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Comment by tx | Hacker News Reader

"Desktop" is too broad of a definition. Gnome/Nautilus already kick Finder's ass, but is it enough to recommend Ubuntu over OSX to my parents? No.

What Linux needs, is PC manufacturer's support. I am not talking about drivers here, I'm talking about quality pre-installs done at the factory. Once suppliers see this, they'll provide quality Linux drivers in order to compete. And for users stuff "will just work".

ThinkPad T61 running Ubuntu is in many ways superior to MBP/OSX (and 30% cheaper), but only because I deliberately configured it with only Linux-compatible components and spent a weekend tuning it upon arrival.

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>What Linux needs, is PC manufacturer's support. I am not talking about drivers here, I'm talking about quality pre-installs done at the factory.

That would be wonderful. Ubuntu is making my laptop search very stressful. It is so much fun to use that I don't want to go back to Windows. However, if I buy a laptop that isn't compatible with Ubuntu then it will be hard or impossible to switch out the components for compatible ones like I did on my desktop. The only hassle-free solution is to buy Ubuntu laptops from Dell, but they currently charge about $150 more for the same hardware with Ubuntu installed compared to Windows (what happened to the "Windows tax"?).

The Windows tax is offset by the crapware subsidy.

Dell charges $1-2 per crapware install, but sometimes those are free if Dell feels like they add value. Vista Basic, OEM edition, is probably $50 (I am guessing about this one). This requires 20-25 cases of infection with useless shit to offset Microsoft tax.

This still can't explain how come Ubuntu-based machines are more expensive.

I think that Dell simply rides the demand train: they're the only big-name brand that sells Ubuntu-powered machines (very few know that Lenovo sells SUSE) and they're enjoying higher profit margins on them.

Maybe it is just the ratio of E="effort to make OS run on Laptop x" to U="units of laptops x sold". Price =~ E/U.

Could you link to such a Dell configuration? The last "comparison" I saw compared completely different notebook types. Are there notebooks where you can literally choose Win XP or Ubuntu and the latter costs 150$ more?

No, had to get the specs as close as possible. If you look on the Ubuntu notebook page, you'll find something with a name like "Dell 1800n". Then if you look at the normal page, you'll find a "Dell 1800". You can get the specs close, but not exactly alike. It was clear that they were offering more bang for the buck on the Windows side.

With laptops, there are 3 things to be worried about: video, wireless and suspend/resume.

Video: Always Intel integrated. Wifi : Anything from Intel Suspend/Resume: Thinkpads

Two years ago, I'd have totally agreed with you.

With laptops, make sure you buy one with a factory install of Ubuntu or at least another Linux. There's enough out there (at least in the US and UK) to vote with your wallet and make compatibility someone else's problem.

You should be able to buy a Thinkpad T61 from IBM with Linux already installed on it (RHEL, IIRC).

I'm contracting at IBM now and pretty sure we sell these to customers as Linux desktops (IBM Ubuntu and RHEL 5 OpenClient are the SOE for my team).

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