5 ms·

Ubuntu To Soon Ship On 5% Of PCs

102 points by davux 14y ago

nextparadigms 14y ago
About time. In many countries there are laptops that come with "FreeDos", which is rather pointless. If they aren't going to use Windows, why not just use a great Linux distro like Ubuntu? Sure Microsoft might not like that, but unless Microsoft is paying them to not allow Linux on their laptops (which I think would be illegal), then who cares?
- mappu 14y ago
  There was a line of Thinkpads that you could buy with FreeDOS installed for a while. I think there was an understanding that everyone would replace the OS before even booting into FreeDOS once. Perhaps they didn't want to support an official distro?
glesica 14y ago
Doing deals with OEMs actually seems like a better strategy today than it was even just a few years ago when Canonical did their original deal with Dell. For one thing, Ubuntu has (for better or worse) made significant progress toward their UI vision. Unity has been polarizing, but many users (especially the "normal" people who are likely to buy an Inspiron or similar) seem to like it. Even more importantly, a significant number of users today (in any case, more than there were back then) basically only care about having a web browser installed. This means they are less likely to care about having MS Windows (FF and Chrome run on all three "major" platforms).
- diminish 14y ago
  I only using a web browser and emacs and don't care about polish much. 1) Canonical did a good thing by owning the UI with Unity; they should make it cooler, more beautiful with every release 2) They should focus on providing several high end, many low end models for developers, and experiment better with ARM based models, for example raspberry pi ubuntu 3) 6 months intervals seem to frequent now and maybe it would be better to shift to yearly releases. 4) the software center should be improved better and better.
- Lednakashim 14y ago
  Fact: normal people invested significant time learning MS Windows. They will not be happy about the loss of productivity involved in switching GUIs.
  - naich 14y ago
    s/fact/my opinion/
    - bergie 14y ago
      Also, I think this is slowly becoming less of an issue. A substantial number (10-15% of global PC market share, depending who you ask) of users have made the jump to Mac, which is quite different from Windows. And on top of that, many now use iPads or Android tablets, with even newer UI paradigms. When you combine this with much of your data now being available through cloud services, the barrier for trying something like Linux should become lower. 5% share for Ubuntu would be significant. Compare that to 2.9% for iPad, and it could mean a lot better application support. The current desktop Linux share is about half of iPad's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    But when Microsoft change the GUI (as they did between 3.1 and 95, 2000 and XP, XP and Vista and will between Vista and Windows 8) so there is always going to be relearning as technology advances. Shouldn't people have the choice which new GUI they learn? And the relearning curve doesn't seem to be hindering the Mac, or the iPad, both of which face the same challenge and yet are taking market share.
- uvtc 14y ago
  > Unity has been polarizing, but many users (especially the "normal" people who are likely to buy an Inspiron or similar) seem to like it. To anyone who doesn't like Unity, I recommend [Lubuntu](http://lubuntu.net/ http://lubuntu.net/). Still has the Ubuntu user-friendliness, but no Gnome & Unity.
plessthanpt05 14y ago
If these figures are legit, then this is pretty cool news for the open source / Linux community; however, wonder what real user #'s look like since this "...count also obviously doesn't count those that install Ubuntu manually or obtain Ubuntu installations via other means," which seems to be the way that most folks currently get Ubuntu. Either way, hope the trend continues so, at the very least, consumers come to realize there is an alternative to Windows (besides Mac of course).
moylan 14y ago
i'd rather pay an ubuntu tax than a microsoft tax so i really look forward to buying a new machine with the option of ubuntu even if it costs a little more. but my main concern will be the those who buy an ubuntu machine and then expect to run ms office or other windows only piece of software on it. i will be getting those calls. thankfully most of the home users aren't as dependent on windows only apps anymore.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  Just rename their libre office to Word and Excel. I've tried it with 2 relatives and so far it's working, no complaints :)
  - spurgu 14y ago
    Haha yeah I did that too, I installed Firefox and renamed it to Internet Explorer. :)
