this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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Here in Brazil, a lot of vendors are offering laptops with linux, but they do this just to offer a lower price, and put the most weird distro possible, that no one knew existed, so everyone who buys have to install their own os. The bad thing about it is that it creates a really bad first impression about linux on common users, who mostly end up asking the tech person from the family to install windows for them
Edit: another random fun fact: in order to offer a lower price, some brands around here also ship laptops with freedos, don't ask me why.
Why don't they just install Mint, Zorin, or even xUbuntu (XFCE versions of each)...
That's 3 examples with actual support and a user base >3 edgelord cat bois.
I ask myself the same question. I have no idea. Mine is from vaio and came with some sort of modded debian that looked like a stripped down win xp with custom repos that didn't even load properly.
You'd think that installing a niche distro like that is more difficult than one of the big 'plug and play' ones. Meaning they actively put more work into it, how strange.
Most distro maintainers would expect something for commercial licences. Can't have them take all your hard earned money! Max I can do is 0$.
They're usually gpl licensed. You can do whatever you want with it (including selling it for a bazillion monies) as long as you give the code too.
All the distroes are under GPL, so there is no need
im surprised they don't just do the underhanded method of acquiring windows.
well I'd imagine theres some stores willing to oblige doing that.
curious sakes, what distro do they preload on customers.
Yeah I doubt my chinese MiniPC came with official Windows. Had recommendation tp go through initial set up offline. Not that I kept Windows. I wiped it and put Fedora on it.
Yeah that's weird. Quite a few of the smaller refurb shops here (south East Asia) just pirate Windows and Office suite.
They just expect everyone to pirate windows
Exactly, but if we think about it, just putting some random well-established distro would be faster and cheaper than creating their weird modded versions or making contracts with weird firms. Maybe they want to avoid any unexpected legal issues?
Maybe it has some known vulnerabilities? The more reputable sellers I've seen around here (I'm also from. Brazil) just ship Ubuntu, it's usually the sketchier vendors with the weird distros
Which brands have you seen shipping with ubuntu? I've seen vaio, samsung, asus and acer shipping with weird distros. They come like that even from the official stores.
Pretty sure Dell is ubuntu, dont remember others atm