dbclinton wrote: > Well, there is rather significant difference: For home consumers of PCs, yes. And that's _only_ because most consumers only go to the superstore.
For business consumers of PCs, or any consumers of portables, hand-helds, tablets or embedded ... let alone severs, not so much. > Linux almost never comes pre-installed on OEM hardware Again, that's _only_ in the case of home consumer PCs who go to the superstore. Otherwise there are an entire swath of distributors and Tier-1 and even Tier-2 OEMs that pre-install Linux desktops, workstations and most definitely portables. Most specifically, beyond Dell, HP and Lenovo who _do_ offer Linux on _many_ models, Clevo comes to mind as a massive Tier-2 (would be a Tier-1 if they sold under their own name) distributor that sells notebooks that nearly all resellers offer Linux on, worldwide. Here in North American, they are sold via Sager (their #1 reseller), who pays the Microsoft tax (~$25/unit, all units of a model). But you can get it unbranded, and via various resellers or even via Sager channels themselves. Most people get their Clevo-Sager units in North American via names like Alienware (pre and even a few post Dell), System76 and the like. Looking at servers pre-installed, Red Hat, SuSE and Cononical have long claiming significant volume compared to Microsoft (even if the dollar amount is an order of magnitude lower, and heavily Red Hat). For the most part, for servers in the enterprise, either automated installs (more Kickstart) or pre-made VMs/images and templates (more Windows). In these cases, we're talking _automation_. Which goes back to my original point ... When teaching Linux or Windows, we _never_ teach "installation" _other_ than for _automation_. Windows is so difficult to install these days, let alone Microsoft has changed automation in almost every version, that most everyone just deals with pre-installed or images -- even OEMs for recovery! Most everyone is offering Linux pre-installed on many models, is not _all_ in the case of the "big boys" -- whether the "Big 3" or huge ODM/distributors like Clevo in the notebook world that many, countless names just rebrand and ship as ... including with Linux. Just because the superstore doesn't have a floor model running Linux doesn't mean the model doesn't have it. In fact, superstores only sell you what their subsidizers want you to, which is a whole other reality. Teach people to use Linux, _not_ install it. As I always say ... if you refuse to buy Linux pre-installed, then at least hit your local LUG to get assistance from experts. Trying to teach people how to install _any_ OS on the open-ended PC platform is a major undertaking. Even for Windows. It's not only a waste of time ... But it makes new people think Linux is a "buggy Windows app that won't install." Get people _using_ and _learning_ Linux. Installing Linux is _not_ learning Linux. It's not any more than Windows. Especially when Linux is pre-installed from so many OEMs these days.
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