w1ntermute 14y ago
> Canonical will be opening their first Beijing office this year > At more than 200 Dell stores in China, there is Ubuntu branding present and Dell China employees knowledgeable about Ubuntu Linux. One of the things I noticed when I went to download Precise Pangolin is that there's a "Chinese Ubuntu" link featured prominently at the bottom of the page[0]. It looks like they've made China a primary target market, since the vast majority of Windows users there are running pirated copies and cannot afford to pay for a legitimate copy. 0: http://www.ubuntu.com/download http://www.ubuntu.com/download
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Perhaps Canonical will finally liberate the world from IE6...
dsirijus 14y ago
What percentage of PCs ship with FreeDOS? And how's that indicator of the popularity of the FreeDOS system? Most of Ubuntu preinstalls won't even live to boot. A shame really.
- sukuriant 14y ago
  Could you give me some stats? I wouldn't expect a population to go and spend a lot of money on a CD to install Windows onto a marginally cheaper machine
  - jrockway 14y ago
    My guess is that people will get their Windows install media from the same place they get their Blu-Ray rips.
    - pjmlp 14y ago
      But at least the sale counts as a Linux sale, which is positive. I've also seen people that replace Mac OS X with Windows or Linux on their Apple laptops.
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        I completely forgot about people installing Windows on their Macs, even though anecdotally this is very common.
        pjmlp 14y ago
        This can be easily observed in any Games Development Conference (GDC).
- drchaos 14y ago
  The obvious difference is that you cannot use FreeDOS for typical desktop activities (like surfing the web, reading mail, Facebook), whereas you can use Ubuntu for almost everything, except Gaming and Photoshop. From my experience with "normal" (non-techy) users, they don't bother switching OSes as long as they can use it for what they want to do, which is in many cases little more than running a browser.
freehunter 14y ago
Here's the big question on my mind: why can I not go on Amazon right now and buy an Ubuntu laptop? There is one I have seen (and I have searched for a while), where someone is reselling used laptops with Ubuntu installed. There are so many device makers out there trying to replicate the feel of a MacBook Pro with Windows. Seems like it would be easier with Ubuntu. The success of Apple sprang mostly from marketing and differentiation, it could happen to Ubuntu with a little motivation.
- colonelxc 14y ago
  If you're looking for a Ubuntu preloaded laptop, you can take a look at System76 ( http://www.system76.com http://www.system76.com ). They only make Linux computers (laptop/desktop/server), though they don't sell through Amazon.
  - fierarul 14y ago
    The thing about Amazon is that they sell almost worldwide and they also have customer support. I wouldn't want to buy a System76 laptop in Romania and ship it back to the States if it needs service under the warranty.
- uvtc 14y ago
  You can get ThinkPads loaded with your distro-of-choice from [Los Alamos Computers](http://laclinux.com/gnu/Start http://laclinux.com/gnu/Start).
  - freehunter 14y ago
    The main point was the "from Amazon" part. It really seems like the largest online retailer would have some company, no matter how big or small, selling Linux laptops.
sk5t 14y ago
My honest first thought: hasn't Ubuntu's share of the Linux market been dropping since their introduction of the universally-reviled, highly unintuitive Unity UI? I tried out 12.04 a couple months ago, tried to use it for a few weeks, and very enthusiastically retreated back to CentOS.
- moylan 14y ago
  i hate unity. it's nothing but distracting eye candy. a non standard waste of resources. but i like ubuntu overall so at the mo i use xubuntu. suits all my needs without unity. but ubuntu is still an organisation to support especially in terms of them helping produce hardware that will be 100% linux compatible no matter what distro i choose to run.
  - k_bx 14y ago
    > a non standard waste of resources I don't know what resources you are talking about, but it's definitely not wasting my screen resources as others do. My vertical spaced is saved my menu-on-panel integration, on fullscreen title goes into panel too. Left-panel is also nice, it doesn't do "minimize on second click" as docky or others, it does nice "overview" on click on multi-window app. And finally, it also saves space by combining launcher and app-switcher.
- dimmuborgir 14y ago
  Don't be fooled by DistroWatch stats. It means nothing.
- bad_user 14y ago
