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Well if anyone is a friend of mine on FB they will know that last week my laptop died :-( I am now hunting for a supplier of laptops without os's that can give some sort of assurance that their products are linux compatible and won't over charge for the "privilege". Novatech are favourite at the moment as I have a long standing "relationship" with them (ok I bought most of my kit in the past from them). Lots of machines on offer without need to purchase the dreaded MS (an A+ mark for that option or lack their of) . However very little support on if I will get Linux working or not. My previous laptop was a Novatech but it did take time for some of the drivers to become shall we say "respectable" (usable without niggles or noticeable "features"). I chatted online with a pre-sales guy who did his best to help, but clearly could neither confirm nor deny that linux would work with the particular chip sets on the laptop i was interested in purchasing. Googling what little information he could give me got me now where, and apparently it would seem that they were too scared of loosing their "Microsoft Partner" status to take one of the shelf and boot a live linux distro cd on it...... Does this sound familiar? I looked at Dell because they (used to) offer laptops with ubuntu. Lets say I couldn't find them (the linux (or indeed no os installed laptops) and when searching for linux got directed to their support for servers .... hmm Im after a laptop guys..... Linux Emporium well its uk prices and they come with linux pre-installed but the prices were wacky and the range limited. As I would prefer to have the fun of installing myself the fact that linux (what ever flavour) came pre-installed was only helpful in proving it could be done. So I'm left again with taking a "leap of faith" and hoping that my distro of choice (another split brain exercise) is fully compatible with the hardware........ Pitty as its over 5 years since I bought my last laptop I was hoping that my "pay and pray" days were over ...... Clearly there is a market here going begging (still). But then again perhaps I just "like" the challenge of getting things to work? Tom. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq