3mo ago

Lenovo Cuts the Windows Tax and offers Cheaper Laptops with Linux Pre-installed

news.itsfoss.com

Linux @sh.itjust.works

cm0002 @lemmy.world

3mo ago

Lenovo Cuts the Windows Tax and offers Cheaper Laptops with Linux Pre-installed

news.itsfoss.com /lenovo-cuts-windows-tax/

30 comments

- Used to have? Not anymore?
- oligopoly
  That's a way to misspell monopoly, alright.
Wow, I didn't realize the windows tax was that high. I thought the bulk OEM licensing was significantly cheaper than the retail price.
- It's kind of absurd. When you buy a TV, the bloated adware at least helps lower the price. Imagine paying extra for it.
  
  For TVs the manufacturers are the ones who control the bloated adware and make money off of it while on notebooks and laptops it is Micro$oft. Except maybe for TVs coming with Android TV OS, but I think even that can be modified to promote their services.
  
  Why would it lower the price? Don't ads only exist to generate a bit of extra revenue?
- I thought it was as much as the $10-$20 keys from key resellers.
The price difference does make sense, it's the cost to cover therapy for the employee that was forced to preinstall Windows on a computer for the thousandth time
This is only for Thinkpads which are offered as customized units and have a longer shipping time.
- incorrect. currently sporting an ideapad pro that i bought directly from lenovo last year and it came without windows pre-installed.
  
  Which country?
Currently in France No OS is -€60 and with Fedora or Ubuntu it's -€30
Don't ask. Different markets, pricing irrelevant to actual costs
- The cost is what Canonical wants.
  
  And redhat. But only in Europe.
nothing new. here in brazil many manufacturers, dell included, would ship laptops with linux and then people would shove a pirated windows copy on it.
SteamOS is next.
It's HAPPENING!
Finally!
Windows is free for anyone to use indefinitely... If you're OK with a persistent watermark.
Why even add a premium to the laptop? Let the user decide to use windows as-is, pay a license, or switch to Linux. 🤭
- In practice. Technically, were M$ to go sue users left and right (or send those ISP-style "gotcha", now pay up) emails.
  Luckiy, M$ knows well enough that 90% of that userbase wouldn't have too many qualms jumping ship if they got slapped with a huge fine, so M$ lets them be.
  They value the high userbase more than a quick payout (and rightly so). However, there's no guarantee that can't change overnight (just look at Unity and before that, Adobe).
Didn’t RTA. What distro?
- Fedora or Ubuntu. But I'd say the important part is that they probably provide all necessary drivers.
  
  Usually enabling Ubuntu’s third party / proprietary repo covers all necessary drivers.
  I remember having lots of driver issues on fedora but that was like two decades ago. I’d imagine they have that sorted now.
  Anyway this is good news. Grow the user base.
  
  These seem to be the two most commonly supported distros by laptop manufacturers. Framework officially support these two distros, too (they have unofficial guides for a bunch of other distros though)

30 comments