HP Sells Cheap FreeDOS PC in China

Johan writes "HP has started selling a Yuan 3,999 ($483) PC in China. The cool part is that it runs FreeDOS! Not sure why FreeDOS was chosen, but I suspect they expect it to be replaced with Linux or Windows by the user. By not having to pay for Windows, they are able to include better hardware. They probably didn't want the support burden of bundling the PC with a Linux distribution." And while we're on China, Cringely has some prognostication and speculation about IBM's sale of their PC division to a Chinese company.

Comments

Uh

[Neil Blender]

Is $483US really cheap in China?

Re:Uh

[bcrowell]

Sure it's not the best quality, but if you need a computer and are poor, $99 sure beats nearly $500.
No, it's not the best quality, but it's Great Quality (that's the brand name -- geddit, huh? huh :-)

But seriously, I've bought three of the $200 Great Quality machines from Fry's, and actually the quality has been quite good. They're made in Taiwan, BTW -- I don't know if that would prevent them from being exported to PRC.

I'm sorry, but $483 doesn't even sound like a cheap price by my U.S. standards, forget about China! You can make a heck of a good high-end PC yourself for about $600 (high-end meaning a big hard disk and a pretty darn fast CPU, although maybe not the very fastest CPU or fanciest 3-d video card for gaming); producing them in quantity, they should easily be $450 to $500-ish. If anybody is still paying $1000 for a PC in this day and age, I assume it's a pretty serious server box (or maybe a very bleeding-edge gaming machine, where you pay an extra $500 for an extra 10% in performance).

It's kind of pathetic that the CNN article doesn't give any specs, doesn't provide any links, and doesn't say whether the machine comes with a monitor.

FreeDOS In chinese

[Janitha]

I am having a hard time imagining FreeDOS with the chinese character set, if thats what is used.

Is MS-DOS an alternative to Windows?

[spiritraveller]

HP's new model, part of its Pavilion series, features a central processing unit (CPU) from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and a FreeDOS operating system, both cheaper alternatives to more popular CPUs from Intel and the Windows operating system from Microsoft.

I think the reporter has never used FreeDOS, nor knows what it is (surprise surprise).

FreeDOS is very useful, but for the vast majority of users, it's not an "alternative" to Windows. It's an alternative to MS-DOS!

$483???

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, it doesn't say if it includes a monitor. If it doesn't then that is a lousy price. Both HP and Dell sell their low end PC's for $350 here in the U.S. Even with a flatscreen the dell cost is $539 with printer and XP Home edition. That for a P4 3.8 ghz with 236megs ram.

Let me get it out of the way...

[Mr. Bad Example]

Sure, you can install Windows or Linux on these...but an hour later, you'll just have to reinstall.

Why is this news?

[poofyhairguy82]

I don't get it. This doesn't sound like big news. right now I can buy an HP for $379. I could probably get a cheap enough monitor to make it under the $483 price. So why is this news? Because its China? Why does that matter?

Oh, Come on

[northcat]

I suspect they expect it to be replaced with Linux or Windows by the user....They probably didn't want the support burden of bundling the PC with a Linux distribution.

Oh, come on. Don't be such a zealot. Lets get real. How hard is it for a vendor to install linux? They are going to replace it with a pirated copy of windows. Yeah, so slashdot is a site for (open source) geeks, but this is just going too far. This is just plain lying. BTW, I live in a developing and there already a LOT of PCs by compaq which have freedos or some other DOS. I KNOW what these PCs are used for. They are just replaced with a pirated copy of Windows. Trust me. I know.

The next thing you know, slashdot will be reporting in a few days that the Linux desktop share has exceeded that of Windows desktop share.

Here

[northcat]

Here, in India, there are already a lot of PCs sold by compaq that have freedos or caldera dos installed.

the only news in this article...

[Fortun L'Escrot]

is what cringley had to say. the whole cheap PC china thing should have been the side note.

Re:HP assumes PC will get pirated Win-XP?

[maniac_inside]

Well I am reminded of a recent surevey by Gartner

"80% of all PC's shipped with Linux are made to run pirated versions of Windows XP"

Anyway a recent undisclosed survey has found

"100% of all PC's shipped with FREEDOS are made to run pirated versions of Windows XP"

Sorry to bust Your dream, buddy,

[Britz]

but FreeDOS won't be replaced by Linux. 99.99 % will install Windows on them. I have been there. You can go into any shop (almost all carry them) and get a CD for about a buck containing Windows XP, Office, Photoshop and Dreamweaver in a printed cardboard cover.

Nobody, not even the largest businesses will get bothered if they only install pirated versions. Considering the fact that all large Software makers dont't do discounts in countries with a lower average income I have a hard time imagening anyone paying for Windows in China.

So Windows is basically free (as in beer) for everyone in China. So Linux and Windows are on par considering price. On how many desktops do You see FreeDOS getting replaced by Linux again?

Re:FreeDOS In chinese - Not going to be used

[attemptedgoalie]

The only reason it has FreeDOS is to keep it cheap.

China is one of the countries with rampant software piracy. If you bundle an OS, you're not competitive.

They are well aware that pirated Windows will be installed. They just can't put that in the press release.

Re:Free from the MS Tax - Nice

[burns210]

100%? No. The kernel and core utilities are fully open source, which Apple has superb relations with the projects. The browser is based on KHTML, etc.

The hardware is open standards, which Apple leads the way in (USB, Firewire, bluetooth, rondevous, pci-x) and is first to adopt. PowerPC, ram, video cards, monitors, keyboards, peripherals, drives, disk drives, etc... All open(though not necesarily the most abundant) standards.

get off your high horse. Apple is consistantly giving back to the open source community, rely on open standards, and join open groups.

They are a company, they can do what they want. But give them some slack.

Re:The s**t will hit

[Amiga Trombone]

Under one of the stipulations for many industries (automotive was the focus for this article), the Western corp must:

* Partner with a Chinese company
* Share design and technical info
* License design and IP in such a way that the partner company can create new designs from the original and derivative works are owned by the Chinese company

Well, tying the two stories together, it doesn't look like IBM is going to have any problem with that

List of FreeDOS.org mirrors

[Jim Hall]

Hi, I'm the coordinator for the FreeDOS Project, and webmaster for FreeDOS.org. Looks like we're getting a minor slashdotting. Thanks, guys! :-) In case the main page becomes unavailable, you can use this list of mirrors instead:

slashdot.php or slashdot.html

The primary mirror site is at sourceforge:

http://freedos.sourceforge.net/