Intel wants you to stick to the original operating system
As you may be aware, Intel has plans to offer a Ubuntu 14.04-running variant of its Compute Stick, PC-on-a-stick device that’s powered by the chip maker’s quad-core Atom Z3735F “Bay Trail” processor. While this new model will be a good $40 cheaper than its $150 Windows-running counterpart, you’ll have to settle for just 1GB of RAM (versus 2GB in the latter) and 8GB of storage (versus 32GB in the latter). That being said, what’s to stop an open source enthusiast in possession of the more powerful variant from replacing the stock OS with Ubuntu or some other Linux distro of their choice?
According to our friends over at Softpedia, installing any other operating system than the one your Intel Compute Stick came with will void the device warranty. The site found this info hiding in plain sight on the chip maker’s website. This could be a deal breaker for some, especially considering how the PC-on-a-stick isn’t a particularly great device to begin with.
Here is what the page in question says: “Operating system other than the ones listed [Windows 8.1 Bing for the $150 model and Ubuntu 14.04 for the $110 variant] are not supported and do not have drivers available. Installing a different operating system voids the Intel Compute Stick warranty.”
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1fXZjEa
