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sedatk 6 hours ago

Most computers in Turkey come with FreeDOS preinstalled because there's a law that states all computers must be sold with an operating system. FreeDOS turns out to be the cheapest and easiest.

That's why you don't let people who have never touched a computer write tech laws. You get results like this.

Dwedit 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The really weird case is where the computer isn't actually compatible with DOS, so they put in a locked-down Linux distro that emulates FreeDOS.

ronsor 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Wasn't it Dell or HP that did this? IIRC it was FreeDOS-on-QEMU-on-X11-on-Linux.

unleaded 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those types of laws aren't all that bad.. they got us this: https://segaretro.org/Dottori_Kun

rwmj 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wish that was the case where I live. I'm looking for a new laptop and the mainstream ones still come with the Windows Tax.

wk_end 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is there a reason they don't go with Ubuntu or something like that instead?

jordand 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Linux drivers and certification is a whole lot of extra work and complexity compared to FreeDOS. Years ago, Nettops were sold with FreeDOS where the components didn't support Linux that well.

prmoustache 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I guess they don't want to get support's call. DOS looks like firmware for non techies.