  Ubuntu has by far the biggest mind share. On HN it's the only distro I'm seeing in the news. On VPS hosting it is most of the time featured alongside Debian. I hate Unity myself, but I've switched to Xubuntu. There's also Kubuntu, and even if these are supported by the community, they do a better job than most other distros. Also don't be fooled by stats.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  I am a very happy Unity user.
joejohnson 14y ago
...when I talk with OEMs and others about Linux pre-loads, I commonly [sic] here a "significant percentage" of these Linux pre-loaded systems usually get wiped by their customers and replaced with pirated copies of Windows -- especially in the Asian markets, where customers are just going after the Linux PCs due to the lower sales cost. Can anyone confirm this?
- fierarul 14y ago
  In Romania it's common practice to sell cheaper laptops running FreeDOS or some Linux (say, Acer with Linpus) with the expectation that people are just going to wipe it and install a pirated Windows on it. If you look at the online review for them, the first remark people have is about how Windows drivers are hard to find. Or they ask about the Windows score. I once called the Samsung hotline asking about Linux support for a laptop they were selling with FreeDOS and the answer was that they only collaborate with Microsoft. Otoh, it is actually quite hard to find a laptop that's Linux certified. We bought a HP ProBook just because it was certified although it came with Suse.
  - dgudkov 14y ago
    Not that hard. E.g. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/ From my experience -- ThinkPads usually work quite smoothly with popular linux distros.
    - fierarul 14y ago
      Oh, it's not hard to find which model is certified. It's hard to actually find it selling in a store! Also, I don't want to buy a ThinkPad if I have to buy it with Windows then wipe that. So my choices are laptops that come with FreeDOS or Linux and that are actually certified for Linux. Because, rumor has it, even some laptops that do come with Linux don't have proper Linux support for all their components -- they are built with the assumption of a Windows install. At this point you don't have that many choices and if you also want a particular hardware configuration (say, i5) the choice narrows down a lot.
wunderland 14y ago
Yup, I knew that 2012 would the year when Linux on the Desktop finally took off. Gartner Hype curve blah blah blah.
josephcooney 14y ago
So 2012 is the year of linux on the desktop?
josefonseca 14y ago
The latest Ubuntu desktop is absolutely stunningly beautiful. The first time I saw it couldn't tell if it was an improved Windows 8 or some new release of Mac OS X. The fact is I think this may have a shot with the masses. If the latest rumors of EA being in talks with Ubuntu are true, then if massively successful games start appearing for the platform, it may well signify a turning point for desktop Linux. Here's hoping widespread desktop Linux finally becomes a reality. Well deserved for the amazing work Ubuntu has put into it.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  >Here's hoping widespread desktop Linux finally becomes a reality. If it did, it would be doing so on the downswing of the desktop as a platform. People will still do work with traditional computers, but mobile looks set to replace them for entertainment and browsing.
  - josefonseca 14y ago
    > If it did, it would be doing so on the downswing of the desktop as a platform. This may be true, but I'd like to point out that I've been hearing this since 1980something.
- k_bx 14y ago
  Hmm, I think I am seeing this not for the first time.. (hint: "Year %s, the year of desktop linux?")
acuity12 14y ago
Upvote to Ubuntu. Downvote to the tremendous amount of ads on phoronix.
- spurgu 14y ago
  Ever heard of Adblock?
  - acuity12 14y ago
    I purposely don't use it so I can get a feel for a website, and so I can learn from how other people design.
konceptz 14y ago
Even if I have moved away from Ubuntu, if mass users adopt it, I will be happy. And I think they are doing a great job at purposefully" bloating" their platform to accommodate newbies. The skills I have on Linux only become more valuable as the user base grows.
fauigerzigerk 14y ago
I'm not sure it's a great idea to distribute Ubuntu too widely in its current state. It's not fit for end users. Yesterday I had to fix my third broken Ubuntu installation in a year or so and it's always for the same reason: Failed upgrades. Upgrades leaving the system in an unbootable state has to be an extremely rare event and it's not. How can this be fixed? I think the entire package management system has to be based on a more robust transactional infrastructure. Unless the user confirms the success of an upgrade, the system has to be rolled back to its original state. If the system doesn't boot, it must boot straight into the old system version on the next reboot. Upgrades should not be something that anyone hesitates to do, but I know Ubuntu users who'd rather install new software on a separate computer instead of upgrading the fragile Ubuntu installation. The close coupling of application versions to OS versions is the main reason for that. The sources.list concept is just too complicated for most people.
