[gore3000]

otherwise, Dell would have to deal with all kinds of botched OS installs by consumers who don't know jacksh*t about what they're doing.

Total nonsense. They can sell good stable Linux systems preinstalled just like they do with Windows - probably more stable too. Instead they have been selling win 98 OS's with Office XP which messes everything up.

[Bush2000]

Total nonsense. They can sell good stable Linux systems preinstalled just like they do with Windows - probably more stable too. Instead they have been selling win 98 OS's with Office XP which messes everything up.

Read for comprehension next time. I wasn't arguing that OEMs are incapable of providing Linux with their boxes. Dell already did that and abandoned the effort when nobody bought it. No, the reason that OEMs want a single OS install is that it reduces the problem space that they have to support. They don't want customers installing alternate platforms because there are an infinite number of varieties/combinations to support.