Manual installation is one thing, but by far the biggest reason is OEM preinstalls. 98% of the people never install any operating system themselves, the devices just come with one and that’s the one that’ll be used.
IIRC part of that issue was that the Windows version of the same computer was cheaper because of MS licensing. For Linux nerds at the time it made more sense to buy the Windows version and do what they had always done, reinstall with the Linux of their choice.
Manual installation is one thing, but by far the biggest reason is OEM preinstalls. 98% of the people never install any operating system themselves, the devices just come with one and that’s the one that’ll be used.
DELL sold Ubuntu models and they abandoned them I believe.
IIRC part of that issue was that the Windows version of the same computer was cheaper because of MS licensing. For Linux nerds at the time it made more sense to buy the Windows version and do what they had always done, reinstall with the Linux of their choice.
They still sell laptops, desktops, and servers with Ubuntu pre installed.