Linux or OS-free laptops

[Centaur]

Where can I buy a "cheap" laptop with a Linux OS or no OS, in South Africa. Or an international site that offers shipping to SA.

The only place I know of is Laptopdirect with their Mecer laptops if you choose no OS.

Thanks

 

[wmaker]

Take2 sells OS-free and FreeDOS Gigabyte notebooks.

 

[Centaur]

Thanks, forgot about Take2.

Wow, Laptops and PCs with Linux are really rare here in South Africa, like most things .

 

[hof]

Mecer (buy online from mecerpc.co.za)

Got mine a couple of weeks ago. Get a barebone unit, choose all your own hardware and leave out the OS. Awesome value for money.

 

[Centaur]

Mecerpc and Laptopdirect is the same, just different interface and domain name.

But, I have to agree, it does look like the best option here in South Africa. Seeing that you save more than R800 just by leaving out Windows, and then you can use it for extra RAM and HDD space.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

I've found that its often cheaper to just buy with M$ installed. Reason being is that OEM lisenses are dirt cheap and often the manufactorer gets a kick back from all the trial software they install. This was a issue brought up on some international forums last year. It also seems that too many companies believe they can also charge a premium for LINUX laptops as its a niche market and people will support out of principle.

Dont forget this is Efrica and M$ are hard at work to prevent LINUX from eating into the market. They give away millions of free licences to us - hell, I got a couple of them the last 3yrs while studying at UNISA.

But then we face the issue of hardware support and this is the reason why so few laptops are distributed with LINUX as they need to guarantee 100% hardware support at time of sale. Its not a failure of LINUX but just proof of what junk hardware is installed in most laptops when they still need to take the WinModem approach and this is neither an attack on M$ itself as look at how many guys went ape while upgrading to Win7 and all of a sudden their hardware no longer worked.

 

[Ockie]

Maybe have a look here and see if they still operational. I have never used them so I honestly dont know what they are like.

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...uters-Linux-Hardware-Vendor?highlight=bravium

OC

 

[KenPCD]

Linux machines

Well we currently sell desktops & laptops either OS free or with Linux (Mint) pre installed.

 

[Bule]

Acer offers Linux.