Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

blog.tmm.cx

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 156 posts

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#111

Post by detaro »

dotancohen wrote: post #105
hnlmorg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, they already do have a Linux option. I’d wager the FreeDOS is a legacy option because they’ve supported it in the past an figures have shown it sells. Even if those figures don’t take into account how many of those legacy FreeDOS installs were for other alternative OS like Linux (though it could also be BSD, Haiku, Illumos, ReactOS or others). Or there genuinely might still be FreeDOS users…

Many industrial users are not price sensitive. Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point.

But if you use DOS still for industrial stuff you usually do it because you need some old-fashioned interface (i.e. real serial or parallel ports are the usual example). Which is going to work great from inside a VM, not.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#112

Post by prmoustache »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #50
detaro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which leaves the question of why going through the hassle of creating this mess instead of just Linux.

Because they they have to support that linux distro, with all the drivers, update etc.,... And the FreeDOS just works. Doesn't do much, but what it does, it does well.

No they don't. They could just start the debian distro without network configuration and gui and end up with a shell, with a MOTD saying this is just a base distro and a full reinstall to a supported OS is advised before connecting it to a network.

I guess they only do that because the FreeDOS name does not frighten the average tech guy who only used microsoft products as much as linux.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#113

Post by prmoustache »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #74
userbinator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ubuntu option appears to be free too.

Free to you, but HP is likely paying Ubuntu. They wouldn't be paying much, but they're probably paying something. The Ubuntu license says that if they make any modification whatsoever, no matter how trivial, they can no longer call it Ubuntu. Just adding a driver is enough to trigger the clause, AFAICT.

I doubt that.

Most likely it is an agreement that is seen as a win on both party. HP has no incentive to pay ubuntu for anything, and ubuntu can't get any new market if it starts asking companies to pay for it.

And they could use whatever distro they want that do not have those clauses instead of ubuntu.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#114

Post by hnlmorg »

dotancohen wrote: post #105
hnlmorg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, they already do have a Linux option. I’d wager the FreeDOS is a legacy option because they’ve supported it in the past an figures have shown it sells. Even if those figures don’t take into account how many of those legacy FreeDOS installs were for other alternative OS like Linux (though it could also be BSD, Haiku, Illumos, ReactOS or others). Or there genuinely might still be FreeDOS users…

Many industrial users are not price sensitive. Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point.

> Industrial users are not price sensitive

That's not a universal truth. I've worked with plenty who are.

> Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point.

That's not a universal truth either. Sometimes the device will be a headless controller. In which case a laptop wouldn't always the right form factor. There might be additional hardware that needs supporting, which can be much more complicated with laptops. There might be other requirements (eg environmental constraints) too.

"Industrial" covers a pretty large spectrum of use cases.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#115

Post by raverbashing »

ndiddy wrote: post #5

I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?

And I guess FreeDOS doesn't support booting by UEFI as well

(I mean, can it even?)

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#116

Post by Terry_Roll »

_ktx2 wrote: post #95
rsync wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SIM card in your mobile telephone is doing that right now. You are correct - it is basically used as a back door.

Usually when I hear people talk about backdooring it's usually on the network stack. On a phone that would be a modem. Most devices, even in your computer (eg: laptop battery) run an OS. There's a good talk somewhere on how we've lost our way with OS design and now need to write an OS that looks at a single machine as a distributed system.

> and now need to write an OS that looks at a single machine as a distributed system

Exactly, currently they are too easily exploitable because they are not joined up.

You see it with gpu's being hacked and the OS not recognising this.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#117

Post by dotancohen »

hnlmorg wrote: post #114
dotancohen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many industrial users are not price sensitive. Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point.

> Industrial users are not price sensitive That's not a universal truth. I've worked with plenty who are. > Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point. That's not a universal truth either. Sometimes the device will be a headless controller. In which case a laptop wouldn't always the right form factor. There…

Thank you, I've clarified the comment by adding the word "many". It is a generalization, that holds in many but not all cases.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#118

Post by speed_spread »

teruakohatu wrote: post #37
bayindirh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, don't forget the Minix running inside a small embedded processor inside your processor or platform controller.

I am sure they will soon find a way to add a hypervisor to Minix so they can add yet another layer to the mix.

It's Minixes all the way down, man.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#119

Post by gambiting »

walrus01 wrote: post #99
_ktx2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually when I hear people talk about backdooring it's usually on the network stack. On a phone that would be a modem. Most devices, even in your computer (eg: laptop battery) run an OS. There's a good talk somewhere on how we've lost our way with OS design and now need to write an OS that looks at a single machine as a distributed system.

Some batteries have an entire stm32 series microcontroller in them, I've seen battery controllers that are actually the same "CPU" as on a discrete single motor quadcopter ESC.

MicroSD cards have a fully functional 32-bit microcontroller in them, it manages the write leveling and bad sector mitigation, but it's a fully fledged CPU otherwise.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#120

Post by necovek »

ale42 wrote: post #101
mcculley wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end user need not know it is QEMU atop Linux. They see and use DOS.

Yes, but inside a VM. What access to real hardware (e.g. to communicate with the outside world) does the user get?

Whatever is configured with QEMU: everything if that was the use case.
Post reply on HN