HP/Compaq Presario and Linux

[Dan Jenkins]

Jon maddog Hall wrote:

>Jason (et. al.),
>
>  
>
>>reinstall or repair the OS. The reason for this is that they do not have
>>to provide you with an installation CD.
>>    
>>
>
>...... 
>
>  
>
>>Personally, I'd rather have the install media on a bootable DVD 
>>and have the full use of my disk, thanks.
>>    
>>
>
>It is not just that they want to "save the cost of the CD", but some companies
>are ordering systems without CD drives because they want a thin client on the
>desktop...something without floppies and/or a CD...something that could
>boot over the network and be diskless or be (re)installed standalone with only
>a hard disk.
>
>All data comes through the corporate server.
>
>They view floppies, CDs and USB Flash devices as just another way of having
>games and viruses introduced into the work environment.
>  
>
Agreed.

But I've encountered several computers which provide no OS nor recovery CD,
unless you pay them $25 or more to get one. So, if anything goes wrong, 
you cannot
reload the OS (which Windows is so fond of needing), nor even restore 
the computer to
factory condition. Admittedly these were all "consumer grade" systems, 
but no method
of recovering them unless you paid $25 or $50 just seems wrong. For that 
matter, many
now provide no method to reload the OS, just to restore to factory 
condition. Of course,
this is yet another reason to use Linux - thought a bit esoteric to most 
folk.

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century