Topic: Asus to embed Linux into all motherboards

Interesting. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39418766,00.htm

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?It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.? Voltaire

I wonder how this will play together with the limiting contracts Microsoft demands from OEMs to sign to allow them to distribute computers with Windows at lower costs. As I heard it, they have two main demands, being that the OEM must not sell computers without an OS at all, and that OEMs must never install more than a single operative system choice on private end user systems. (i.e. in a bootloader, the contract doesn't limit the installation of the OS itself, only making it a selectable alternative on the default settings) Be tried to sue Microsoft over anti-competitive contracts with OEMs, their founder capitalising on this particular point of the contracts, but this last point never made it into the suit because they didn't want to prolong the process...

If ASUS includes Linux on their mainboards, then OEMs may be forced to pay more for Windows if they want to use ASUS boards... Unless Microsoft is prepared to give up that limitation. Or maybe unless there's a loophole that makes a distinction between this motherboard-internal OS and a by-OEM installed OS.

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It's really a question of asking where the BIOS ends and the OS starts...


Justice 4 Pat Richard

According to the ASUS description, you can actually *bypass* the BIOS straight into linux...

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Sounds great to me!

Go ASUS!

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