Submitted by Hewlett-Packard, the world’s Number 1 PC maker, will try selling pre-loaded Linux on PCs in several countries as it expands a test program – evaluating a market that some competitors have already entered – and moves its personal computer business into a new generation of form factors and functionality.
“They already do it in a server environment,” said Michael Worsham of MWE Computer Services, an Edgefield, S.C.-based solution provider and HP partner. “If they go to do the same thing with a PC environment, that would be a good thing, too – – as long as they don’t take the Dell route and put Ubuntu on them.”
OK. Why is that? I’m all for SLED 10, but he makes it sound like ubuntu would be a bad choice?!
In fact for the desktop I think Ubuntu would be the better choice. they are more desktop oriented and that is the market the project is aiming for. Sure they have other side things for server and devices but Desktop is their primary audience. I’m not an Ubuntu fanboy or anything but I do like the distro and think that it is one of the better distros for desktop users out there. I haven’t found a reason to switch yet and I used to love distro hopping. I really don’t understand where that statement is coming from. Considering the size of the community you would think that it would be a good thing but sometimes these short little quips seem like envious rants to me. Oh well.
Ubuntu doesn’t really target the market they’re looking for, they’re targetting small to mid-sized businesses and they started the pilot project with RHEL.
HP has certifications and expertise in place with both Red Hat and Novell; both vendors are experienced with enterprise support requirements, and have sufficient resources to support their commercial products with any SLA the customer requires, as well as the technical capabilities to address hardware issues. Commercial software packages, those few that do run on linux, generally only support RH and SLED. Not sure about RH, but SLED comes out of the box ready to work within an ActiveDirectory based network. Both RH and SLED have management tools for deploying and maintaining multiple installations.
Certainly neither RH or Novell offer anything in their distros software/application-wise that Ubuntu can’t offer either, but business requirements differ greatly from personal requirements, and the community is generally far more tolerant than paid commercial customers are when things go wrong.
That’s not to say that there’s anything with Ubuntu or that it is inherently flawed, but if you compare Dell’s approach with Ubuntu consumer PC’s (“post in the forums or mailing list and hope for an answer if you have any problems, but don’t call us”), that just won’t cut it for business customers.
Not sure of what HP’s plans are for support, or the level to which they’ll integrate their vendor support with Red Hat’s (or Novell’s if they go that route as well), but customers can be assured that they have an enterprise-level organization backing them up either way.
It’s simply targeting a different product for a different market.
Dell is offering optional phone tech support for Ubuntu, there is no reason you need to post in the forums if you prefer to call someone. Its not much added cost to the computer to have that available either.
elsewhere’s point still stands.
The Canonical support one can buy with a Dell PC is aimed at individual consumers, not at businesses.
There is a reason why Dell currently doesn’t have Linux PCs in its business section and why the respective request is ranking quite highly on IdeaStorm.
Right now, Novell and Redhat have a larger network of support partners which can handle support for the customers HP is aiming at
Personal opinion:
While Novell and Red Hat already have a lock on the corporate Linux desktop and server, I think that Canonical will eventually have to go into that sphere as well.
In fact, I think that Desktop Linux, and FOSS in general, will find its primary audience in business/government desktop computing. The current legal protractions in desktop computing involve office document formats (ODF vs. OOXML), and everyone has their sentiments invested in either side.
But do you hear as much emotional hoopla involving DesktopLinux/FOSS and *multimedia formats*? I don’t.
I have not heard that much about the promotion of formats such as SVG, SMIL, and Ogg (Theora or Vorbis) within the last year or so, compared to the volume of the office document format war.
Instead, Linux (home) users are still begging Adobe to release a full version of both Flash 9 and Shockwave. The Xiph.Org project is still working under the shadow of Thomson and Fraunhofer: http://www.news.com/2100-1023-249710.html Nevermind that we don’t have an open source competitor to Adobe’s or Microsoft’s multimedia offerings.
So does DesktopLinux/FOSS have a chance in the home desktop computing field? Not any time soon.
Does it have a chance in the corporate desktop computing field, which doesn’t demand that much multimedia? Hell yes.
So I think Canonical’s pursuing a fruitless endeavor in the home desktop computer, and should instead focus on the more lucrative corporate desktop, offering a competitive alternative to Novell, Red Hat, and maybe Mandriva. Another startup in the future will probably appeal to high-end home desktop PC vendors like Alienware, Velocity Micro, and Falcon Northwest.
By that time, there will be greater, and hopefully better, efforts for multimedia on the FOSS-based home desktop. Canonical just doesn’t seem to truly have their priorities in that area.