- fierarul 14y ago
  I think we easily forget just how broken the rest of the OS were. If I evaluate Linux as if I am a few years back in time, I don't mind the lack of good QA. I've also broken an install because I tried an upgrade and there wasn't enough free space. But that doesn't mean Ubuntu isn't fit for end users. My mother and my sister are running Ubuntu on their laptops and do just fine. And they are in no way technical: they just use the OS for their needs, be it browsing, music, movie playback, photo management, etc. I was actually surprised when I went at a small barbecue for my sister's birthday and she had brought her laptop and was playing CDs some friends brought with music. There was no friction -- the laptop just did its job, just as it would have been with any other OS. You do have a point though: upgrades should be transactional and I'm surprised there is no way to rollback a failed upgrade. I'm actually postponing upgrading them to 12.04 because I don't want to risk breaking the current setup they have and give myself extra work for nothing. I've decided to only apply the security updates for now and switch to 12.04 when end-of-life is reached for their current version.
  - b0rsuk 14y ago
    Debian upgrades never break for me.
gouranga 14y ago
I don't believe the figures until after they've been sold. The demand for Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent outside the technology enthusiast arena. Ubuntu is just not as polished as Windows either. OEMs also know there's an easy way out if they don't sell - chuck windows on them and shift them out through clearance sales. This is all marketoid speil from their marketing VP at the moment.
- lloeki 14y ago
  > The demand for Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent outside the technology enthusiast arena Government and public services.
padobson 14y ago
As far as when Ubuntu will be back at Best Buy here in the United States, or "When at Best Buy down the road?" Kenyon said, "We're working on it and I'm confident we're going to get there." A better question is whether Best Buy will still be selling computers or anything at all down the road. I'm happy Ubuntu is starting to gain this type of traction, but it needs two things to really make the leap: 1) Mass market game compatibility. The mainstream computer user needs office tools, a browser, email, music, video, and games. Games are the only absentee from Ubuntu. Some major upgrades to Wine could solve this. 2) A mobile strategy There's definitely been attempts to put Ubuntu on mobile devices, but nothing concrete from Canonical. If they had been more forward thinking, they could have been Android instead of Android being Android. Finally, I'd personally like to see a lite version of the latest Ubuntu releases. The reason I got into Ubuntu in the first place was to bring new life to my old hardware. Unity doesnt work at all on old hardware, and the fallback is not as good as the old Gnome 2 experience. I'm still running 10.10 on a number of machines because it was my favorite release.
- hlfshell 14y ago
  Xubuntu is your "lite" release for old hardware. It's shipped with XFCE instead of Unity so it doesn't require much to run. I believe Xubuntu 12.04 is released same-day as the 12.04 release.
  - krakensden 14y ago
    The latest Unity 2D is actually quite snappy on my machine, for what it's worth. More so than Unity, in fact.
- bookwormAT 14y ago
  I don't think that Ubuntu needs a mobile strategy, and related to this, it probably does not need games either. Input methods have a huge impact on application design. A app for touch devices is significantly different from a mouse and keyboard device. Since touch devices are invading the living room and become premier gaming platforms (also in combination with gamepads and large TVs), the classic desktop does only need to focus on applications and use cases that are optimized for Mouse and Keyboard input. That's why I think Ubuntu should stay with the classic desktop, and Android should keep its focus on devices with less precise/fast inputs like touch/trackball/remote controls
batista 14y ago
>Ubuntu To Soon Ship On 5% Of PCs To be formatted and have (pirated?) Windows installed. We saw the same story unfold with those Walmart Linux PC et al...

