If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? They did:

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? They did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC - and those things sold out. Repeatedly. In multiple locations. Then all of a sudden, Microsoft backpedaled on Vista and binning XP, stripped down XP a bit (including the price tag), and most importantly, strong armed the vendors. Lo and behold, you can't get a netbook with Linux anymore. Let's face it: the demand is there. Linux has worked just fine on the desktop for well over a decade. The market failed, and the legal system (in the form of patents and copyrights) isn't helping. This is why monopolies, overreaching copyright and software patents are bad things.