>>>>> "paul" == paul beard <paulbeard@mac.com> writes:

    paul> 1 GHz PC for $400 . . . . . not a bad deal.
    paul> that is amazing, but shouldn't be: I'd like to see all PCs
    paul> sold w/o bundles OSes and let the chips fall where they
    paul> may. We'll soon see that none of them are truly easy to
    paul> install and use without tweaking by the vendor(s).

We won't see that at all, it's a lot easier than you think to install
Windows. Installing WindowsXP on a few PCs I recently built worked
like clockwork. With almost no input from the user the XP installer
set up and configured the graphics card, sound hardware, network
interface, installed a bunch of programs and a desktop, and created a
few user accounts. They've worked flawlessly since. I love NetBSD and
have been running it since version 1.2, but I think as regards ease of
installation we shouldn't be throwing any stones. I suppose if you try
to install WinXP on some old piece of hardware with less common
devices there might not be drivers available for all of 'em, but that
shouldn't be an issue with any new PCs.

-Zach Fine
zach@zachfine.com