cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/165736
At least in the U.S. and Canada, that is.
This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post where a user (presumably a resident of Canada), had posted how Lenovo was shipping laptops with Fedora and Ubuntu at a cheaper price compared to their Windows-equipped counterparts.
Others then chimed in, saying that Lenovo has been doing this since at least 2020 and that the big price difference shows how ridiculous Windows’ pricing is.
Cutting the Windows Tax
When I dug in further, I found out that the US and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives.
US pricing on left, Canadian pricing on right.
Interestingly, while the difference in pricing is noticeable, your mileage may vary if you are looking for such laptops on the official website. Not all models from their laptop lineup, like ThinkPad, Yoga, Legion, LOQ, etc., feature an option to get Linux pre-installed during the checkout process.
Luckily, there is an easy way to filter through the numerous laptops. Just go to the laptops section (U.S.) on the Lenovo website and turn on the “Operating System” filter under the Filter by specs sidebar menu.
Yes, it’s as simple as that. You can do the same for the various official online regional storefronts that Lenovo runs to see whether Linux-based operating systems are being offered on their laptops in your country.
Closing Thoughts
It is good to see that Lenovo is offering Linux in its laptops. In fact, there is another big-name laptop manufacturer, Dell, who also does something similar with its Ubuntu-certified laptops, but both have the same constraint of having limited options for buyers.
Also, as far as I know, Dell doesn’t reduce the pricing if you choose Linux instead of Windows. Correct me if I am wrong in the comments.
Nonetheless, I think these manufacturers could do a better job in marketing these Linux-based alternative operating systems to general consumers, showing them how they can save big when opting for these instead of the pricey and bloated Windows.
Otherwise, we might have to start observing Windows Refund Day again.
💬 Your take on this? Would mainstream users benefit from having Linux pre-installed on their laptops?
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Only on North America, you say?
pity.
For at least the last decade, Europe has been abandoning Microsoft in droves.
I suspect soon Microsoft will be unknown in Europe except as “That system they use over there.”
The system that should not be named!
Then they will unironically call it the freedom OS
Or the European OS.
2025 is the year of the Linux
desktoplaptop!I would really like to see broad support for TPM-backed FDE, which also requires secure boot to work to implement this properly.
For me, this is essential to have for feature parity with Windows on laptop.
I would love to have secure boot for a customized distro. it only really needs to attest the firmware and the bootloader because they can’t be encrypted, which would serve as a form of tamper protection
other distributions should start having an option for this in the GUI installer, but it might be tricky for the average user
Arch Wiki has a guide on FDE using the TPM and it’s transparent in my everyday usage
some minor issues I see are:
- Secure Boot needing to be disabled then re-enabled during install for it to work as intended
- needing to write down a long backup passphrase, but this also happens on Windows and MacOS iirc
One major obstacle is third party drivers, specifically Nvidia, that forces building and signing your own kernel modules. It can be done, but it’s certainly more complexity than distributing signed binary drivers from the distro. I think Ubuntu has preliminary support for TPM-backed FDE, but only if you aren’t using such drivers. It doesn’t work in combination.
I don’t want to sign my own modules. I want them to shipped signed, so the key isn’t expected to be on my machine. If I were doing kernel development work, I’d have disabled secure boot entirely anyway.
Let’s not have tpm at all instead.
As long as the user owns the TPM and has full control over it, I don’t see a problem. I paid for that hardware. I want to use it. There are already tools that can talk to it. It’s just not fully implemented and integrated into the system in a secure fashion. Indirectly, you kind of point out why there hasn’t been as much motivation to provide these features because they’re associated with the user giving up control, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The hardware can work for me if the support were there.
With the right support, it can even be combined with the password. This lets me enforce that the drive only unlocks in this machine, with this password, and only with the software that I set. That’s certainly more secure than how most distros do FDE today. It covers more use cases and enables a much stronger threat model.
Since installing Linux, my battery life has more than doubled.
That alone is reason enough to switch to Linux
Yeah, while I don’t have a laptop myself, I installed Fedora on my desktop and it idles quieter. I suspect it’s not doing as much in the background as Windows was.
This is awesome and I love it. Maybe they could even take a few more dollars off by not having any OS installed (bypassing the labor costs of imaging an SSD). I’ll be installing my own copy anyway, so I’m fine with a blank SSD.
Those manufacturers where you can select either Linux or no OS don’t charge extra for Linux.
I mean it’s like maybe a dollar or two for the labor costs, so that’s understandable. I’d still prefer just a blank SSD anyway.
It’s likely done in an automated way by the same equipment that tests the hardware, so costs are probably more along the lines of a few fractions of a penny, and imo shipping any device without an os at all is a bit silly as they could very likely end up in the hands of someone without the capability or equipment to image them.
The cost is actually negative given that they get to pre-install whatever software they want into it.
That is awesome
More manufacturers need to do this!
Dell used to. Not sure of they still do.
