Goodbye, Microsoft!

[mdlbear]

This is one of the coolest hacks of all time. Browse to goodbye-microsoft.com, and click on the Debian logo image. It will download a Windows executable. Hopefully you are not so foolish as to allow IE to run programs you download off the internet without an explicit double-click, so go ahead and double-click it. It will ask you whether to run the graphical or text-based installer, download the appropriate one for your CPU, set it up as an option in the (Windows) boot manager, and triggers a reboot.

At this point you have the choice between restarting your stupid old Windows, or booting into the clever and friendly Debian installer. You can even make your system dual-boot. You might want to make backups first, unless it's a brand-new machine.

Ubuntu users can use the somewhat similar install.exe, which downloads Ubuntu using bittorrent and installs it into an image file so that you don't even have to repartition your disk.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

Maybe I should write a worm that runs this on every machine to which it gains access...

[mdlbear]

I'm just surprised it hasn't been done already -- by Microsoft, if nobody else, to discredit Linux. Actually I guess it's not so surprising; they'd be running the risk that people would actually prefer it.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Please! And every time I get a hit on my webserver that's obviously looking for an IIS instance to bust into, I send the worm back to the offending Port 80... some asshat gets p0Wn3d, hits my box, and the next thing you know, asshat is looking at a GRUB prompt that says, "Do you REALLY want to go back to Windows?"

I've been wanting to do that for YEARS but never had the expertise or the time to go google for it. (I'm a competent C programmer but am far too goody-two-shoes to think like a cracker... I can see where things are risks but I don't have the first clue about designing a 'sploit...)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Only problem with the page is the "spread propaganda" link is, not everybody has OpenOffice. And it's not even very good propaganda, just the URL.

Other than that? Verrrrry interesting.