this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
756 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
87123 readers
4449 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I would love if pc manufacturers would just ship laptops with e.g. Linux mint or fedora and just knock off the windows licence cost. I don't even mind if they have to ship it with bloatware, that's fine, as long as it just doesn't ship windows. Savvy users will just uninstall it
It's possible to get refunds for unused OEM Windows licenses in the EU.
https://en.refund4freedom.org/
Wow, nice. It sounds like Asus makes it the easiest, reimbursing for the license without shipping your machine to them. I don’t understand why the others that will reimburse require physical inspection of the machine.
to discourage you to do so
This, and probably clearing the license from BIOS. Otherwise you keep the license. Not sure how Asus resolves this. Maybe they just don't care.
I'd guess something using armory crate.
I would love a tick box setup. Maybe 2 Linux distro options and a windows option for +$X or whatever so ur laptop can arrive ready to set up with the OS desired on it. Should lower cost for customers who don't need windows, and maybe people on the fence will decide window isn't worth however much more it cost to get and order the Linux version. The more units are sold with Linux the more incentive there will be to sort drivers for more hardware etc.
Dell has this.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/scr/laptops/appref=ubuntu-linux-os
No clue if you're still paying for the Windows license in that price though.