[mrugiero]

Why FreeDOS vs nothing or why FreeDOS vs Linux? The former, because some OEMs have agreements with Microsoft that prohibit shipping systems without an OS. They found the loophole that they could ship a free OS as a placeholder. Why not Linux? I guess it was easier at the time and they then just kept shipping what was already working. It was never intended to keep the original OS anyway (and in particular, Linux users tend to be opinionated and install their favorite distro anyway).