[tjogin]

Having an OS work on lots of machines is not really a requirement of a good OS.

While they needn't go the Apple route with all-proprietary machines, they neither need to go the Microsoft route and have it run on everything.

Maybe a middle of the road approach is best for this niche of the market.

[noamsml]

If it's sold in boxes, it should work well on many machines, otherwise it's going to get bad publicity, but you're right that if it's bundled with machines, it only needs to worry about some hardware (though it still needs to worry about all peripherals).

[tjogin]

It's not going to get bad publicity if it works well on the hardware it's supposed to work well on. The OS is meant for netbooks remember?