing transactions as well as a little SDK to roll into your own app. The software is free but they take a piece of the transaction (processing fee...)but usually it's somewhere in the $0.20/trans zone. Even though
      • Yeah, they'll let you charge whatever you want through their internet services because the rates are absurd. The price is based on the assumption that an overly large number of your transactions will be fraudulent.

        Banks love this because they get to charge more to make up for this 'risk'. They'll continue to push insecure solutions a la Explorer/Windows and make everyone else use their internet gateway because everyone knows they're insecure and that just means more money for them.

        • " Yeah, they'll let you charge whatever you want through their internet services because the rates are absurd."


          That is so false. So false. Typically, my clients pay about 2.3% per trans plus about $0.20 per for processing. So long as you're not dealing with $2 charges, those prices are better than a regular merchant account. (the kind with the machine) One of my clients pays 2.8%/trans with his machine in the store and only 2.3%/trans for his online transactions. No monthly fees and no setup charg
          • Typically, in my experience the gateway services have better support for OSS technologies because they are mostly web based, but they come at a premium.

            I'm glad to hear that that's wrong, though. It's been almost a year since I looked into it, and maybe I wasn't looking in the right places or maybe things have changed.

    • my experience with credit card processing (from a few years ago, so it may be dated) was that there were several open source projects that interfaced with popular credit card processors. Also, the credit card processors sometimes have an https cgi server you can access from your processing machine, and they give you good specs so you can customize whatever software you have to work with theirs and charge people.

      None of the handful of credit card processors I worked with required any of the software I setup

    • MCVE (Score:3, Informative)

      by benjamindees (441808)
      Mainstreet Credit Verification Engine [mainstreetsoftworks.com] is a cheap, well-documented, multi-platform processing backend that can be integrated with almost anything that you can find.

      The Unix version of ICVerify has been discontinued, but they say they are 'working on' a new version that will support Linux.

  • I see the POS market as very tough to enter, especially the retail POS market. I've worked retail and found many companies still use out-of-date 10-15 year old computers. The IT departments are just plain stubborn and underfunded. I'm sure there are some great OSS POS systems out there, but its going to be very difficult to get some kind of foothold in the market.
  • Actually, there are companies like Wincor Nixdorf that have written POS applications for their intel based linux terminals. I happen to be looking at a Beetle XL right now with their application on it, right before I pop in our redhat Kickstart disk to blow it away and load our java based POS app that we're currently piloting in some european stores. Should things go well, we'll be deploying it to all of our european and american stores. Down with 4690!(grin)
  • Cooperative Grocer magazine has an article this month on a Minneapolis Coop that designed there own linux POS system, and released it with a GNU license. http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/cg2003/0503_ande rson.html
  • I wrote/write a point of sale system implemented in PHP using a MySQL backend. The license is GPL. You can download it at http://kfa.cx/products.php?product=WITS [kfa.cx].

    I am currently in the process of rolling out this software at my place of business, Raiford Gallery. We are a consignment based art gallery and hence the software is designed primarily around consignment point of sale.

  • here's some stuff [mlcastle.net] I did up when evaluating POS systems for a food coop. The information therein may or may not be useful or up-to-date. My conclusion was basically that L'ÃnePOS [sourceforge.net] is probably the best option available right now.
  • You've probably already come across it, but Compiere [compiere.org] is a great ERP/POS. It's open source (MPL), but currently requires Oracle, which ups the minimum investment to $1,500 -- probably not in your budget. The PostgreSQL port is reportedly in progress.

    There are other small systems around that you've likely already seen, such as SQL Ledger [sql-ledger.com] (with a web UI, yuck).

    This site seems to have some suggestions as well:
    Christopher Browne's compilation of free software for accounting [cbbrowne.com].

    It would not be outside the real

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