EDIT:
Almost got dragged back into it...

Did you hear the Aggie football team will have to go without ice water at games next year? The guy with the recipe graduated.

Ba-dum-boom

One may not forget that not only GPLed and proprietary code may possibly play a role here, but also the brands. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are trademarks. IANAL, but this may also give problems.
It would make the whole thing much easier to use a free distribution, like Debian, I think. No proprietary software in a standard install, free to distribute: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/de...istrib.en.html
I think if they allow you to sell Debian CDs/DVDs they have no problems with Debian installations.

For that price. I would not sweat selling them at 3 or 4 units a month in Texas. You definitely won't be getting rich doing this. So I don't think you'll attract any attention. I'll probably get hammered for this but I am thick skinned.

I have sold a couple of older Linux IBM Thinkpads over the Hotline (a local radio station garage sale) to folks who were attracted to the linux part of the radio broadcast. By the way . They were not Ubuntu or Mint. Debian instead.

You must be picking these units up super cheap to offer at those prices.Cheaper than a Windows install disk or other proprietary software like I use. By the way. These folks are still happy with their gear (I live in a small town). I even gave a IBM M41 Desktop with 1.2 gig of ram to a 70ish year old lady who thinks my wife is her long lost daughter and will do any thing for her. Last time that women touched a keyboard was in the 1960s. It was fun teaching her how to email, watch videos, read the news, and log into her new computer. She is a happy camper also.

If anybody local tries to give me grief. I got character witnesses.

I typically get the desktops and laptops for FREE or as part of my contract, I partner with a friend who owns a certified E-waste company, he actually charges companies a small fee to haul their ewaste, i cherry pick desktops and laptops to fix and sell, 95% get an OEM windows reinstall of XP or Win7 based on their easily recognizeable OS sticker and #, if its a nice desktop with a bad sticker , a vista desktop or something thats too old to use XP on with any good speed then i put Mint or Ubuntu on it, selling the Linux OS is not easy, most people cant cope with not seeing WINDOWS , what hooks them in is the LOW LOW price and the idea of being virus free

The relevant sections in the FAQ feel to me like they imply a contradiction

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....ngedJustBinary
That seems to say that if you download and give away unmodified Linux binaries, you are still required to include an offer to provide the (same exact version) sources to anyone you gave the binaries to. That and similar discussion implies you cannot simply identify the upstream distribution that (at the moment you got the binaries) was giving away exactly those sources.

But this section
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....ariesGetSource
Seems to say that a promise to provide source code does pass through intermediaries.

I don't pretend to understand that level of detail. If you provide a promise to provide source code, I can't find details on time limits if any (Can you provide a promise to provide source code to only those who asks for it within 7 days of getting binaries from you? How about 7 minutes?) I have read that you can include a reasonable charge for expenses connected to that offer.

I think you would get away with selling a computer with Linux installed coupled with a notice identifying the location from which you could have (but didn't bother to) download the full set of that version of source code, coupled with an offer to put all that source code on DVDs for anyone who wants to pay you $100 (for expenses only, the source code is free) to do so within some reasonable period of time. By doing so, you are betting that anyone who wants source code would rather get it themselves (you told them where) than pay you $100 to collect it, and you are betting that the copyright holders won't be interested in suing over your violation (for $100 being more than reasonable expenses) and you are betting that the upstream distribution leaves old source code around long enough for you to retrieve if anyone were crazy enough to give you $100 for it.
Alternately, you could be safer by making the DVD collection of (downloaded) full source code at the time you download the binaries and then offer to charge a reasonable expense fee for anyone who wants a copy of that DVD set.

In all this I can't see if the install is worth the effort unless you have some specialty market. How hard is it to have a linux market and ask them to install their own OS? A windows user may be reluctant to install linux or even use linux no matter how pretty you make it.

OK, that is a new one on me. "The guy with the recipe graduated."

Even Debian may have some pitfalls.
"14.1 Can I make and sell Debian CDs?

Go ahead. You do not need permission to distribute anything we have released, so that you can master your CD as soon as the beta-test ends. You do not have to pay us anything. Of course, all CD manufacturers must honor the licenses of the programs in Debian. For example, many of the programs are licensed under the GPL, which requires you to distribute their source code. "

Debian legal disclaims their statements and cautions one to be warned on many pages and for many reasons.

The above quote from this site: http://www.slackbook.org/html/introd...pensource.html

Give the buyer the Live/Install CD which costs about twenty five cents with or without the OS installed with an additional charge to have it installed. You probably won't get many people who would rather install it themselves.