ive been instaling linux on customers machines lately and they love it. is this ok? im trying to build a sma;ll business.

Sounds aright with me ^_^, not sure if there are any licensing issues with it, but most likely there aren't.

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In a very true sense you may be in violation of copy protection. You need to read the many licenses that come with each distro. You might wish to know how you can transfer this legally. You can charge for the install but generally you have to provide source or the eula's for all the programs. Linux is not exactly free as in free to sell as in a for pay company. Little things even like artwork has been an issue. These issues are one of the reasons you don't see commercial linux boxes.

I'd protect myself and pay for the ubuntu or other distro's made for OEM's.

Many distro's could contain non-free or even restricted code that could land you in trouble. Even Mint's so called OEM has issues.

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ah thank you for the feedback guys. you know i hadnt even given a thought about the other progs and any artwork; extras, that come with the distro's. very valid point, thx. ive only installed it on 3 machines and these were for friends of friends (im just trying to start up at the moment) so i basically threw it in free as they didnt want to shell out for win7. if i get any "real" jobs, especially any small business' i'll be making sure to do it all by the book which is more than fine with me, fair is fair and the guys doing the coding etc. are giving us a lot. getting some feedback from a customer today, ive so far heard the guy is over the moon! really happy about it myself

I haven't studied all the relevant licenses, but I'm not sure if there's any issue when the only thing you are selling is a service---i.e. you take stuff that exists in the wild and use it to set up a machine. You are not selling the SW---you are only providing the labor and expertise to do what the end user could (legally) do for themself.

I doubt you'd get into any trouble but some big name companies have started in garages.

The chance of any legal issue is almost nothing but I want to tell the the truth. Selling to a big company might have them looking at software audits so..

Commercial companies that sell linux installed all use a vendor for their OS. From small netboxs to big iron all have some OEM install.

Might could see what it costs per copy. I wouldn't start with red hat.

you might want to read through some distro documentation
for example Fedora
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distri...9_Distributors

see the guidelines for OEM and "Trademark Guidelines "

some distros like Ubuntu include NON GPL patent and royalty encumbered software that YOU might have to buy a license for

and OpenSUSE has "boxed sets"
http://en.opensuse.org/Buy_openSUSE