Jon,

I think that bloatware does in general help with subsidizing laptop costs, but that depends on the type of laptop and the licensing agreement that an OEM has with Microsoft. In general, business laptops have little bloatware compared to consumer lines, therefore it becomes easier to gauge how much of a "tax" Windows can have on those. For example, choosing FreeDOS instead of Windows can reduce the price of a HP Elitebook/ProBook by up to $230 if you check out the customization options: 

 https://store.hp.com/us/en/mlp/laptops/elite-352503--1
https://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/laptops/hp-probook-11-x360--1

Dell Developer Edition laptops you can also generally expect to be about $50 cheaper than their Windows counterparts for the same hardware configuration.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/laptops/new-13/spd/xps-13-9300-laptop

-Josh



On Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 13:09 Jon "maddog" Hall via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I have a six-year-old Lenovo W510 "workstation" laptop that has both the fingerprint reader and a set of sensors that sense the colors on the LCD screen (used for coordinating the colors of a screen with a printer and a scanner).  I easily got both of them working six years ago, but have not kept them up to date because I have not had a real use for them.

I may update the W510 with a new laptop after USB 4.x comes out.   Having 40 Gbits/second is too tempting.

md

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:58 PM Tim Keller <turbofx@gmail.com> wrote:
This was how my install of Ubuntu on my ThinkPad T470 went. Everything just works. The only thing I haven't bothered with is the fingerprint reader.

Tim.



On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:33 PM Jon "maddog" Hall via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
>* Why can't they just offer instructions on how to get drivers working
  >properly?

They will probably do this too, but you have to understand a couple of things.

(1) First, many customers do not want to "fiddle" with their purchases.  They want to open the box, fill in their name, etc. and work (or play).
(2) Secondly, it is one thing if you want to "fiddle" with one laptop you purchased, it is another thing if you have to "fiddle" with hundreds that you purchased for your company. (See Figure 1)
(3) Stores want to have laptops on display.  WE want to have GNU/Linux laptops on display.  Stores do NOT want to have to "fiddle" with the laptop just to show GNU/Linux working.  If the stores (particularly big box stores) have to "fiddle" THEY WILL NOT SHOW GNU/LINUX.
(4) Computers "need" to ship with some OS on them.  If GNU/Linux is not installed it will be MS (BSD?  In your dreams.  Nothing against BSD, but the numbers of units do not work).  If MS is on there, the manufacturers and stores and customers will pay an MS "tax".

>* Will their "special" linux have all the bloatware that theiw Windows
 > installs have?  Yuck!

That "bloatware" makes your laptop less expensive.   The bloatware companies pay to have that bloatware on there.  If it was not there, the laptops would cost more.

 "rm" works.  Use it.

md

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:21 PM Michael Voorhis via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> wrote:
I'm similar.  I've never had trouble installing Linux on a thinkpad...
would be a little suspicious about having one with an "altered" distro
installed.

* Why can't they just offer instructions on how to get drivers working
  properly?

* Will their "special" linux have all the bloatware that theiw Windows
  installs have?  Yuck!

--MCV.

On 4/24/20 12:16 PM, Jon "maddog" Hall via WLUG wrote:
> For full disclosure, I purchase all of my laptops new (not used), all
> "top of the line" and ALL have been Thinkpads for the past quarter
> century, ever since I saw that Ted T'so was using one.
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