On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 08:58:32PM +0000, mbm wrote:
There is not a mature enough "market" in such products in the Linux world so we end up with the anomalous situtation where a Linux installation actually costs the box shifter money - despite the cost of the MS install.
....but given that the Dell ubuntu laptops cost £30 less than a Windows one (Windows Vista Home), you can see that an OEM license for Windows is £43 from various online stores. It'd make sense that Dell get a discount from Microsoft and the price difference is reflected in the price difference of the two machines. FWIW, I did see some on some Dell web pages recently that Michael Dell himself claims to run Ubuntu on his laptop so I hardly think it would make sense to say this even if they were just putting Linux on to say it wasn't cost effective.
Adam