At Google I/O , Google’s Senior VP of Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichaihasm announced that Samsung’s Series 3 Chromebox and Series 5 Chromebook will soon be available in Best Buy stores in the US and Dixons in the UK.

Contrary to what some people are saying, this is far from the first time that Linux-powered PCs have been sold by major retailers. Back in 2008, Best Buy, Sears, and Wal-Mart were all selling Linux desktops. These were all netbooks—low-powered, low-priced laptops. At the time, Microsoft was still trying to talk people into using Vista and people hated Vista.

Microsoft eventually realized that no one was buying Vista at the low-end, and darn few people at at any end really, and so they brought back Windows XP Home in the end of 2008. Microsoft followed this up by selling XP Home at below cost to original equipment manufacturers to kill off the Linux netbook market. Microsoft was successful. By May 2010, ASUS, which had been desktop Linux’s biggest OEM supporter, quietly abandoned the Linux netbook.

That was in 2008. This is 2012.

The Linux desktop, thanks to Chromebooks, goes retail. More >