[kwlug-disc] Linux tax

[unsolicited]

Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 06/08/2010 10:03 AM:
> I think this partially has to do with all the add ons that they put on
> Windows
> (AOL, Anti Virus, and all other sorts of crapish stuff) and get kickbacks
> from
> the vendors. That helps defray the cost of Windows, so effectively it is
> zero
> for the system integrator.
> 
> On Linux, there are no such add ons, and hence they charge the cost of
> labor, be it to install it, or to support it (given that it is more
> specialized and
> finding support people for it is harder).
> 
> The above dynamics may be true for new equipment by Dell, HP, ...etc.
> Not sure how much they play on refurbished stuff. Specifically, not sure
> if they still load the add ons on refurbs, or do they do support for these
> systems at all.

Everything will be a disk image they just blow on. Likely refurb too.

Never seen a Dell arriving with Linux, but with Windows 7 you're doing 
a wee bit to identify yourself, then auto-installing the OS. On my 
eee, from a partition containing an self-extracting image provided by 
MS. I expect the same will be true of Linux.