Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/07/23/buying_windows_98_try/

Buying Windows 98? Try a Linux for Idiots Guide too

Action Computers points users towards open source

By John Leyden

Posted in Channel, 23rd July 2001 11:49 GMT

Catalogue reseller Action Computers has decided that people thinking about purchasing Windows 98 from it would do well to consider Linux instead.

On a page on its site describing Windows 98, Action lists Liberty Linux for Dummies Quick Reference manual and an Idiot's Guide to Linux by Que as related items a Windows 98 shopper might want to buy. These guides, unlike Windows 98 itself, are only available from Action's back order catalogue, so buyers would have to wait over a week after getting Microsoft's operating system before getting clued up on open source.

By contrast Windows 98 can be yours for the princely sum of £113.89 (plus postage and packing) in just three days.

Interesting no guides or applications related to Windows 98 are included on Action's catalogue page, which we suspect was put up as a subtle piece of subversion by a Linux fan.

On the other hand, the developer who wrote a description of requirement for hardware on which to run the operating system (486DX/66MHz or higher processor, 24MB RAM, installation requiring between 205-260MB) might have had a moment of revelation, and turned into a Linux zealot. Mind you the rest of the blurb on the page praises the Internet features of Windows 98, so that's probably not it. ®

Thanks to Reg reader Ed Lea for spotting it.

Related Link

Action Computers Windows 98 product information

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