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Let's be honest here - Sony didn't decided "Hey, I want everyone to use Microsoft". What, you think Sony loves Microsoft? Yeah right.

No. Microsoft went to them and said "Sell ONLY our stuff or you get no Windows."

Sony caved like a coward, signed an agreement, and were contractually obligated to refuse to sell non-windows computers. They don't care that much, because most consumers want Microsoft.

What a convoluted (and unsubstantiated) story you came up with. You could easily edit this down to be much simpler (and more accurate):

Sony didn't decided "Hey, I want everyone to use Microsoft", but since most consumers want Microsoft they gave them what they wanted.

You can't say in one sentence that the majority of the users want Windows and then in the very next one say that they don't want Windows. Which is it? How likely is it that Sony would want to make it more difficult for the 99% of the people who want to just turn their new computer and have it work, just to please the 1% who chose the wrong computer and then bitched about having to pay the Microsoft tax.

Seriously, if you don't want to pay for Windows then don't! It's not rocket science. Just recognise that you are a niche market, and that only a few companies will bother to support you.

The GNU/Linux version is often more expensive, and I'm told this is for three reasons: lack of economies of scale, cost of handling returns from novices who end up buying the wrong thing, and the claim that the royalties paid by publishers of included trialware more than subsidize the royalty paid to Microsoft for Windows.

Maybe true, maybe not. I find these guys deal fairly and don't sell you junk:

      http://thelinuxlaptop.com/

>> The lack of device drivers for Linux *IT'S YOUR FAULT*

really ?

Really! :-)

Often you don't know the devices installed on the computer. The product description only specifies the graphics card and the processor. And maybe the wifi card vendor but nothing else

But you do know the hardware being currently supported by Linux. A simple and direct question to the vendor and it's done (or not). The seller doesn't know? No problem, I'm not buying neither.

You don't know how to proceed? Ask for help. Paid help if needed.

But stop bitching about "I can't use Linux because there's no device drivers for my hardware". Be honest, say that you don't want to use Linux. PERIOD. This I can respect - I'm using MacOS X now for my desktop computing - I simply refused to use that crappy excuse for a Desktop called Gnome 3.

KDE? No thanks. If I were going to do the Windows way, I would prefer doing it on the original. :-)

But I'm still using Linux heavily on my servers. No regrets.

I am talking about notebooks.

Me too.

Have you looked at System76? They make laptops preloaded with Ubuntu. www.system76.com

I just ordered one from The Linuxlaptop. It's basically a Dell Inspiron. I could have gotten it faster and paid a little less directly from Dell, but I'm getting lazy, I want to just turn it on and have it work. I think, from now on I will only order from companies that pre-install Linux. It says something about their commitment.

Yeah, it would be good to get it from a supplier who has actually heard of Linux. So System 76, or maybe Emperor Linux or The Linux Laptop or Linux-Certified or ZaReason etc.

You are not looking hard enough. Please check at least the last link.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

My GOD, there's three on one page.

And some more:

http://system76.com/index.php?cPath=28

These damned things are everywhere:

http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lctp.html

http://www.thelinuxlaptop.com/products_new.php