https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfMseGsyE4&t=155s

Dell, and others following suite. annoying AI commentary, unfortunately

--
Linux Mint 22.3


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 2/18/2026 7:48 PM, Axel wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfMseGsyE4&t=155s

Dell, and others following suite. annoying AI commentary, unfortunately

What are those companies going to do, when they have
no RAM and no storage to put into computers ? I don't
think it will matter much, how they attempt to play
off OS companies against one another in a dive to the
bottom.

It's just possible for once, that Dell and HP are now
irrelevant. Boxed in on many fronts simultaneously,
and unable to escape. You'll notice people in the
newsgroups are buying "mini-pcs", and where is
the response from the established players ? Crickets.
And it's crickets, because they can't compete. They
don't want to make devices for $400, because there
is no Lambo for the CEO if they do that.

They're perfectly happy to make equipment for $1600,
and then they're not counting their pennies. It's the
same for Microsoft and their Surface product line.
Happy to make Premium devices, not happy to dive
to the bottom and make cheap stuff.

You can get Chinese mini-PCs with Windows *Pro* on it.
Riddle me how that is possible!

This is one of the reasons Microsoft is going with
the rentalOS as the Next Step. Then, HP has nothing
to worry about, as the customer will foot the bill.
This will also correct the dynamics of copies of
Windows being available for $20 all over the place.
Where DO all those licenses come from ? Again, people
in the newsgroups have been buying those licenses
for $20, and the licenses seem to be legit. When the
rental scheme comes along, things will be quite different
... for the customer.

I guess what the video tells us, is HP has poor
negotiating skills when it comes to acquiring OEM
licenses for PCs. The price estimate given, is ballpark
what I would expect if someone were asked to estimate
the price. But what's missing from the story, is
the amount of volume discount you can negotiate,
and especially in a time when the computed value
of the OS is not very great. If a lot of the
licenses are going for $20, HP is in the wrong business.
They should sell flowers instead.

Did you know, that for some retail software, you could
negotiate a volume deal all the way down to *10%* of
the retail price ? If Windows were $130 at retail, this would be $13.
It all depends on the strengths of the two companies, and
what their plans are. And Microsoft cannot go this time,
without rent in the picture. Otherwise the shareholders will
be most unhappy with the fortune squandered on LLM-AI.

In current times, the situation is much too dynamic for
this kind of Youtube-AI trash :-)

*******

I'm sick to death of all these videos splicing in pictures of
Bill Gates. Here is why.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-Bill-Gates-have-100-billions-in-stock-if-he-only-owns-1-of-Microsoft

"Despite the explosion of Microsoft's market cap since 2017, Bill Gates' fortune
has not exploded as much, currently standing at $117 billion.

That's a lot of money, but it is not proportional to
Microsoft's success in the stock market.

The reason is simple: Microsoft shares are a minority in Bill Gates' portfolio.

In Bill Gates' portfolio, Berkshire Hathaway shares of his friend
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway account for almost half.
"

In other words, Microsoft is about as important to Bill Gates,
as his ranch is to him. Maybe they should splice in some
pictures of worried pension fund execs :-)

Mr.Gates is still investing, and while there is nominally
a plan to give it away to charities, a lot of what he
does isn't related to the charities thing.

Paul



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:58:20 -0500, Paul wrote:

What are those companies going to do, when they have no RAM and no
storage to put into computers ?

Users at least could look at the option of buying initial
configurations with reduced RAM/storage, with a view to upgrading them
later when prices and supplies ease.

You couldn?t do this with Apple gear, for example.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 19/02/2026 5:13 pm, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:58:20 -0500, Paul wrote:

What are those companies going to do, when they have no RAM and no
storage to put into computers ?

Users at least could look at the option of buying initial
configurations with reduced RAM/storage, with a view to upgrading them
later when prices and supplies ease.

In many laptops these days, the RAM is not upgradeable. It is soldered
to the motherboard.

You couldn?t do this with Apple gear, for example.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 19/02/2026 10:48 am, Axel wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfMseGsyE4&t=155s

Dell, and others following suite. annoying AI commentary, unfortunately

Been here before, many times, Linux has been going to supersede Windows
for at lest the last 20 years.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:08:52 +1000, keithr0 wrote:

On 19/02/2026 5:13 pm, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

Users at least could look at the option of buying initial
configurations with reduced RAM/storage, with a view to upgrading
them later when prices and supplies ease.

You couldn?t do this with Apple gear, for example.

In many laptops these days, the RAM is not upgradeable. It is
soldered to the motherboard.

Seems there should still be a few choices yet <https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/18f3kx3/currentgen_laptop_with_upgradeable_memory_and_at/>.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 2/20/2026 7:08 PM, keithr0 wrote:

On 19/02/2026 5:13 pm, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:58:20 -0500, Paul wrote:

What are those companies going to do, when they have no RAM and no
storage to put into computers ?

Users at least could look at the option of buying initial
configurations with reduced RAM/storage, with a view to upgrading them
later when prices and supplies ease.

In many laptops these days, the RAM is not upgradeable. It is soldered to the motherboard.

You couldn?t do this with Apple gear, for example.

That was yet another experiment by Intel.

And Intel did not like the results, from a
business flexibility point of view.

https://www.techspot.com/news/105407-intel-not-repeat-lunar-lake-integrated-memory-design.html

"Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V light mobile CPUs
come with either 16GB or 32GB of memory built into the package."

https://cdn.pokde.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/intellnlvleakscover.jpg

"up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-8533"

https://www.techpowerup.com/315941/intel-lunar-lake-mx-soc-with-on-package-lpddr5x-memory-detailed?cp=2

"Depending on the processor model, the memory sizes on offer will be either
16 GB or 32 GB, across a 160-bit dual-channel (4x sub-channel) interface.
Memory speeds on offer will be as high as LP5X-8533. Intel is innovating
what it calls a "memory side cache," which is an 8 MB fast SRAM cache
located somewhere along the memory I/O"

Each chip is the same width as a full DIMM (80 bits for DDR5 dual subchannel DIMMs).