102 points by davux 14y ago

About time. In many countries there are laptops that come with "FreeDos", which is rather pointless. If they aren't going to use Windows, why not just use a great Linux distro like Ubuntu? Sure Microsoft might not like that, but unless Microsoft is paying them to not allow Linux on their laptops (which I think would be illegal), then who cares?

mappu 14y ago
There was a line of Thinkpads that you could buy with FreeDOS installed for a while. I think there was an understanding that everyone would replace the OS before even booting into FreeDOS once. Perhaps they didn't want to support an official distro?

glesica 14y ago

Doing deals with OEMs actually seems like a better strategy today than it was even just a few years ago when Canonical did their original deal with Dell. For one thing, Ubuntu has (for better or worse) made significant progress toward their UI vision. Unity has been polarizing, but many users (especially the "normal" people who are likely to buy an Inspiron or similar) seem to like it. Even more importantly, a significant number of users today (in any case, more than there were back then) basically only care about having a web browser installed. This means they are less likely to care about having MS Windows (FF and Chrome run on all three "major" platforms).

diminish 14y ago
I only using a web browser and emacs and don't care about polish much. 1) Canonical did a good thing by owning the UI with Unity; they should make it cooler, more beautiful with every release 2) They should focus on providing several high end, many low end models for developers, and experiment better with ARM based models, for example raspberry pi ubuntu 3) 6 months intervals seem to frequent now and maybe it would be better to shift to yearly releases. 4) the software center should be improved better and better.
Lednakashim 14y ago
Fact: normal people invested significant time learning MS Windows. They will not be happy about the loss of productivity involved in switching GUIs.
- naich 14y ago
  s/fact/my opinion/
  - bergie 14y ago
    Also, I think this is slowly becoming less of an issue. A substantial number (10-15% of global PC market share, depending who you ask) of users have made the jump to Mac, which is quite different from Windows. And on top of that, many now use iPads or Android tablets, with even newer UI paradigms. When you combine this with much of your data now being available through cloud services, the barrier for trying something like Linux should become lower. 5% share for Ubuntu would be significant. Compare that to 2.9% for iPad, and it could mean a lot better application support. The current desktop Linux share is about half of iPad's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  But when Microsoft change the GUI (as they did between 3.1 and 95, 2000 and XP, XP and Vista and will between Vista and Windows 8) so there is always going to be relearning as technology advances. Shouldn't people have the choice which new GUI they learn? And the relearning curve doesn't seem to be hindering the Mac, or the iPad, both of which face the same challenge and yet are taking market share.
uvtc 14y ago
> Unity has been polarizing, but many users (especially the "normal" people who are likely to buy an Inspiron or similar) seem to like it. To anyone who doesn't like Unity, I recommend [Lubuntu](http://lubuntu.net/ http://lubuntu.net/). Still has the Ubuntu user-friendliness, but no Gnome & Unity.

plessthanpt05 14y ago

If these figures are legit, then this is pretty cool news for the open source / Linux community; however, wonder what real user #'s look like since this "...count also obviously doesn't count those that install Ubuntu manually or obtain Ubuntu installations via other means," which seems to be the way that most folks currently get Ubuntu. Either way, hope the trend continues so, at the very least, consumers come to realize there is an alternative to Windows (besides Mac of course).

moylan 14y ago

i'd rather pay an ubuntu tax than a microsoft tax so i really look forward to buying a new machine with the option of ubuntu even if it costs a little more. but my main concern will be the those who buy an ubuntu machine and then expect to run ms office or other windows only piece of software on it. i will be getting those calls. thankfully most of the home users aren't as dependent on windows only apps anymore.

