4 ms·
A lot of new PCs in my (highly piratey) country come with FreeDOS pre-installed. You won't see them in retail stores, but they're offered for a significant disc
by kijin 10y ago
A lot of new PCs in my (highly piratey) country come with FreeDOS pre-installed. You won't see them in retail stores, but they're offered for a significant discount online, even from major brands like Asus and Lenovo.
I have taken advantage of these offers several times to avoid buying a Windows license for a computer I intended to run Linux on, or to install a different version and/or language of Windows than the one the manufacturer offered by default. Sometimes I even buy Windows separately at additional cost, just to avoid the bloatware and spyware.
I have several theories about why manufacturers choose to do this instead of just leaving the disk unformatted or using a proper user-friendly Linux distro. By having another O/S pre-installed, they can claim that they are giving consumers a choice rather than outright encouraging piracy. But since most people who buy these PCs put pirated Windows on it anyway, they don't want to pre-install anything that they might need to support seriously. This means using a minimal O/S that "just works" but one that nobody is actually going to use as a daily driver. FreeDOS fits that bill, whether the developers like it or not. I'm grateful that it exists.
- dispose13432 10y agoAre they cheaper than the equivalent computers with Windows?
- avhon1 10y agoTypically yes, because the price does not include the cost of a windows license. This article has an illustrative screenshot: http://fossforce.com/2016/12/foss-dos-21st-century-hardware/ http://fossforce.com/2016/12/foss-dos-21st-century-hardware/
- dispose13432 10y agoThat's interesting. I remember that back when you could buy a computer without an OS, it cost more than with Windows.
- kalleboo 10y agoYes, they've had deals with OEMs like that https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-investigated-in-europe/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-investigated-in-europe/ > Novell complained in 1993 that Microsoft blocked competitors out of the market for operating system software by way of certain anticompetitive practices. It criticized Microsoft's standard agreements for licensing software to PC manufacturers, which required payment of royalties based on the number of computers shipped, regardless of whether the computers contained preinstalled Microsoft software > After intense negotiations, Microsoft agreed to change some of its license contracts through the year 2000.
- icebraining 10y agoIt can still cost more, if the OEMs made deals to pre-install crapware (those antivirus trials and such).
- owl57 10y agoThese days you don't need to buy Windows separately just to get rid of bloatware: you can just download a clean image from Microsoft [1]. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/