On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:51:41 -0500, edju wrote:

> I went to Circuit City to look at laptops. All come with Vista. When I
> mentioned to the salesman that I don't use Windo$e but Linux, he said
> that there is no way to install Linux on a Vista machine. Something
> about the file system, NFFS. I then said that I would partition and

That's NTFS - Linux can read and write to NTFS partitions. It is also
quite possible to reformat and do away with it.

> format the disk anyway so the Vista file system shouldn't matter. He
> said it does anyway, and furthermore that any live CD would not
> recognize the hard drive or, indeed, any of the hardware, which is
> Vista-specific somehow. He said one could not even install XP on a Vista
> machine. Finally, any fooling with the disk would render the
> "recovery" CDs (DVDs?) unbootable. Does this make sense? Anybody
> dual-booting with Vista? Are drivers available?

There are indeed hundreds of folks dual booting xp and vista - having
installed xp on their brand new vista machines - simply check
microsoft.public.windows.vista for information.

No it does not make any sense. Of course there are drivers available. BUT
- why pay for something you don't intend to use? There are plenty of
machines being sold without microsoft. DELL has several models as does
WalMart, and Sears is in the process.