vibrunazo 14y ago
Just rename their libre office to Word and Excel. I've tried it with 2 relatives and so far it's working, no complaints :)
- spurgu 14y ago
  Haha yeah I did that too, I installed Firefox and renamed it to Internet Explorer. :)

w1ntermute 14y ago

> Canonical will be opening their first Beijing office this year > At more than 200 Dell stores in China, there is Ubuntu branding present and Dell China employees knowledgeable about Ubuntu Linux. One of the things I noticed when I went to download Precise Pangolin is that there's a "Chinese Ubuntu" link featured prominently at the bottom of the page[0]. It looks like they've made China a primary target market, since the vast majority of Windows users there are running pirated copies and cannot afford to pay for a legitimate copy. 0: http://www.ubuntu.com/download http://www.ubuntu.com/download

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Perhaps Canonical will finally liberate the world from IE6...

dsirijus 14y ago

What percentage of PCs ship with FreeDOS? And how's that indicator of the popularity of the FreeDOS system? Most of Ubuntu preinstalls won't even live to boot. A shame really.

sukuriant 14y ago
Could you give me some stats? I wouldn't expect a population to go and spend a lot of money on a CD to install Windows onto a marginally cheaper machine
- jrockway 14y ago
  My guess is that people will get their Windows install media from the same place they get their Blu-Ray rips.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    But at least the sale counts as a Linux sale, which is positive. I've also seen people that replace Mac OS X with Windows or Linux on their Apple laptops.
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      I completely forgot about people installing Windows on their Macs, even though anecdotally this is very common.
      - pjmlp 14y ago
        This can be easily observed in any Games Development Conference (GDC).
drchaos 14y ago
The obvious difference is that you cannot use FreeDOS for typical desktop activities (like surfing the web, reading mail, Facebook), whereas you can use Ubuntu for almost everything, except Gaming and Photoshop. From my experience with "normal" (non-techy) users, they don't bother switching OSes as long as they can use it for what they want to do, which is in many cases little more than running a browser.

freehunter 14y ago

Here's the big question on my mind: why can I not go on Amazon right now and buy an Ubuntu laptop? There is one I have seen (and I have searched for a while), where someone is reselling used laptops with Ubuntu installed. There are so many device makers out there trying to replicate the feel of a MacBook Pro with Windows. Seems like it would be easier with Ubuntu. The success of Apple sprang mostly from marketing and differentiation, it could happen to Ubuntu with a little motivation.

colonelxc 14y ago
If you're looking for a Ubuntu preloaded laptop, you can take a look at System76 ( http://www.system76.com http://www.system76.com ). They only make Linux computers (laptop/desktop/server), though they don't sell through Amazon.
- fierarul 14y ago
  The thing about Amazon is that they sell almost worldwide and they also have customer support. I wouldn't want to buy a System76 laptop in Romania and ship it back to the States if it needs service under the warranty.
uvtc 14y ago
You can get ThinkPads loaded with your distro-of-choice from [Los Alamos Computers](http://laclinux.com/gnu/Start http://laclinux.com/gnu/Start).
- freehunter 14y ago
  The main point was the "from Amazon" part. It really seems like the largest online retailer would have some company, no matter how big or small, selling Linux laptops.

sk5t 14y ago

My honest first thought: hasn't Ubuntu's share of the Linux market been dropping since their introduction of the universally-reviled, highly unintuitive Unity UI? I tried out 12.04 a couple months ago, tried to use it for a few weeks, and very enthusiastically retreated back to CentOS.

moylan 14y ago
i hate unity. it's nothing but distracting eye candy. a non standard waste of resources. but i like ubuntu overall so at the mo i use xubuntu. suits all my needs without unity. but ubuntu is still an organisation to support especially in terms of them helping produce hardware that will be 100% linux compatible no matter what distro i choose to run.
- k_bx 14y ago
  > a non standard waste of resources I don't know what resources you are talking about, but it's definitely not wasting my screen resources as others do. My vertical spaced is saved my menu-on-panel integration, on fullscreen title goes into panel too. Left-panel is also nice, it doesn't do "minimize on second click" as docky or others, it does nice "overview" on click on multi-window app. And finally, it also saves space by combining launcher and app-switcher.
dimmuborgir 14y ago
Don't be fooled by DistroWatch stats. It means nothing.
bad_user 14y ago
Ubuntu has by far the biggest mind share. On HN it's the only distro I'm seeing in the news. On VPS hosting it is most of the time featured alongside Debian. I hate Unity myself, but I've switched to Xubuntu. There's also Kubuntu, and even if these are supported by the community, they do a better job than most other distros. Also don't be fooled by stats.
pjmlp 14y ago
I am a very happy Unity user.