Some do! Or at least, they give you a choice of OS at different price points. NovaCustom, Eurocom, and AVA Direct come to mind. Of course, there are also plenty of vendors that ONLY offer GNU/Linux pre-installed…
That’s great! - But. But, I hope some people check it out carefully. Some years ago, Lenovo middle-man’d the SSL root certificate on laptops so they could inject ads into Https web pages. (And spy on users? Steal passwords? Manipulate bank accounts? I hope not…)
I wonder what they could hide in an own Linux install?
Dell did the same thing - in the same year too.
You should always clean install your OS. Let the guys wanting to spy on you put some effort in.
Really?! Do you have a source? I’d like to look this up!
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-remove-dells-superfish-2-0-root-certificate-permanently/
It’s actually called eDellRoot, not Superfish though.
You can safely assume that probably every manufacturer did or still does similar thing - whether they’re caught is another story though.
Oh, wow.
Do you have any reputable articles of this? I’m interested cheers
Thank you that’s appalling and I’m glad I build my own pcs
Just look it up. It made the news rounds about 10 or so years ago. It was a big deal at the time. Just about everyone covered it and Lenovo acknowledged it and, IIRC they apologized for it
Apologizing and stopping are two different things.
And? I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
“Sorry we broke into your security on purpose.”
“We’re sorry we’re facing consequences. We’ll take action to make sure this doesn’t happen agian.”
We used to undermine the security of our customers systems.
We still do. But we used to, too.
It kinda blows my mind that “no OS” isn’t the cheapest option
It’s the same reason that you have to pay more to stream videos without ads…
Yeah, smart TVs with no OS are way more expensive than the ones riddled with ads as well.
I changed to the projectivity launcher on my Android TV and it was night and day in terms of performance. No ads. The UI doesn’t change every other week to make me look at some new show I don’t care about. I can literally just hide everything I don’t want to see.
I should probably look into actual entire OS swaps available for my TV but I don’t have the time. Changing the launcher and using ADB (over lan) to disable updates and apply some optimizations was worth the day it took me.
Turns out the hardware on the TV is fine. The software was just complete garbage and got worse with every update.
Now if only I could fix the UI in the actual apps like YouTube. But still it’s a lot better. I’ll probably install the YouTube alternative app one day when I have time.
My wife started using the TV over her tablet after I changed it. She said she hated how slow it was to just turn on and start that she just would go to her tablet instead.
Yeah, out of the box experience is terrible. I wish we could’ve installed custom ROMs on TVs too but most of them are vendor-locked. Projectivity Launcher is a life saver. Default everything is just bad. I did a similar thing and removed many apps via ADB.
For Youtube alternative, SmartTube is the best. You can sideload it via ADB.
Nice. I don’t think I saw SmartTube before. Will check it out. Thanks.
Sometimes it might not work, and when that happens just check out a new update. It will also notify you when there is an update.
You’re welcome!
So… Windows is an ad delivery system.hmm, it makes sense, because as an operating system that’s the only thing it does well is show ads.
Stremio doesn’t charge me more. I dont know why anyone would pay to stream. Or not block ads.
Well, these services do require money to run. If everyone were as ‘clever’ as you are then we’d have little content indeed.
I seem to recall in the past Microsoft pressured manufacturers to not sell computers without an operating system, arguing that unscrupulous consumers would install pirated copies of Windows on them. A ridiculous argument, but it was the excuse they used.
I bought a laptop without a Windows license from Lenovo years ago. It came with FreeDOS, if I remember correctly. I wanted to install Linux, so I didn’t care. In some areas they’ve been offering this for a while now.
I got an ASUS laptop with FreeDOS back in 2015 for the same reason. Had to upgrade the HDD and RAM, but It still works like a champ.
I thought OEMs only paid like $10 for Windows?
they tend to make money off it due to the bundle deals and commissions and what-not.
a major oem charging $140-200 is all profit.
Perhaps it’s a direct response to the tarrifs, as well as an instance of a Chinese company finding a way to fuck over an American company now that trade relations across the board between the US and PRC are juddering to a halt.
It says they’ve been offering this since 2020
It’s usually 10% of the device MSRP for windows pro.
There are some very low cost devices that get it for $10 for windows home…
Looks like this was Windows home. Windows pro was a $ upgrade.
I think you misunderstood what’s being discussed. In this post, all Windows versions cost money. It’s just they bake it into the advertised price and say Linux is a reduction, which means you’re paying the difference if you choose to go with the default. It isn’t free, no matter how they display it.
Seriously? Go back and read carefully.
In the post, Linux has a “negative” cost. In reality this means it’s closer to the base cost and the “free” Windows is baked into the price, not actually free. Both versions of windows have a cost. One is higher than the other though.
Just for you and your misreading: the previous guy said Windows Pro is 10% of MSRP. Well you open the pic in the original post and surprise it’s ~10% for Windows Home version. Aka just for you; you pay 10% for Windows HOME edition, aka everyone knows it’s not free because you just paid 10% for it. Windows Pro edition is a $ upgrade from the HOME edition, which for this offer puts Windows Pro closer to ~15%. Not the 10% the previous guy thought. The only person that misread and couldn’t follow the post is you.