Unfortunately, neither does any recognizable Desktop Linux distro vendor at the time of writing.
Edited 2007-09-20 22:29
“But do you hear as much emotional hoopla involving DesktopLinux/FOSS and *multimedia formats*? I don’t.
I have not heard that much about the promotion of formats such as SVG, SMIL, and Ogg (Theora or Vorbis) within the last year or so, compared to the volume of the office document format war.
Instead, Linux (home) users are still begging Adobe to release a full version of both Flash 9 and Shockwave. The Xiph.Org project is still working under the shadow of Thomson and Fraunhofer: http://www.news.com/2100-1023-249710.html Nevermind that we don’t have an open source competitor to Adobe’s or Microsoft’s multimedia offerings. ”
I disagree with your two points. The first albeit you could be right, but its not just the format, its the DRM and they cannot be separated unfortunately for content. we have see the *Microsoft* solution which vendors are both wary off and hoping to rise on the back off, but Microsoft with the exception of games is not a content provider. You see in China’s own HD, and the steps taken with blu-ray using Mpeg2 technolgy just so they have an alternative to Microsoft Lock-in. and without bringing up the PlayForSure solution offered by Microsoft. We are also seeing the start of the anti-trust cases. We have seen the overreaching DRM that has a side effect of moving codecs, from perhaps the better solution of the CPU doing the lifting to hardware solutions. I suspect very strongly that Apple will not encumber *their* OS offering. I suspect the final outcome of these large companies is DRM encumbered closed format not tied to any platform, and I don’t just mean OS I mean hardware with little OS.
I bring up your second point and perhaps make a different one. I cannot see Adobe continuing as its doing. Its only a matter of time before it either Open-sources and I use the right term *everything*…and its made moves that way with loosening its licensing restrictions on its formats, or is forms closer ties/absorbed by Apple or Google, for obvious reasons. Microsoft have made no smalls about it being the a market it wants, and because have low level control of just about everything, as we have seen from history of Netscape, Realplayer, OpenGL, Wordperfect ignoring Microsofts own crooked dealing; one misstep and the faithful leave you, Only Microsoft is is in a position to retain Microsoft Dominance. Although personally I will not shed a tear when one Monopoly swallows another Monopoly.
you wrote: OK. Why is that? I’m all for SLED 10, but he makes it sound like ubuntu would be a bad choice?!
A couple reasons come to mind:
1. No need to add another distro into the support mix.
2. HP may be aware that not everyone loves Ubuntu, and they intend to provide alternatives.
Granted that you do have a point, But the real question was why did he make it sound Like Ubuntu would be a bad choice. Really for the desktop Ubuntu is a great distro. I think it would be a fine option for them to look.
Now being that I use Ubuntu I would have no issues if they picked Sled,RHEL or any other distro under the sun as I already have a retailer to buy from.
Why would you offer the same OS as your competitor?
Think man, think. Unless Canonical wanted to become the Microsoft of Linux/FOSS on the Desktop (and look how well that worked out for Microsoft), it wouldn’t make sense for Dell and HP to offer the same OS and still go through the same hardware-compatibility changes as desktop computers which host WinXP or WinVista.
“Think man, think. Unless Canonical wanted to become the Microsoft of Linux/FOSS on the Desktop (and look how well that worked out for Microsoft)”
I think it worked out pretty good for MS. Maybe not for us, but certainly for MS.
OK, yes it worked out for MS. I stand corrected.
But did it work out for the customer? Of course, it didn’t.
The second best situation is “one-distro-per-manufacturer”. The ultimate best situation is if the distro vendor also makes its own computers (like Apple’s “whole widget”, but with a more generic OS).
But to have one distro catering to a number of hardware vendors invites the same customer service problems as Microsoft invited.
Because Ubuntu is very nice for home users, but lacks a lot of the software certifications provided by Novell and Redhat as well as the provisioning and management tools that make it a no-brainer in larger networks.
I am sure that Ubuntu will get there in time, but until I see something as thorough as the Yast management modules integrated into Ubuntu, Ubuntu will have a hard time winning enterprise deployments.
Which is ok. It takes a while to build an enterprise level distribution, but I am sure it will get there. The next LTS release from Ubuntu is the one to watch in order to see whether Ubuntu can be really taken seriously.
I’m still trying to decide how Ubuntu is better than all the other 500 distributions out there.
I think far too much of Ubuntu’s thunder is generated by propagating hype.
Ubuntu deserves the hype because they went after the Desktop market, with little to no competition and have successfully attracted Windows users, rather join a fight for the few users that already use one of the 500 distributions. The forums are wonderful too.
