[DC LoCo] to buy a computer without the Microsoft tax

[Greg Reagle]

Howdy.  I really like the deals on outlet.dell.com and outlet.lenovo.com.  I especially like the 3 year warranty Dell gives even for refurbished computers; Lenovo seems to offer only one year of warranty.  However, I do not want to pay the Microsoft tax.  They all seem to come pre-installed with MS Windows.

I already looked at http://laclinux.com/gnu/ThinkCentre which I found via the Free Software Foundation, (https://www.gnu.org/links/companies.html) but their prices are much higher than the outlets (of course).

I am looking to buy a desktop, something like a Dell Optiplex or ThinkCentre M series; it will have Ubuntu (I don't care whether it is pre-installed).

Any ideas to avoid the Microsoft tax without paying (an arm and a leg) *more*?

-- 
Greg Reagle
System Administrator
Center for Economic and Policy Research 
reagle at cepr.net
http://www.cepr.net/