OK, just so you’re aware, since you are being condescending, there’s two pictures. One of them Windows Home is ~10%, one Windows Pro is ~10%.
Both cost money. I don’t know what $ upgrade means, but I’m assuming you mean they cost extra, which both do no matter what, which is what I was talking about at first. It’s not only one that costs extra.
I wonder what the labor is to install it. Well I guess it’s the same labor as Linux.
Anyone know how they do it? Do they plug the drive into a cloning machine before installing it in the computer?
They have an image of the OS that they copy on the SSD for each machine.
Awesome, with Ubuntu too!
So when will Asus & Dell do it ?? Actually; now that I think, why aren’t FrameWorks, System76, Tuxedo & StarLabs not aggresively competing ??
I don’t understand your second question. What do you mean by they’re not aggressively competing?
Translation is “I dont understand economies of scale”
You assume a lot.
As in they’re not even attempting to grow out of Europe. Their prices are a little too pricey for linux hardware
Dell did it years ago, not sure if they stopped or what.
I’ve gotten a Linux-certified Dell laptop via an old employer (I bought the device when I left the company), and even after over four years, Dell is still pushing firmware updates.
Time wil tell if Lenovo will do the same. It could be the source of the additional “cost”, or just Dell using the OS for its margins.
Would mainstream users benefit from having Linux pre-installed on their laptops?
Installing Linux is the easiest part of switching to Linux. If Linux was 100% the same as Windows in terms of user experience, everyone would have switched to Linux by now
The problem is that people nowadays are just as tech incompetent as they were when the first computer came out. Instead of having a basic understanding of how to use a computer, they just memorize where do click in order to Start application x and do thing y. So the Moment you just slightly alter the workflow, they just lock up. Next time you are at a normie friends house, just try and put a link from their desktop into a folder with the same Name. I will bet my ass they will lock up the Moment the icon of that link has changed.
Well, yeah, the whole purpose of an icon is to make it easy to identify amongst a sea of similar things with words. I’m reasonably computer literate, but I’m also lazy as fuck, I don’t even bother looking for icons I just crtl+alt+t and start it from the terminal.
I have a Linux gaming laptop and a windows laptop for proprietary crap. Or things that don’t run well on Linux. Like older games and iTunes.
If you only need iTunes for your iPod, there is a music manager alternative on Linux, its a GNOME app but I dont know the Name
For old games Theres ScummVM, and if its the DRM that wont work you might as well just pirate it, since you own the games anyway
Also I meant about 80% of all users, who only use it to browse the web and use some simple things like image viewers and stuff. For those people, Linux would be more than enough, if not even better because most software is OSS, but most of them just don’t want to learn how a computer works, and instead just opt for the method I just described
For iTunes, I do full backups and redeploys of my wife’s iPhone.
As for games, “yarr harr me matey.” I just don’t want to fiddle with wine or proton, so I’ll take a look at scummVM. We’re talking dos and w95 era shit. Likeech warrior 2, etc…
And I agree with your bottom portion, I don’t know a single person outside of myself (in my family) that needs more than a Chromebook or Linux mint with just the Firefox or chrome icon on the desktop.
I quite like their laptops but they put the most horrible keyboards I’ve ever used. I’ve had chronic rsi and my fingers physically hurt less than 8h of use.
Do they have high end laptops (32g RAM, top i7 or similar, for Android development) at reasonable prices with good keyboards? I’ve been on Xps for a while.
I actually prefer the Lenovo keyboard to any other laptop keyboard in existence. Be it HP, Dell, Microsoft, Asus, Acer or otherwise.
You…don’t like Thinkpad keyboards? You may be alone in this.
my shop uses HP Elitebooks and Lenovo ThinkPads and users typically prefer the Elitebook keyboard but this is a comparison of only 2 midrange models with a sample size of a few hundred so your milage may vary.
I have an elitebook g450 and a yogo 380L. They’re both nice in their own ways but the g450 has a better short travel.
Installing my own OS is half the fun of getting a new computer. Why would I want the manufacturer to install an OS?
a nice 140 usd discount sounds like a decent incentive
Oh, windows certainly isn’t an option. The options I’m weighing are “pre-installed Linux” and “tabula rasa”.
freedos ftw
Good way to check that all the parts are working before putting whatever you want on it.
majority of consumers don’t even know how to decline cookies on websites, let alone how to install windows, or that other thing that’s called limix… or what
you get the discount + you can reinstall it yourself/install a different distro + it shows the general market how much of the cost is due to a Windows license and other OS alternatives, creating more informed consumers
i see it as a benefit
But why not “blank drive”?
probably just not worth the additional logistics
Easy enough to do that ourselves really, this is just for normies.
Because laptop manufacturers don’t make laptops for people who want to install their own OSes. The average tech illiterate just wants something that works out of the box.
Idk maybe so you can start using it?
Nothing is stopping you from throwing out the OEM install.
Least of all, Windows, the telemetry software that lets you play games and sometimes be productive. Terms and conditions may apply!!1
My plan is working nicely, next laptop will be a Lenovo
Sweet!
Nice!
Cool!
Bossa nova!