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“””
Yes. The Ubuntu forums are phenomenal. Watching user help user there makes me feel very *good* about where we are headed.
Gone are the days that an old hand can tell a new user to RTFM. He get’s canned in a minute, and some nice caring person actually answers the new user’s question.
The reign of us pretentious old farts is on the way out. And that’s a good thing. 😉
Leave me alone. I will not tolerate your low level intimidation any longer, and I will not spoil another thread. I have been drawn into too many off-topic flame wars.
Make a banal comment in reply to one of my posts and then mod down my reply. Go burn an Effigy of Richard Stallman or something.
As I have said I will not tolerate your low level intimidation any longer.
Edited 2007-09-20 23:51
Cyclops, this is not intimidation. *Far* from it. I agree with your positive opinion of the Ubuntu Forums! *Very* sincerely!
You behavior is unacceptable. I will not tolerate this behavior. It explains clearly all those off-topic comments about the FSF. Its you your just like that. Its a pattern.
As I said I will not tolerate your low level intimidation any longer.
The paranoia is getting to you. Did you remember to take your medication?
How do you figure, do you have any stats on that?
Do a search through this site, or many others, and find out how many ubuntu references start with “I tried xxx and yyy, but switched to ubuntu” or “I used zzz for a long time, but switched to ubuntu”.
Ubuntu is great for newbs and simplifies things for people interested in linux, but I’d question whether it’s bringing Windows users into the fold any more than linux in general is. I suspect it’s capturing a lot of interest from people frustrated with other linux distributions for one reason or another.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but let’s keep things in perspective. Ubuntu is directly targeting the other 500 linux distros. Windows users that have never touched linux are an incremental bonus.
Ubuntu isn’t better then the 500 other distro’s out there it is different then most of those distro’s. Before Ubuntu I used Fedora and when I made the move my day to day life became a lot easier now I know Fedora is doing a lot and has gotten a lot better from Core 5 when I was last on it but still Ubuntu has been pushing a number of distro’s be better on the desktop and that is a good thing.
Because Conical does not have a world wide support network to the same level which Novell has – and no, Red Hat is just as bad as Conical in that regard – they can’t even be bothered setting up an office in New Zealand.
Use SLED SP1 and then you’ll see why it is a better than Ubuntu; one is a long term, well supported operating system whose parent company is injecting vast sums of money investing into improving Linux on the desktop the other is a distribution with very little distribution support for the long term, no local offices around the world and minimal support structures in place.
HP needs a long term partner, someone who has a global presence with a good reputation with customers both business/corporate and home users. Someone who is also able to work with Microsoft and other companies to bring across support without needing to descend into a cycle of anti-proprietary rantings – as with the case of Red Hat and their refusal to provide out of the box proprietary CODEC support.
Obviously they didn’t read the article titled ‘Desktop Linux? Stick a Fork in It!’
They actually did read the article, and indeed they did stick a fork in Linux.
Then, they tasted it, and liked what they tasted, hence we have this article.
“Stick a fork in it” translates to: “It’s ready.”
…Windows will prevail.
Like it or not, we don’t care.
Considering how much talk there is about Windows, monopoly practices and such…Oh YES YOU DO CARE!
HP would never succeed unless it embraces first a desktop oriented distro like ubuntu, xandros, linspire or the likes and then buy them to get more power over it and then to acquire more projects and push them to integrate their applications on their acquired distro. Projects they can buy or support are like: disk partitioning/formating application; decent backup software; Excellent Device Manager and Excellent Event Viewer and Excellent Software Updater/Installer and Excellent Controlling Panel for Everything a user or administrator wants to go to troubleshoot and correct issues; a better Graphics Resolution handling; better Resolution scaling and remote resource mounting with vnc; exactly like rdc in windows which can do this since windows Xp and better on vista. better Service Manager which allows us to restart the service without CLI (/etc/init.d/samba restart); and to automatically restart service if it stops functioning correctly; and alot of other tools and appz. Linux Desktop has still a long way to go to become competitive to OEM level, and unless OEM manufacturers do not want to embrace software and start to program then linux would be out of equation for general public and it would remain dormant in high tech places.
Er, do you get this whole OSS thing? If HP has to go out and start throwing money at acquisitions in order to make minimal-margin desktop systems succeed with linux, is there really an advantage over just slapping a $30 copy of Windows instead?
If HP has to buy a linux distro to make linux work the way they want it to, then linux, to a certain extent, has failed. Or HP has. Either way, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.
