Laptop without OS?

Lostintheclouds

Novatech only sell their own 'brand' without OS, basically one of their 'custom builds'

You will struggle to find a mainstream make that is sold without OS because the price difference is normally negligible due to the arrangements they have with MS. 
Since you won't get a refund for declining to use Win10 just buy a bog standard laptop of the spec you want and put you own OS on it.
We buy hundreds of laptops a month at work direct from manufacturer, they all come with Win 10 Pro. The first thing we do is rebuild with our own customised Enterprise version. If we asked for no OS then they would work out more expensive as they are effectively customised so wouldn't be coming off the normal production line. 

I did find that actually. The create your own laptops with no O/S seem to be far more expensive.

Can you completely wipe a Windows laptop and install your own O/S or will there always be something lurking?

debitcardmayhem

Yes you can, I would love to know what is lurking in a BIOS , especially as we are now living with UEFI not BIOS

Lostintheclouds

prowla said:

I prefer Mint to Ubuntu - it's the same OS underneath, but it's got a few nicer tweaks to the UI.

I also use Ubuntu, but it feels a bit clunky when I go back to it.

Which one would you recommend for a complete beginner and I mean a total complete beginner.

stragglebod

Mint, it has a look and feel very similar to Windows, albeit Windows 7.

John_Gray

Zorin aims to provide a Linux experience as close to the look and feel of Windows as possible.  As indicated above, Mint is good, too...

Lostintheclouds

Gasps! It's SOOOOOO difficult to chose a laptop. There always seems to be 'something wrong' with it - like I found 2 potentials within budget but one didn't have a HDMI and the other didn't have any USB ports.

I guess whether an O/S system is similar to Windows or not is irrelevant as that particular issue involves a complete beginner.

It's just that my previous experience with Linux wasn't great as I remember having to actually search 'code' and type it in to make some things work instead of the click click method. But that was ages ago.

mksysb

As has been said, Mint is a good one to start with.  Once you get familiar with it, it might be good to move to Manjaro, which is a very good up to date distro.

TheRightOne

There is no benefit to buying a laptop without an OS. You just get less choice. Find one you like and then format the the drive to your liking. There are no hidden nasties on the laptop. 

Lostintheclouds

Just a quick one. To wipe a new laptop do I have to format the drive first or can I just install a Linux system 'over' it? And can I do that straight from a download on the new laptop or do I need to download and boot it from a CD or USB?

I just remembered that now Windows laptops require you to set up an account before you can even use them.

Neil_Jones

Lostintheclouds said:

Just a quick one. To wipe a new laptop do I have to format the drive first or can I just install a Linux system 'over' it? And can I do that straight from a download on the new laptop or do I need to download and boot it from a CD or USB?

I just remembered that now Windows laptops require you to set up an account before you can even use them.

You do not need a Microsoft account to set up Windows 10.  You have never needed a Microsoft account, Windows 10 will work happily with local accounts, never mind what the setup screen says.

With regards to Linux, the setup disk will do everything.  You can make a CD bootable or a USB stick bootable, boot from it and it'll do everything you need.  You can often set up a dual boot as well between Linux and Windows if that's what you want.