From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jun 5 15:41:51 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.the-i-pa.com (mail.the-i-pa.com [151.201.71.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A01EE37B406 for ; Tue, 5 Jun 2001 15:41:41 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@iowna.com) Received: (qmail 89179 invoked from network); 5 Jun 2001 22:49:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO iowna.com) (151.201.71.193) by mail.the-i-pa.com with SMTP; 5 Jun 2001 22:49:51 -0000 Message-ID: <3B1D5F9D.A3B81F5D@iowna.com> Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 18:39:25 -0400 From: Bill Moran X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Flemming Froekjaer Cc: mobile@freebsd.org, questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Laptop without Windows References: <3B1D4BC4.A4698439@froekjaer.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Flemming Froekjaer wrote: > > I was looking at buying a Dell Inspiron 8000, but there was no option to > buy it without a windows os. > So i called them instead and explained that I wanted to use the laptop > with FreeBSD. They said that would be ok, but i would have to pay the > same price, as with the OS. > Is that normal? > I know Microsoft is not giving DELL free OS licenses, and I don't want > to support MS by buying there OS, when I'm not going to use it. As others have stated ... it's all too common. However, there was an instance of a very principal driven fellow who purchased a laptop (with windows preinstalled) and then proceeded to format the HDD without ever booting the system. Because of the specifics of the license agreement, he was able to get a refund on the price of the windows license (since he'd never used it) He only accomplished this after a great deal of fighting, but it can be done. I don't remember where, but the story (sort of a HOW-TO for putting it back in M$ face) is posted on the Internet somewhere. Do some searching if you feel like fighting for the cause on this one. If enough people fought over it, maybe companies like Dell would start offering alternate OSes on laptops, or laptops without OSes. -Bill To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message