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Is There An OS On My Hard Drive?

Posted by timothy on from the pt-barnum-meets-computers dept.

stm2 writes "Thanks to an agreement between Lindows and Seagate, from October you will be able to choose a hard drive with or without Lindows. Michael Robertson, in his usual marketing speak, compares this to adding "Fluoride in the water", because now you get for free something you used to need to go after (people used to go to dentist to get their Fluoride). According to the PR, the OS can autodetect and configure itself on the host machine."

2 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. Actually, it's genius! by mabhatter654 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    After all, geeks will grab the drive and instantly wipe it anyway...After all, most Linux installs boot from CD so we'd never see it anyway! But...It's an added feature Segate can put on the box, Electronic stores can advertize it as a feature. Mostly, it signals the END of seperate OS software sales

    It will now be possible to go to a store, buy pieces and have a working computer when you get home with no other work necessary. That's a good thing!! Segate sells a lot of retail drives. If it works out even a little bit for them maybe others will follow suit. I've heard ATI has MMC for Linux in-house somewhere...but that's a big step to sell linux in the retail box. Most mice & keyboards work in linux. Most networking equipment works with linux [heck most home routers RUN linux!] This is a perfect path to getting Linux market share

    It's too bad BeOS didn't think of this first! After all, Robertson is making an end-run around the infamous MS bootloader license. Shops can sell pre-tested barebones systems...then conveniantly slip you a pre-formated Linux drive. They are just selling "upgrade" pieces. And they aren't selling Linux at all...the Manufacture just adds that as a "test" feature. Very, very clever.

  2. Lindows in Japan by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I saw Lindows here in Japan at a broadband trade show.

    They had a nice selection of scantily clad ladies in Lindows outfits, who were giving out snackfood. On the snackfood package was a picture of an octopus punching Bill Gates in the nads with 8 arms. No I am not kidding. It tasted quite good. I picked up my Lindows show-bag as well.

    In the booth they had Lindows on everything with "Lindows approved" stickers pasted over the "Made for Windows XP" ones.

    Everyone was trying to rm -rf / the PCs, but were failing quite miserably.

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0