I agree with what you are saying. Although I would love to see figures regarding the amount Manufactures pay for an OEM copy of what is generally the minimum home premium, Dell seem to offer a $50 discount
I can think of a few reasons why HP and other hardware companies would be very interested in the *their* own OS offering, and I use the words tentatively. The first is the benefits that simply *owning* your own hardware and *software* can bring that Apple enjoys. You can see how Intel is benefiting from having control of the lower levels of the OS, and how Vista has suffered from trying to drive hardware technologies, when they are not mature.
The second being the OS providers are looking to provide content as their next revenue stream, and assuming the current lock-in of formats doesn’t continue and already we are starting to see anti-trust cases appear. Ever PC manufacturer is a potential Content provider, and I suspect would love to bundle their own Media player on Windows like Microsoft have done, or even be paid to offer iMovies or Sony’s own player etc etc. Its a market worth Billions everybody wants a piece off.
The third Hardware companies don’t want to be tied to *one* platform, we have already seen acer complain about the artificial price raising so they much have had it as well. They make money on the hardware after all.
The forth is I suspect the move to muli-core mega machines that the current market demands is a very fragile one, and we are seeing markets open up to the low power and in some markets possibly disposable computer, and Linux not GNU is ideal for that market. You can also see the mythical web-computer fitting nicely into this category
I think its worth mentioning becuase its subtly different from the last comment, because you have seen the rise of it by *unknown brand* competitors of small devices like PVR’s have computer devices where Microsoft is pushing its OS as a solution. And high end media solutions coming from Sony even including TV card in their PS3 something I think they should have done at launch. I only see Toshiba unsurprisingly offering WMC solutions. As much as believe strongly in Linus choosing to stick with GPL2 with his typical short term vision, his little kernel is looking for an awful lot of adoption, Its paramount to the binary rush of the 80’s, and I suspect it will come with very little GNU.
Edited 2007-09-21 09:40
The biggest problem that gripes me the most is Ubuntu this or that. It is not the best distro available and I like others grow weary of hearing about how it is superior on the desktop. Being a RHCT working towards my RHCE I could careless about Ubuntu or what new magic it holds for users. Fedora Core to me is a better choice for a new PC or SuSE or even the new Red Hat Global Desktop that is available.
Ubuntu = vendor lock in the same exact problem people complained about before hand with MS. Now the group is saying Ubuntu with no other options, to me that is ludicrous.
I run Fedora, CentOS, and Ubuntu. I recommend Ubuntu to new users. For myself, I’m not certain which I prefer. I feel more at home with Fedora, since I have a long history with it. But the huge degree of package availability, and convenience features, of Ubuntu… are extremely tempting. So I use Fedora 7 on my desktop and Ubuntu Feisty on the laptop. 😉
My customers get CentOS on their servers.
“Ubuntu = vendor lock in the same exact problem people complained about before hand with MS. Now the group is saying Ubuntu with no other options, to me that is ludicrous.”
I remember when there was a great deal of fear that Red Hat would become a monopolistic Vendor of GNU. I would argue that here which isn’t the best barometor of what is happening Fedora is becoming the mover and shaker of the Desktop.
I’ve tried to find a quote about red hat saying it wasn’t interested in the Desktop, but am actually finding more evidence to the reverse.
I think Red Hat *gave* that market away. As you can see with the explosion of popularity with Ubuntu there was a pent up demand for a credible alternative OS to windows. Red Hat just didn’t step up.
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I’ve tried to find a quote about red hat saying it wasn’t interested in the Desktop, but am actually finding more evidence to the reverse.
“””
Matthew Szulik did make a comment, a number of years ago, about how Linux was not ready for the home user. It was widely misinterpreted as meaning that he didn’t think that Linux was for the desktop.
RedHat did ignore the desktop for a long time. But they are back. Currently, they are seeking to gain some mindshare regarding the business desktop. They have a good shot at it.
But Ubuntu is making some pretty serious inroads on the “casual desktop”. That includes pretty much everyone who is not willing to pay, per seat, for support. Most of my clients fall into that category.
Me? At age 44, my seat could use some support. 😉
I will repeat myself I have begged pleaded. Leave me alone. I *never* understood the reasoning for your relentless attacks on the FSF. Now I am experiencing them first hand I know your reasons well enough.
This low level intimidation needs to stop.
Cyclops…whatever it is you’re smoking, give it a rest mate.
probably more accurate to say that RH franchised out the desktop to Fedora, whilst concentratin on their business line (EL,ES,WS etc)
Well, OK. If you want to quibble about accuracy, this classic link puts the situation about as accurately as it *can* be put:
http://lwn.net/Articles/83360/
Red Hat didn’t really give it away, because there was no market to give away at the time that Red Hat backed away from the desktop. Red Hat slipped, though, in anticipating the point when interest would grow for linux desktops, but it was SLED, not Ubuntu, that led to their renewed interest.
