Is There An OS On My Hard Drive? 553
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."
Re:Formatting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
This a good start but I'm afraid money talks and we all know Microsoft money talks the loudest of them all.
Re:This is weird (Score:5, Interesting)
There will also be a ton of literature in the box, more inexpensive advertising. A lot of people have heard of Linux, but think it can be hard to install. If it's sitting there waiting for them, and they've heard of it but are afraid to try to install it, there's a chance a few might let it go ahead and boot... what is there to lose, right?
Most people won't care. Lindows isn't going for "most people." Their target audience is the group of people who aren't afraid of Linux, but are technically curious. It's a small market, and this might actually let them make a little headroom.
Re:Fluoride kills (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, it's genius! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Might have hit the right market... (Score:1, Interesting)
Free Advertising (Score:2, Interesting)
maybe that was the idea... instead of shouting "BUY LINDOWS" at us via TV, they have instead bred an (mostly)informed discussion on the product. Not bad for a bit of free advertising
Re:To clarify (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless there's a lot of product diversity.
Say you offer five different mainboards (K7/SiS, K7/nVidia, K7/VIA, P4/SiS, P4/Intel), three video cards (S3/Trident/SiS/whatever is $9.99 today, Radeon series, Geforce series)and 5 boolean options (CD burner, TV tuner, DVD burner, upgraded sound, RAID card).
5*3*2*2*2*2*2=480 different systems are possible, not counting insignificant-to-configuration differences such as RAM and CPU levels or software packages.
If you want imaging....
Hope you make images for the configurations that become popular if you don't want to make all 480.
or
Hope you can make a single image that supports more than 1 system (I believe this to be possible... I recall a noname P200 that had several sets of mainboard chimpset drivers under Win95, though it sure threw a hissy when I replaced an i430TX board with a VIA)
and always
Pray that the next set of parts you use won't break your images.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is cool. (Score:3, Interesting)
I expect drives to have a brief burn-in / testing period at the manufacturer anyway, so it makes no difference to me what comes on it by default - all zeros or an OS. As long as I'm still able to low-level format / repartition / high-level format it.
Admit it: if you ever got such a drive (especially if the pre-installed Lindows option didn't add to the cost), you'd boot into Lindows at least once to check it out, wouldn't you? If you were building a machine for a friend or relative, you might even want to see how they got along with it for a few days before you nuked it and installed Windows. Am I right?
Is this creatively getting around the OEM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Might have hit the right market... (Score:0, Interesting)
The game situation might actually be solved soon. Transgaming is doing a good job with the game situation. Now most games seem to work, just not the newest games. [transgaming.com]
Re:Fluoride... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yes, bad analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to mention the major health risk - if you boil water with it it leaves a residue that is apparently more toxic than cyanide, so you have to scrub the kettle clean after each cup... no thanks. I can't risk dying because someone forgot to scrub the kettle out.
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Deaf Smith County (Score:3, Interesting)
That's exactly how they figured that fluoride was good for your teeth. Poor folk in rural Deaf Smith County, Texas had excellent teeth despite not having access to dental care, and they figured it was because the water was naturally fluoridated.
Of course, it apparently also made a passel o' Smiths lose their hearing, but they could still smile right nice...
Re:Fluoride... (Score:2, Interesting)
Fluoride was also key to the Manhattan Project - uranium hexafluoride was used to separate uranium isotopes. Consequently, the idea that fluoride was good for you became a very paletable idea for the government and industry.
And how did they sell this crock of shit to the public? Edward Bernays was ALCOA's head of PR - read up on him, he wrote a book called Propaganda about selling bad ideas to an unsuspecting public.
Fluoride in water is not a good idea. Anyone who thinks it is has been suckered by industry and the government, who think it's a neat idea to put something that's mildly less toxic than arsenic, and slightly more toxic than lead into our water supplies.
Do your research next time, do not take what you think is true forgranted. This isn't scaremongering by loony crackpots who aren't scientists - most of this is historical and found in recently declassified military documents. If you want to read up on it, visit Google and look for Deepwater and fluoride, or Newburgh and fluoride. You'll find a wealth of information on it.
Re:What? (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Fluoride... (Score:4, Interesting)
Flouride is similar. In water, you will find F-(aq), which is not flourine (which is a gas) but flouride (which is an ion). Flouride, because of its high electronegativity, binds to posivite ions the first chance it gets. The flouride, and any ion it carries with it, then passes through the digestive system and is disposed of, since it serves no useful purpose elsewhere.
Now then, what was this article about? Oh right, hard drives and Lindows. Right.
Re:Fluoride... (Score:3, Interesting)
I also find it interesting that there might be a correlation to high-iron diets and cancer (ie. iron is an anti-anti-oxidant, meaning it makes free-radicals).. Western diet is high in red meat and iron-fortified foods.. Eastern diet is high in soy & tea (both very high in iron-absorbtion supressing chemicals, like tannins which are only available in green teas).. In the 70s they were so afraid newer soy milks / soy foods would be a real problem for kids which need Iron so they overdosed all our breakfast cereals to ensure kids would get enough.
Men should avoid iron supplements and cereal. Actually, 1 in 200 people have over-iron-absorption gene mutation and most never find out about it.
Re:Yes, bad analogy (Score:1, Interesting)