200 off is incredible
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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Aint no way people pay 211$ for that adware, spyware piece of shit operating system. Thats wild.
Some time ago i checked some polish stores to compare W11 vs Linux / no OS prices and i found out that the difference isn't flat and it's actually about ~10% of product price (so the more expensive the notebook is - the higher the price of W11 is)
That's absolutely fucked.
When https://massgrave.dev/ exists it's even worse.
I think this tax on tech illiterate people is getting too high.
Should I start selling USB drives for $5? I don't wanna encourage Windows. But I feel bad for the normies. $211 is insane.
MS literally allows massgrav on GitHub. They have for years. They do not give a fuck.
Paying for windows at this point is a normie tax. And it's gotten too damn high!
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Let's see who considers the Linux options when they see they can get the same machine for 200 bucks cheaper. I hope other brands start considering doing this too.
Not only that. The software is so much better.
It's more probable people buying cheaper and then installing Windows afterwards - a lot more probable than starting their tech life from scratch.
starting their tech life from scratch
Lol that's an exaggeration
I once installed Linux on my machine and my physical keyboard magically transformed into a Dvorak keyboard and the mouse vanished, replaced by a note saying "Terminal is more ergonomic".
Made the setting up ritual way harder than it should have been :(
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They always refused to reimburse the cost of Windows licences before this even if it was illegal in the country you lived in. I'm very surprised.
I paid about $100 less to have my workstation shipped with Ubuntu instead of Windows 10 Pro 3 years ago. United States.
The market is shifting...
For at least half a decade I've been seeing computers - both brand-name laptops as well as custom built desktops - sold with FreeDOS as default, and you have to pay extra for Windows.
The most important part is that you wouldn't get a pc with an instant desktop experience that would just let you just boot up and go to Facebook or whatever, so it had little chance of actually harming Microsoft.
This may actually change things!
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$211?!
Surely that can't be US dollars, that'd be wild. The 24-hour clock also has me thinking this isn't the US.
Looking at the UK site, I'd 100% go for "No Operating System", then install Fedora Workstation anyway.
It is -$140 on the US store, the -$211 is probably Australian dollars.
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And you save money? Oh man, the path of least resistance just changed.
I don't know if it's not scrolled enough but here we have another option which is "no os at all" and you save another 30€
Shit like this gives me hope for the future
This should be standard in stores. If people could save that much, they wouldn’t choose Windows haha
Which is why it's never going to happen. Old people like me will remember the first EEE PC from Asus, the original netbook. Netbooks were small cheap laptops that were popular before smartphones were around. It ran Linux and it worked pretty well. Then Microsoft came out with a special version of Windows XP which could run on netbooks and they gave it away for free, just to prevent Linux from getting popular on consumer devices. So they're going to pull something like that again. And Lenovo know this, of course. This is likely just a negotiating tactic to get concessions from MS on licensing fees.
Think you hit the nail on the head. God I hate how capitalism was applied during the induction of computers and the Internet. It ruined so much trying to force "scarcity" driven supply/demand on a technology that fundamentally removed the supply problem. At least in terms of software.
Software never should have been allowed to be restricted by past limitations only to ensure profits could be made.
But we force it on it. Only for the benefits of companies that serve to prevent innovation more than they produce it.
It looks like (at least here in the U.S.) that this is the only model that allows selection of the OS. I looked at cheaper models of different product lines by them and they all include Windows 11.
I don't understand why companies don't offer more Linux options these days, there's zero excuse
Partnership and contracts not to be confused with lack of excuse.
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Would be nice if started with Linux as "included" and then added the 211 for windows.
Marketing. Theyd never do that.
Could also be a bulk licensing requirement. Ms pulled that shit with DOS.
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Awesome, I wish more computer manufacturers did this and actually gave you the ability to choose the OS to ship your PC with, especially with how much cheaper it is to not include Windows with activation. Wow.
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Wow. $211 is a steep discount. People are going to buy with Linux just to save money, some will try it (because it is there), and some may like it and stay.
At the very least, people may learn that Windows is no easier to install (or even harder).
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Is this a tariff thing? Like is it suddenly more expensive to license Windows, hence pushing OEMs to offer discount options?
Lenovo is at least partially Chinese.
No, Lenovo has offered Ubuntu and at times other distributions preinstalled, for many years. It’s only on a small number of models.
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$200???????
I like this picture.
It's the usual upscaling method, but in this case, there is a way to get the price down from the default....
Can't wait to see how they manage to fill fedora with bloatware too
You'd still be able to just reinstall Linux, and save money in the process. And simply having the option available will probably help get Linux to some users that aren't overly tech savvy
Shipping it with Linux is the easiest way to convince a consumer that it does run Linux. :)
*$211 CAD
That's a funny way of sayin' that a Windows Home license costs $211.00.
I'm pretty sure they've been doing that for a long time. The other more business focused OEMs too.
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I thought they'd done this for years (on certain Thinkpads anyway)? Still I'd rather install my own than trust Lenovo to install it for me.
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