At the time (and possibly still) Dell was promoting laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled. These laptops also avoided the “Windows Tax” and were ~$50-$100 cheaper.
*The “Windows Tax” being that Windows cost money. Most companies just built the cost of Windows into their product with no (easy) method of not purchasing Windows. So if you bought a $800 laptop, you actually bought a $700 laptop plus a Window license, even if you never planned on using Windows.
does it seem really odd that Dell would be selling the laptop bundled with Ubuntu as a “recommended” option?
in early 2009 it would have been windows vista, i think? so maybe that’s the problem
At the time (and possibly still) Dell was promoting laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled. These laptops also avoided the “Windows Tax” and were ~$50-$100 cheaper.
*The “Windows Tax” being that Windows cost money. Most companies just built the cost of Windows into their product with no (easy) method of not purchasing Windows. So if you bought a $800 laptop, you actually bought a $700 laptop plus a Window license, even if you never planned on using Windows.