Calling Ubuntu interest “explosive” is dramatic, but one has to wonder how popular it would be if people had to pay for it. THAT is the metric that ISV’s will look at before determining whether or not supporting linux as a platform makes business sense. Companies have to question whether people clamoring for a free-as-in-beer desktop and related apps are going to be willing to pay for a not-free commercial application. Red Hat, back then, decided they weren’t, and so backed away.
Ubuntu can land on 100,000,000 desktops around the world, but as long as it is free and there are no metrics to measure it, it will not matter to the industry. Sad as that is. Red Hat selling 1,000,000 desktop licenses, on the other hand, would garner headlines and likely lead to vendors acknowledging the linux desktop. 1,000,000 people spending money for a linux distro carries more marketing weight than 100,000,000 people using a freely downloadable distro. It’s simply the way the world works. At least at this point in time; hopefully that may change.
I think everything you wrote is perfect, and hopefully without going too off-topic. I think Ubuntu has captured a very specific user the “young and fearless windows refugee”, or perhaps the term is “Digg” user, and has the “mind share” in that market. Ubuntu has gone from zero “with pikturs of nekked womn” to being the most talked about Distribution. In reality is little sets it apart from other Distributions.
Because of this Mindshare which is very different from “corporate executive”, or the “windows power-user(sic)”. I can see there strategy although I’d love you to correct me is the server market, and support, by owning the Desktop. I think they *own* the wrong Desktop. I’d love them to be successful but when you see Dell offering Ubuntu on the Desktop and SUSE on the servers, you have to question how successful this approach will be. Although unlike you I think if it ever did get 100,000,000 it will be successful it working for that little Microsoft company, and there Server offering is arguably weaker.
off-topic I think however Migration of Windows Refugees to Ubuntu was too soon, and however tired the “Ready for the Desktop” is. I don’t think it was *for everyone*. Although most of the infrastucture has been there forever if not the polish. I’m actually surprised its been so successful, and I think in part that as been down to its compositing desktop, and within those 500(sic) Distribution Sabayon.
There was an article on here about GNU being “rough around the edges” which had the potential to be an excellent article. The article wasn’t, but GNU is. I think GNU does has an awful lot of “power-user(sic)” workarounds and less than ideal integration of *many different parts*. I think the Next-Generation of Distribution with its better all around major niggle solving is going to be a real desktop solution for *everyone* short of those binary blobs that were *practical* for so long.
Edited 2007-09-21 10:31
But that doesn’t matter to me. I am trying to get everyone I know to use it for the simple fact that having a standard distro is for the best. If people really believe that Ubuntu will become the next windows, well they are dead wrong. Ubuntu cant create the lock in that windows or Microsoft can, since ubuntu is created with open source software.
Myself, I know Ubuntu isn’t the best. I am getting sick of some of the things that are getting implemented, since I think they promote poor practice. such as installing the nvidia drivers for you, I hate it and it creates conflicts later on. This doesnt change the fact that it is easier to use then fedora core(note I haven’t used it since core 5) was for me, or Debian(my love). I only recommend Ubuntu to everyone because I believe if we can get everyone to try and standardize on one distro, we have a better shot at getting desktop Linux going.
“ubuntu isnt the best.”
Hell yeah. Linux isn’t the best either. Solaris is better than it, but if you look at ubuntu and how simple and rich it can install packages for you, you would understand why it can replace windows and why other distros need to do like them.
If I want to download and install nvidia drivers and the latest kernel patches then it won’t matter like in other distros where you have to go nerd and recompile the device driver. Ubuntu will install the kernel updates and won’t affect the drivers installed. And their packaging system richness where you can basically install all software you dream off; amule, azureus, java latest, msttruetype fonts, flash, codecs and others and others .. I tested fedora 8 beta and I found that it improved a lot from previous versions, but it is not as rich as ubuntu Add/Remove in its capability in handling conflicts of packages.
I personally like RHEL or CentOS but they are not easy if you want to install the appz you like especially when they ask for endless amount of dependancy packages. Until then ubuntu is the king of desktop
Sez who ? By what criterion ?
Sez who ? By what criterion ?
Certainly by PC shipments although I can’t think of another criteria that would stress the importance the title tries to portray.
This is the most recent example I could find. I only choose it because it has figures in there.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39286759,00.htm