OEMs: Sorry, best I can do is tripling the amount of pre-installed bloatware that I get kickbacks on, to not only offset the cost but raise profits more
Here in Brazil, a lot of vendors are offering laptops with linux, but they do this just to offer a lower price, and put the most weird distro possible, that no one knew existed, so everyone who buys have to install their own os. The bad thing about it is that it creates a really bad first impression about linux on common users, who mostly end up asking the tech person from the family to install windows for them
I ask myself the same question. I have no idea. Mine is from vaio and came with some sort of modded debian that looked like a stripped down win xp with custom repos that didn’t even load properly.
You’d think that installing a niche distro like that is more difficult than one of the big ‘plug and play’ ones. Meaning they actively put more work into it, how strange.
They used to have agreements to make it difficult to do so. I don’t know if that’s still the case but it’s pretty awful. I think OEMs had to pay licenses for every machine shipped regardless if it had a windows license.
The other issue is that oems have a large amount of compatibility and support built up over the years for windows. They also know their customers can deal with Microsoft for “support” and ignore driver and support costs for whatever distro of Linux they were to choose.
Sure an OEM could lead the way and show everyone else the path to freedom but think of the shareholders
The Framework laptops have been selling out with backlog orders now. But with new models recently out, all the Linux ones sold out well before the Windows ones.
I think it just kind of goes to say, if you know a bit about computers, Linux is a go-to. Of course those that are a bit tech-savvy as well would just get a Windows one, clear it off and install the distro of their choice. Plus once upgrade is done, my OS and files are all there like nothing happened. Things like setting up Windows again on a new device or new install is like a full day task.
More OEMs should ship devices with Linux as an option, discounted by the Windows license cost.
OEMs: Sorry, best I can do is tripling the amount of pre-installed bloatware that I get kickbacks on, to not only offset the cost but raise profits more
Here in Brazil, a lot of vendors are offering laptops with linux, but they do this just to offer a lower price, and put the most weird distro possible, that no one knew existed, so everyone who buys have to install their own os. The bad thing about it is that it creates a really bad first impression about linux on common users, who mostly end up asking the tech person from the family to install windows for them
Why don’t they just install Mint, Zorin, or even xUbuntu (XFCE versions of each)…
That’s 3 examples with actual support and a user base >3 edgelord cat bois.
I ask myself the same question. I have no idea. Mine is from vaio and came with some sort of modded debian that looked like a stripped down win xp with custom repos that didn’t even load properly.
You’d think that installing a niche distro like that is more difficult than one of the big ‘plug and play’ ones. Meaning they actively put more work into it, how strange.
Most distro maintainers would expect something for commercial licences. Can’t have them take all your hard earned money! Max I can do is 0$.
No they wouldn’t. Where did you even get that idea from?
All the distroes are under GPL, so there is no need
They’re usually gpl licensed. You can do whatever you want with it (including selling it for a bazillion monies) as long as you give the code too.
im surprised they don’t just do the underhanded method of acquiring windows.
well I’d imagine theres some stores willing to oblige doing that.
curious sakes, what distro do they preload on customers.
Yeah that’s weird. Quite a few of the smaller refurb shops here (south East Asia) just pirate Windows and Office suite.
They just expect everyone to pirate windows
The problem there is Windows still has negative cost for OEMs due to all the bloatware they bundle.
They get paid for that McAfee and Epic Games icon.
meanwhile on the Dell website
EDIT: $100 of that difference comes from Win11 requiring an SSD upgrade from 512GB to 1TB
What currency is that? Windows 11 home is $140 USD.
USD
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-13-laptop/spd/xps-13-9350-intel-laptop/usexcucto9350lnl01#customization-anchor
The “discount” “+$100” 💀
They used to have agreements to make it difficult to do so. I don’t know if that’s still the case but it’s pretty awful. I think OEMs had to pay licenses for every machine shipped regardless if it had a windows license.
The other issue is that oems have a large amount of compatibility and support built up over the years for windows. They also know their customers can deal with Microsoft for “support” and ignore driver and support costs for whatever distro of Linux they were to choose.
Sure an OEM could lead the way and show everyone else the path to freedom but think of the shareholders
The Framework laptops have been selling out with backlog orders now. But with new models recently out, all the Linux ones sold out well before the Windows ones.
I think it just kind of goes to say, if you know a bit about computers, Linux is a go-to. Of course those that are a bit tech-savvy as well would just get a Windows one, clear it off and install the distro of their choice. Plus once upgrade is done, my OS and files are all there like nothing happened. Things like setting up Windows again on a new device or new install is like a full day task.
they actually make money on many of those windows preinstalls due to all the bullshit they get paid to put on.
The fun part is that they can bundle an equal amount of bloatware on linux for even more revenue.
The actually funny part is that they can’t. Most of the bloatware is not available on Linux because it doesn’t support it.