Mizzouse.com

So much for the good news that I reported a few days back.  Though Dell actually is pushing forward with their offering, their open PCs won’t be any cheaper.  In fact, you’ll end up paying a significantly higher price for a FreeDOS PC than one with Vista preinstalled!  No joke…for the sake of example, you’ll be dishing out $53 extra for the open n-series Latitude D420 vs. the Windows Latitude D420.

As for having to “de-crapify” your Dell PC, well, FreeDOS doesn’t really have the ability to be stuffed with junk software in the first place.  So, they’re just taking the easy route: charging the consumer directly.  In fact, since FreeDOS is listed as a “kit”, it probably doesn’t come installed at all (really, though, that’s not a problem since nobody’s going to use it as their primary OS anyway).

We’re still yet to see a pre-installed Linux PC.  It’s a toss up now whether it would cost even more.  Would they be able to make money by installing junk software, or will they instead charge you more for the installation?