Enlarge / System76’s Oryx Pro: Not small, quite powerful. (credit: Scott Gilbertson)

Laptops preloaded with Linux aren’t as rare as they used to be. In fact, big name hardware companies like Dell have whole lines of laptops that ship with Ubuntu installed, and if you want to stretch things a bit you could argue that a Chromebook is a kind of Linux machine (though it takes a bit of tinkering to get actual Linux installed). Still, there’s no question the Linux user of today has a wealth of options compared with the dark ages of just a few years ago when “I use Linux” was code for “I spend all my time looking for hardware drivers.”

Today, what remains unusual even in the midst of this growing interest in PCs shipping with Linux is a company that sells nothing else. There are a handful of organization that do just this, however, and they have done so for some time. These entities range from longtime Linux supporters like System76 to newer efforts from the likes of Purism, which began life with an impressive crowdfunding campaign that raised more than a $1 million to create a line of sleek, Apple-inspired but completely free-software laptops.

If Purism is any indicator, the Linux-based hardware businesses might have an actual future in a world increasingly dissatisfied with the proprietary OSes being offered. After all, if you’re a developer looking to get a laptop with more than 16GB of RAM, Apple’s no longer an option. That company recently updated its Macbook Pro line but still caps RAM at 16GB. So, you can either get a PC and live with Windows 10 or you can try installing Linux and hope it works.