joejohnson 14y ago

...when I talk with OEMs and others about Linux pre-loads, I commonly [sic] here a "significant percentage" of these Linux pre-loaded systems usually get wiped by their customers and replaced with pirated copies of Windows -- especially in the Asian markets, where customers are just going after the Linux PCs due to the lower sales cost. Can anyone confirm this?

fierarul 14y ago
In Romania it's common practice to sell cheaper laptops running FreeDOS or some Linux (say, Acer with Linpus) with the expectation that people are just going to wipe it and install a pirated Windows on it. If you look at the online review for them, the first remark people have is about how Windows drivers are hard to find. Or they ask about the Windows score. I once called the Samsung hotline asking about Linux support for a laptop they were selling with FreeDOS and the answer was that they only collaborate with Microsoft. Otoh, it is actually quite hard to find a laptop that's Linux certified. We bought a HP ProBook just because it was certified although it came with Suse.
- dgudkov 14y ago
  Not that hard. E.g. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/ From my experience -- ThinkPads usually work quite smoothly with popular linux distros.
  - fierarul 14y ago
    Oh, it's not hard to find which model is certified. It's hard to actually find it selling in a store! Also, I don't want to buy a ThinkPad if I have to buy it with Windows then wipe that. So my choices are laptops that come with FreeDOS or Linux and that are actually certified for Linux. Because, rumor has it, even some laptops that do come with Linux don't have proper Linux support for all their components -- they are built with the assumption of a Windows install. At this point you don't have that many choices and if you also want a particular hardware configuration (say, i5) the choice narrows down a lot.

wunderland 14y ago

Yup, I knew that 2012 would the year when Linux on the Desktop finally took off. Gartner Hype curve blah blah blah.

josephcooney 14y ago

So 2012 is the year of linux on the desktop?

josefonseca 14y ago

The latest Ubuntu desktop is absolutely stunningly beautiful. The first time I saw it couldn't tell if it was an improved Windows 8 or some new release of Mac OS X. The fact is I think this may have a shot with the masses. If the latest rumors of EA being in talks with Ubuntu are true, then if massively successful games start appearing for the platform, it may well signify a turning point for desktop Linux. Here's hoping widespread desktop Linux finally becomes a reality. Well deserved for the amazing work Ubuntu has put into it.

redthrowaway 14y ago
>Here's hoping widespread desktop Linux finally becomes a reality. If it did, it would be doing so on the downswing of the desktop as a platform. People will still do work with traditional computers, but mobile looks set to replace them for entertainment and browsing.
- josefonseca 14y ago
  > If it did, it would be doing so on the downswing of the desktop as a platform. This may be true, but I'd like to point out that I've been hearing this since 1980something.
k_bx 14y ago
Hmm, I think I am seeing this not for the first time.. (hint: "Year %s, the year of desktop linux?")

acuity12 14y ago

Upvote to Ubuntu. Downvote to the tremendous amount of ads on phoronix.

spurgu 14y ago
Ever heard of Adblock?
- acuity12 14y ago
  I purposely don't use it so I can get a feel for a website, and so I can learn from how other people design.

konceptz 14y ago

Even if I have moved away from Ubuntu, if mass users adopt it, I will be happy. And I think they are doing a great job at purposefully" bloating" their platform to accommodate newbies. The skills I have on Linux only become more valuable as the user base grows.

