have been trying to buy a cheap (under £400) laptop in the Tottenham Court Road area without Windows pre-installed. But the response is that they cannot obtain one from their suppliers. Jon Ramster
It is hard to buy a notebook PC without an operating system or with Linux pre-loaded. You can get them by mail order, but even then, they are not necessarily cheaper than Windows machines. Manufacturers generally argue that it is expensive to obtain drivers and test Linux systems, relative to the number of sales, and it increases the number of stock-keeping units and other warehousing, distribution and advertising costs. There's also support, which can easily cost far more than the operating system, and home users are generally unwilling to pay the price.
You can find cheap Linux laptops online. The eSys E320 (Quickfind code: 103124) costs £323.12 including VAT from www.ebuyer.com However, this only has a 1.2GHz Via processor. For comparison, Ebuyer also offers an Acer Aspire 3003LC (Quickfind code: 96518) with an AMD Sempron 3000+, a bigger screen and Windows XP for £364.24 or a Toshiba Satellite Pro M40 (Quickfind code: 102113) for £419.99. (Note: I have not bought from Ebuyer and have not seen these machines.) You could go for the Acer and install a Linux distros as a dual-boot system - but this assumes you know enough about Linux to look after yourself.
