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But is it locked to Win 8? Can you easily install ubuntu on it, or is all the hardware drivers closed source?

No, it's not locked. But you can't install Ubuntu there (at least not easily). Google for "32-bit UEFI" if you need any more details about the sorry state of affairs with booting Linux on latest crop of Atom Bay Trail hardware. The only out-of-the-box working distro for it is "fedlet" - some obscure fedora 21-alpha fork.

>Google for "32-bit UEFI" if you need any more details about the sorry state of affairs with booting Linux on latest crop of Atom Bay Trail hardware.

There is at least one product with a Bay Trail CPU in it that runs Linux: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=19836.

Unlike most Atom CPUs, the graphics driver for Linux on Bay Trail CPUs is completely open (like it is on Intel Core CPUs), which I guess makes it doubly sad that some manufacturers of products with Bay Trail CPUs in them are screwing up with the boot loader.

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