fauigerzigerk 14y ago

I'm not sure it's a great idea to distribute Ubuntu too widely in its current state. It's not fit for end users. Yesterday I had to fix my third broken Ubuntu installation in a year or so and it's always for the same reason: Failed upgrades. Upgrades leaving the system in an unbootable state has to be an extremely rare event and it's not. How can this be fixed? I think the entire package management system has to be based on a more robust transactional infrastructure. Unless the user confirms the success of an upgrade, the system has to be rolled back to its original state. If the system doesn't boot, it must boot straight into the old system version on the next reboot. Upgrades should not be something that anyone hesitates to do, but I know Ubuntu users who'd rather install new software on a separate computer instead of upgrading the fragile Ubuntu installation. The close coupling of application versions to OS versions is the main reason for that. The sources.list concept is just too complicated for most people.

fierarul 14y ago
I think we easily forget just how broken the rest of the OS were. If I evaluate Linux as if I am a few years back in time, I don't mind the lack of good QA. I've also broken an install because I tried an upgrade and there wasn't enough free space. But that doesn't mean Ubuntu isn't fit for end users. My mother and my sister are running Ubuntu on their laptops and do just fine. And they are in no way technical: they just use the OS for their needs, be it browsing, music, movie playback, photo management, etc. I was actually surprised when I went at a small barbecue for my sister's birthday and she had brought her laptop and was playing CDs some friends brought with music. There was no friction -- the laptop just did its job, just as it would have been with any other OS. You do have a point though: upgrades should be transactional and I'm surprised there is no way to rollback a failed upgrade. I'm actually postponing upgrading them to 12.04 because I don't want to risk breaking the current setup they have and give myself extra work for nothing. I've decided to only apply the security updates for now and switch to 12.04 when end-of-life is reached for their current version.
- b0rsuk 14y ago
  Debian upgrades never break for me.

gouranga 14y ago

I don't believe the figures until after they've been sold. The demand for Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent outside the technology enthusiast arena. Ubuntu is just not as polished as Windows either. OEMs also know there's an easy way out if they don't sell - chuck windows on them and shift them out through clearance sales. This is all marketoid speil from their marketing VP at the moment.

lloeki 14y ago
> The demand for Ubuntu is pretty much non-existent outside the technology enthusiast arena Government and public services.

padobson 14y ago

As far as when Ubuntu will be back at Best Buy here in the United States, or "When at Best Buy down the road?" Kenyon said, "We're working on it and I'm confident we're going to get there." A better question is whether Best Buy will still be selling computers or anything at all down the road. I'm happy Ubuntu is starting to gain this type of traction, but it needs two things to really make the leap: 1) Mass market game compatibility. The mainstream computer user needs office tools, a browser, email, music, video, and games. Games are the only absentee from Ubuntu. Some major upgrades to Wine could solve this. 2) A mobile strategy There's definitely been attempts to put Ubuntu on mobile devices, but nothing concrete from Canonical. If they had been more forward thinking, they could have been Android instead of Android being Android. Finally, I'd personally like to see a lite version of the latest Ubuntu releases. The reason I got into Ubuntu in the first place was to bring new life to my old hardware. Unity doesnt work at all on old hardware, and the fallback is not as good as the old Gnome 2 experience. I'm still running 10.10 on a number of machines because it was my favorite release.

hlfshell 14y ago
Xubuntu is your "lite" release for old hardware. It's shipped with XFCE instead of Unity so it doesn't require much to run. I believe Xubuntu 12.04 is released same-day as the 12.04 release.
- krakensden 14y ago
  The latest Unity 2D is actually quite snappy on my machine, for what it's worth. More so than Unity, in fact.
bookwormAT 14y ago
I don't think that Ubuntu needs a mobile strategy, and related to this, it probably does not need games either. Input methods have a huge impact on application design. A app for touch devices is significantly different from a mouse and keyboard device. Since touch devices are invading the living room and become premier gaming platforms (also in combination with gamepads and large TVs), the classic desktop does only need to focus on applications and use cases that are optimized for Mouse and Keyboard input. That's why I think Ubuntu should stay with the classic desktop, and Android should keep its focus on devices with less precise/fast inputs like touch/trackball/remote controls

batista 14y ago

>Ubuntu To Soon Ship On 5% Of PCs To be formatted and have (pirated?) Windows installed. We saw the same story unfold with those Walmart Linux PC et al...