At the time, it seemed a bold move. and those two chips are stacked memory,
so there are multiple dies inside.

And that's quite a fat architecture when the CPU only has four performance cores.

But there are other ways to do that.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:12:23 -0500, Paul wrote:

And Intel did not like the results, from a business flexibility
point of view.

Trying to copy Apple, and (fortunately) failing ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

At Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:13:04 +1000, keithr0 <me@bugger.off.com.au> wrote:

On 19/02/2026 10:48 am, Axel wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfMseGsyE4&t=155s

Dell, and others following suite. annoying AI commentary, unfortunately

Been here before, many times, Linux has been going to supersede Windows
for at lest the last 20 years.

But: never before, has Linux been a subsystem for Windows.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 Mem: 258G
OS: Linux 6.19.2 D: Mint 22.3 DE: Xfce 4.18 (X11)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090Ti (24G) (580.126.18)
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle buttons"

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 2/21/2026 7:23 AM, vallor wrote:

At Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:13:04 +1000, keithr0 <me@bugger.off.com.au> wrote:

On 19/02/2026 10:48 am, Axel wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfMseGsyE4&t=155s

Dell, and others following suite. annoying AI commentary, unfortunately

Been here before, many times, Linux has been going to supersede Windows
for at lest the last 20 years.

But: never before, has Linux been a subsystem for Windows.

That's how I run Linux Firefox here every day, in Windows.
It's a rootless window on top of a graphics stack that
includes "Terminal Server". GLXGears doesn't
run all that fast on it, but you can run GLXGears on it too :-)

Only people with some amount of Linux experience
do that, as the Windows-side recipe for getting everything in
place, you have to gather bits and pieces of recipe from
here and there. That's not a One-Click-Install by any means.
It's an adventure. Wear your hiking boots.

Placing items in the Microsoft store (search on "Ubuntu"), that's just a tease. You've got to check your BIOS settings. The BIOS entry name was changed
for no particularly good reason (I discovered a few weeks ago, that
one of my machines didn't have VT-X turned on, and that's because
a casual review of settings, you can miss that). Even the BIOS
entry for XMP, some idiot changed that (likely involved lawyers
and shit).

In the end, it involves a lot of "OK, what's my next step".

When WSL1 first came out, some people had Firefox running three days
after that (on top of XMing.exe). Later, Microsoft made WSLg so you
no longer had to bodge your own Xorg/X11 solution .

Paul


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 09:17:49 -0500, Paul wrote:

When WSL1 first came out, some people had Firefox running three days
after that (on top of XMing.exe). Later, Microsoft made WSLg so you
no longer had to bodge your own Xorg/X11 solution .

Now that that?s been superseded by WSL2, which brings a (mostly)
genuine Linux kernel into Windows, it?s only a matter of time until
Linux becomes a mandatory part of a Windows install.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 2/21/2026 4:13 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 09:17:49 -0500, Paul wrote:

When WSL1 first came out, some people had Firefox running three days
after that (on top of XMing.exe). Later, Microsoft made WSLg so you
no longer had to bodge your own Xorg/X11 solution .

Now that that?s been superseded by WSL2, which brings a (mostly)
genuine Linux kernel into Windows, it?s only a matter of time until
Linux becomes a mandatory part of a Windows install.

What's weird, is they dumped WSA and kept WSL.
I guess the Android one wasn't magical enough.

Having HyperV virtual machines running on Windows
isn't an essential part, so the treatment of WSL
won't be any different. It's possible that HyperV VM
is a Windows Pro feature, rather than Windows Home.
I tried to set it up one day, but HyperV wanted to
grab the steering wheel away and drive, and I decided
that was not my idea of fun. The experiment ended
pretty quickly.

In general, I don't get the feeling that the user base
is all that interested in virtualization. I try to promote
it, but the general response I get is "that's too techie".
The VirtualBox interface comes the closest to something
you can use. But it still has rough edges.

Paul




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 18:18:22 -0500, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 2/21/2026 4:13 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 09:17:49 -0500, Paul wrote:

When WSL1 first came out, some people had Firefox running three
days after that (on top of XMing.exe). Later, Microsoft made WSLg
so you no longer had to bodge your own Xorg/X11 solution .

Now that that?s been superseded by WSL2, which brings a (mostly)
genuine Linux kernel into Windows, it?s only a matter of time until
Linux becomes a mandatory part of a Windows install.

What's weird, is they dumped WSA and kept WSL. I guess the Android
one wasn't magical enough.

Most likely it?s because the Linux kernel can do a better job of
hosting an Android userland than Windows itself can manage.

Having HyperV virtual machines running on Windows isn't an essential
part, so the treatment of WSL won't be any different.

I?m thinking more of what happens to the future of Windows. As you can
tell from all the missteps they keep making, it?s getting increasingly
hard for Microsoft to make quality changes to such a huge and tangled
legacy codebase. I can see the path of least resistance being for
Windows to delegate more and more core functionality to the Linux
kernel. So the Windows kernel itself gradually withers away, and all
that?s left of that is an API layer for userland.

(Did somebody say ?WINE? ... ?)

If you were to ask anybody at Microsoft, they would strenuously deny
having any such plan--at least, not consciously. But, long-term, I
think it just makes business sense.

In general, I don't get the feeling that the user base is all that
interested in virtualization.

For what I describe above, they don?t need to care.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)