>
> I read that HP was doing this but haven't verified.
Ones who pre-load Linux could presumably calculate that shipping a
better supported chip may cost them slightly more initially but save
them maintenance headaches and hence eventually work out cheaper, so
that would be Dell and HP. I think some of their pre-loaded systems do
come with Intel chipsets rather than Broadcom, which are indeed slightly
more expensive to procure. I haven't directly heard the rumours Rahul
had, though.
Some HP laptops pre-loaded with FreeDOS, and comes with a Broadcom chip
(BCM4312 rev 01), and the website/manual said: it's certified for SuSE
Enterprise Linux and RedFlag Linux (Asian distro based on RHEL) however
the wifi is supported by propriety driver from Broadcom (broadcom-wl).
So when HP (and others) say that a laptop (or other hardware) is
certified for Linux this include hardware with propriety drivers.
Another exemple is EmperorLinux they sells some Linux-certified laptops
with nVidia hardware.
Regards.
--
Athmane Madjoudj