Do I need to be concerned about purchasing a laptop with Windows 11 if I intend to immediately replace Windows with Linux?
 

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the hardware gets signed to Microsoft or something and some kind of Microsoft-call-in to unlock the boot loader or something related was going to be a thing with a Win11?

Is this just tin foil hattery or is this concern legit?

In my experience I never worried about that as I have installed Linux on new devices without even booting ever to Windows as I wiped the drive clean. Just disable secure-boot in the BIOS and you should be able to install Linux.

 

Dunno, but buying a new machine with Windows still means you're paying for the license fee, giving Microsoft over CA$150 of your money.

You can avoid that if you buy from a store which provides a "No pre-installed OS" option.

This can have some significance if you want to use it with windows. If you remove windows and install linux it is not important at all.

signed where? bios? harddrive, other?
unless the MB has some form of very hard to flash TPM, nothing really gonna stop you from installing new OS.

I think what it means is that Microsoft gets some hardware information (motherboard, graphics card and maybe more) into which it ties the activation code. You can only change some of the items and only a number of times, else you loose your activation or you need to call them to reactivate. It does not look like it applies to laptops.

Post #3 is useful.

In very rare cases secure boot will be difficult or impossible to disable on some hardware that ships with Win11. Then you have to follow your distro's howto for secure boot support which can vary in difficulty from almost automagic to an extremely involved cli exercise with many potential pitfalls suitable only for an advanced linux user (depending on which distro you use).

Try to buy your PC with FreeDOS. If possible, dont give money to MS.

The FreeDOS notebooks can be ordered on DELL,.... notebook manufacturers.

Biz that makes hardware.............. should sell hardware............ with an option to add OS.
Many years ago I recall Dell had that option when configuring systems online to buy.

But when an OS comes with hardware, can't the buyer sell the MS product code to someone else?

That's why you can buy cheap "refurbished" MS licenses.

Indeed, on Ebay.

Anyhow avoid spending money and giving money to Microsoft.

Best purchase is even ubuntu or freedos on it.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...p/linuxsystems