[wellylug] Linux-only laptops

[Donald Rogers]

Daniel and others

The Macbook Pro 13 that I bought 3 years ago has just died and cost of 
repair would be $1555, so I am back to square one. (One could buy a new 
one for that by mail order - see Pricespy), but I don't want one.) Has 
anything changed in the last three years?

I have checked Ascent's website and they appear to offer only servers 
and service agreements? Zareason now has a presence in NZ.

http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/news/dell-ships-lightweight-xps-13-laptop-with-ubuntu-linux
overpriced and not yet available?

Any comments?

Donald


On 15/06/10 10:31, Donald Rogers wrote:
> Daniel Reurich wrote:
>> On Wed, 2010-05-26 at 10:07 +1200, Donald Rogers wrote:
>>> Colin Templeman wrote:
>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>> Hash: RIPEMD160
>>>>
>>>> on 24/05/2010 11:06 Donald Rogers said:
>>>>
>>>>> In January 2009 I had a go at finding a suitable laptop to buy for 
>>>>> which
>>>>> I did not have to pay the Microsoft extortion
>>>> If the direct approach fails, try option 2: get a refund on the 
>>>> Windows licence
>>>> - - have a google about on this topic.
>>>>
>>>> Quite a few successes been had in the UK and elsewhere with various 
>>>> companies
>>>> (e.g. Dell and Asus).  Common elements of success appears to be 
>>>> getting the
>>>> "right person" and being polite but persistent.
>>>>
>>>> Have a look here in the first instance:
>>>> http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/59381
>>> Thanks for the link. I have read similar ones in the past. NZ must 
>>> be about the hardest country in the world in which to get a laptop 
>>> without MSWin on it or to get a refund of the MS extortion. When I 
>>> asked one of the retailers about a refund he said that I would get 
>>> only $15. At that point I left in disgust.
>>>
>>> Has anyone had any experience of importing a laptop from Australia 
>>> or elsewhere? There are heaps of outlets in USA and UK, and a few in 
>>> Oz, offering Linux or bare bones laptops. AFAIK buying a bare bones 
>>> desktop in NZ is not a problem. I bought mine from Quay Computers in 
>>> 2004.
>>>
>>> Donald
>>
>> I've made several attempts at increasing the availability and options in
>> this arena, but the upstream suppliers are slow to move.  It appears
>> that the OEM's get special pricing from Microsoft for preinstalled
>> systems, and it seems to hard for them to pull their products of the
>> assembly line before the MS sticker is put on, and install a clean
>> harddrive instead of the encumbered one.
>>
>> I thought that in the age of computer control and robotics, the assembly
>> lines would be smart enough to handle this.
>>
>> My experience has been that it is largely the cheap knockoff badly
>> designed products from manufacturers that haven't got a market share
>> that are sometimes made available without the preinstalled and bundled
>> OS because even Microsoft won't bother to sign them up to an OEM
>> agreement.
>>
>> It'll a cold day in Hell when Microsft releases it's icy grip on the OEM
>> manufacturers and allow alternative OS's to share the same product
>> lines.
> IMO it is nothing to do with robotics. Where there is a will there is 
> a way. HP, Dell (big name companies) mention Linux or FreeDOS machines 
> on their websites, but Dell refuses to sell them in NZ. But...
>
> I received a message from Giri at Ascent (dot co dot nz) which said:
>
> I am more than happy if you provide our details to the Linux Users 
> Group or to any Linux user for that matter. We are happy to custom 
> configure any HP PC/Notebook we can get access to without Windows. I 
> honestly can't say why no one in NZ promotes them. One reason might be 
> because it's not very easy to configure and supply these notebooks. 
> You need to talk to HP, write a business case for being able to supply 
> these notebooks, create your own custom configs, liaise with a 
> distributor to supply your custom config, get the config built in 
> Australia, wait 3 weeks, make sure you are not stepping on another 
> suppliers toes etc.  HP don't exactly make it easy.
>
> A big thank-you to Ian Beardslee at Catalyst for his advocacy at 
> Ascent. If you go to the Ascent website and search notebooks for 
> FreeDOS you will find one, the HP Mini 5102 Netbook. What we need is 
> for Linux users to request other notebooks from Ascent.
>
> Donald
>
>
>
>
>
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