this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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with as cheap as commoditized hardware has become, im surprised there isnt anyone offering mint on a desktop/laptop thereby saving the microsoft tax.
There are. Several, in fact.
Hell, you can buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed from Amazon!
That's mostly focusing on just laptops; there's a dozen other companies selling desktop and mini-PCs with Linux, and some hardware manufacturers (Raspberry, ODroid?) don't even have Windows as an option.
There is a wide variety of laptops, desktops, mini-PCs, and SBCs to buy with Linux pre-installed. I'm more surprised that there's someone who thinks there isn't, than by how many options there are.
awesome!
been in the business for twenty-five years, and counting. saving the small builder's "microsoft tax" still doesn't let them compete on price with the basic mass-market systems from the major oems like dell and hp--companies that buy their shit by the 10s of millions per year. they also pay much less for a windows license, and in the end essentially gets paid to put it on from the preload deals and commissions they get.
This came and went as a trend. Linux as a default for those who didn't want to pay for OEM Windows was frequent in smaller PC shops, especially back when you had to manually punch in a key. My memory of it is it went away once a) the modern activation scheme rolled out, and b) people stopped buying shop-made PCs in favor of prebuilts or custom builds.
And let me be clear, the idea was you got the PC with Linux to check that everything worked and you'd then proceed to install Windows on your own, either from a legit CD you owned or by pirating a key. Which I guess is in itself a measure of how much people around these parts overrepresent how much the average normie cares about "official support".
A few laptop houses do still ship Linux as an option, but that's more of a statement and meant to be used. And less frequent, too.
how along ago was that? before 11? before 8? shits come a long way even in just the last 5 years. linux on the desktop is out-of-the-box at least as capable as windows 7, and mint has a lovely curated app store for easy app installs.
I think you can get pre-configured systems. I believe the distro website actually links to some.
I also think at least in the past OEM’s were under contracts that stipulated Windows only.