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Comment by devx | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually surprised this hasn't happened in US more. There has to be more to that story than just retailers not wanting Ubuntu on laptops, when they could save their customers at least $100 on the machines. It's also strange that in many other countries retailers would still sell you machines with FreeDOS (to save customers money), but not with Ubuntu or other Linux distros, since FreeDOS is all but useless.

My guess is Microsoft is coercing both OEM's and retailers somehow, and if they really have to sell the machines without Windows, then they want them to at least sell them without a real OS on them, that their customers might actually begin to use as it is.

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There's microsoft's pressure on one hand, and the preinstalled crap (for which vendors pay retailers) which moves most of the direct cost away from both retailers and users.

If you buy a laptop from the Microsoft store, you can pay a little more for "signature" which is ... Crap free windows. Directly from Microsoft. For an additional payment. I kid you not.

I think that's standard on all Microsoft store laptops, and from what I've seen, they are constantly on sale, much cheaper than Frys, etc.

When I bought my Lenovo 3 years ago, it was $80 extra. I didn't even check what it was - I was going to run Linux anyway. When the box arrived with he sticker "with signature" I almost called to complain that I asked for nothing extra. But I first checked, and saw that thy didn't charge me for it. And also that it was removal of crapware, rather than something additional.

I think your info is a bit out of date-did brick and mortar MS stores even exist then? Seriously, I don't like MS that much, but I wish people would get their facts straight.

Perhaps it is out of date; they did try to charge me $80 to remove crap in March 2011 (so, 2.5 years ago). It was from the online store - but I believe the brick and mortar stores already existed.

When the original Eee came out (and started the concept of netbooks) it was pre-installed with Linux. XP was being discontinued and the Windows tax was a big deal at that pricepoint. Vista was a disaster and couldn't really run well on the Eee's basic specs.

People where bringing the things back.

I think it might be a support thing. They don't want people to return the computer because they couldn't figure out how to do simple task X with the OS on the computer, or because an update broke the proprietary drivers required for some hardware.

Retailers don't have the resources to fix these problems, or to help fixing them. They don't have to if the customer installed their OS of choice themselves.

OEM gets money from crapware preinstalled on Windows. Also OEM Windows license costs peanuts, so computer without Windows can be actually more expensive.

So the last hurdle to Linux adoption is crapware.

Or some other way for the hardware vendor to make more money on a Linux install than a Windows install.

> My guess is Microsoft is coercing both OEM's and retailers somehow

Talk to any of the market insiders, that's exactly what has been happening for decades now.

And it actually has been "improved" from back than as well. If I remember correctly, Microsoft used to prohibit OEM having lines of computers other than Windows to qualify as OEM.

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