Linux

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/165736

At least in the U.S. and Canada, that is.

This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post where a user (presumably a resident of Canada), had posted how Lenovo was shipping laptops with Fedora and Ubuntu at a cheaper price compared to their Windows-equipped counterparts.

Others then chimed in, saying that Lenovo has been doing this since at least 2020 and that the big price difference shows how ridiculous Windows' pricing is.

Cutting the Windows Tax

When I dug in further, I found out that the US and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives.

US pricing on left, Canadian pricing on right.

Interestingly, while the difference in pricing is noticeable, your mileage may vary if you are looking for such laptops on the official website. Not all models from their laptop lineup, like ThinkPad, Yoga, Legion, LOQ, etc., feature an option to get Linux pre-installed during the checkout process.

Luckily, there is an easy way to filter through the numerous laptops. Just go to the laptops section (U.S.) on the Lenovo website and turn on the "Operating System" filter under the Filter by specs sidebar menu.

Yes, it's as simple as that. You can do the same for the various official online regional storefronts that Lenovo runs to see whether Linux-based operating systems are being offered on their laptops in your country.

Closing Thoughts

It is good to see that Lenovo is offering Linux in its laptops. In fact, there is another big-name laptop manufacturer, Dell, who also does something similar with its Ubuntu-certified laptops, but both have the same constraint of having limited options for buyers.

Also, as far as I know, Dell doesn't reduce the pricing if you choose Linux instead of Windows. Correct me if I am wrong in the comments.

Nonetheless, I think these manufacturers could do a better job in marketing these Linux-based alternative operating systems to general consumers, showing them how they can save big when opting for these instead of the pricey and bloated Windows.

Otherwise, we might have to start observing Windows Refund Day again.

💬 Your take on this? Would mainstream users benefit from having Linux pre-installed on their laptops?

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Ich habe eine Linux-Einsteigergruppe auf deutsch erstellt! Das Ziel ist, ohne Sprachbarriere ausschließlich bei Linux zu helfen und darüber auszutauschen.

Fortgeschrittene willkommen, um Wissen zu teilen!

I tried running a 2nd instance of Roblox simultaneously on macos 15 with another account but this shows up, if my mac can handle it then why can't it just let me do it? If I have two copies of an app like Roblox in separate User/Applications folders, macos moves them to the /Applications/ folder.

Sometimes it won't run apps claiming to be corrupted, so I then have to do sudo xattr -cr /Applications/someapp.app in the terminal and they run perfectly fine. It always nags me if I download apps from anywhere but mac app store. Some of these messages can only be gotten rid of by disabling system integrity protection, but then macos blocks you from running MAS apps due to having "permissive security".

I don't daily drive macOS anymore, I switched to Linux on my M1 mac where I can do whatever the hell I want.

A thorough examination of the performance effects of using undefined behaviour in compiler optimizations.

Method:

1. Modifying clang to not use UB where this is possible
2. Run a large suite of benchmarks on different architectures, compare results for modified and unmodified clang
3. Do statistics on the results
4. Examine performance deviations
5. Discuss factors which could bias results.

Very good science!

Result in short:

Only on ARM and if no link-time optimization is used, a systematic small positive performance effect can be seen. For Intel and AMD CPUs, there are no systematic improvements.

Average effects are typically below 2%, which is the typical effect of system and measurement noise. Often, effects are even negative. In some cases, benchmarks show large differences, and many of these can be fixed by simple modifications to the compiler or program.

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Happy Easter holidays! we made fruitful use of this time to provide you a nice surprise.

The independent, community controlled distribution OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 fixed point release (as opposed to the rolling release branch), is out right now.

Look, I've only been a Linux user for a couple of years, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we're not afraid to tinker. Most of us came from Windows or macOS at some point, ditching the mainstream for better control, privacy, or just to escape the corporate BS. We're the people who choose the harder path when we think it's worth it.

Which is why I find it so damn interesting that atomic distros haven't caught on more. The landscape is incredibly diverse now - from gaming-focused Bazzite to the purely functional philosophy of Guix System. These distros couldn't be more different in their approaches, but they all share this core atomic DNA.

These systems offer some seriously compelling stuff - updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more "oops I bricked my system" moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.

So what gives? Why aren't more of us jumping on board? From my conversations and personal experience, I think it boils down to a few things:

Our current setups already work fine. Let's be honest - when you've spent years perfecting your Arch or Debian setup, the thought of learning a whole new paradigm feels exhausting. Why fix what isn't broken, right?

The learning curve seems steep. Yes, you can do pretty much everything on atomic distros that you can on traditional ones, but the how is different. Instead of apt install whatever and editing config files directly, you're suddenly dealing with containers, layering, or declarative configs. It's not necessarily harder, just... different.

The docs can be sparse. Traditional distros have decades of guides, forum posts, and StackExchange answers. Atomic systems? Not nearly as much. When something breaks at 2am, knowing there's a million Google results for your error message is comforting.

I've been thinking about this because Linux has overcome similar hurdles before. Remember when gaming on Linux was basically impossible? Now we have the Steam Deck running an immutable SteamOS (of all things!) and my non-Linux friends are buying them without even realizing they're using Linux. It just works.

So I'm genuinely curious - what's keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro? Is it specific software you need? Concerns about customization? Just can't be bothered to learn new tricks?

Your answers might actually help developers focus on the right pain points. The atomic approach makes so much sense on paper that I'm convinced it's the future - we just need to figure out what's stopping people from making the jump today.

So what would it actually take to get you to switch? I'm all ears.