Idea
#3381: Get Ubuntu shipped on popular budget Linux PC's: Everex, Asus Eee, Shuttle
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631
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Written by ArtInvent the 5 Mar 08 at 18:29.
Category: Installation.
Related to:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
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Description
It seems baffling to me that with the explosion of cheap sub-US$400 Linux machines from the likes of Everex, WalMart, Asus Eee, Shuttle, etc, that none of these ship with Ubuntu installed, but rather go with sad alternatives like gOS or Mandriva or something. Despite the fact that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux OS and far more capable. Many millions of these cheap machines are going to ship this year and would be a huge opportunity to get Ubuntu into the hands of the masses. Plus I think it would be a big selling point for the marketers to be able to slap an Ubuntu sticker on these machines.
It is often lamented that Ubuntu is not pre-installed on more machines, that the hassles of installation and configuration are principle blockers to mass adoption. And yet here are a bunch of opportunities lost to marginal or no-name distros.
I think Canonical needs to make more of an effort to reach out to these companies as it did with Dell and partner with them to make Ubuntu the free OS of choice on budget PCs.
In the meantime, at the very least, Ubuntu needs to supply super-easy (as in one-click) customized installs that can go onto specific machines like the Eee PC and configure all of the hardware at least as well as the stock setup.
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Comments
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shovelhead wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 20:25
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I am a bit uncertain becuse: do we (or Cannonical) want ubuntu to be the "low cost OS"?
Yes! All Linux is free (or should be) and ubuntu has that promise to keep things that way, but there's a difference between "free" and "for free"; If there was ubuntu on every cheap PC, ubuntu would become "the cheapish thingy" to the world ... "that's what' on all those budget PCs" :o(
Nope!
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kripkenstein wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 20:32
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I think what might be equally important is to create editions of Ubuntu that install perfectly on these new devices. For example there is already some Ubuntu Eee distro some people are working on. If Ubuntu officially supported that project, that might be useful and people could easily replace the pre-installed OS with Ubuntu.
I know I would be more likely to buy such a device if I knew I could install Ubuntu on it later myself and it would work. Whereas currently there are long and complex HOWTOs on getting all the stuff to work.
What this really means is that, just like Canonical certifies Ubuntu to run on Dell Ubuntu machines, Canonical can certify the Eee etc. (Or not, if it is impossible - perhaps drivers are unavailable for some stuff. But hopefully all is solvable.). Such certification would be unilateral, unlike the Dell collaboration. But it is better than nothing.
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Estesark wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 20:57
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Quote, artinvent:
> sad alternatives like gOS or Mandriva
I've never used gOS, but I have tried Mandriva and I know that it has a lot to offer. The users of all the various distributions should be united in support of the common goal of spreading GNU/Linux, not competing against or pointlessly insulting each other.
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madjr wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 22:11
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this is one of the cons and pros of open source.
while gOS is based on ubuntu, it lacks a ton of apps just because it uses e17 beta instead of the much complete and supported gnome.
i would had hoped they would go with xubuntu, since xfce is much more complete than e17, but xfce still lacks against gnome (but these cheap pcs run gnome much slower.)
these cheap PCs only come with linux because is free.
they aren't really the optimal setup to run a complete desktop.
Quote, artinvent:
> sad alternatives like gOS or Mandriva
u may not like mandriva, but they've come a long way and where here before ubuntu.
they do lack in some aspects compared to ubuntu, but also have some great stuff ubuntu is lacking. I don't use mandriva because i prefer deb instead of rpm.
It's not fair to say they are "sad alternatives", since they are trying their best to distribute linux in parts of the world where canonical can't directly support at this time.
once a distro is not needed it will die by itself. But if it's not dead, is because the people who use it are happy with it.
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lexen wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 22:41
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Please don't be sold at WalMart, those guys commit so many human rights violations that I feel dirty just mentioning the name.
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ArtInvent wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 22:45
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I don't mean to bash Mandriva so I probably shouldn't have said sad, even though this is clearly an Ubuntu forum. I'm sure it's a fine distro, but it's clearly not got the backing and community support of the leading distros like Ubuntu, Debian, RH-Fedora, and Suse. If you can find a person on the street who knows what a Mandriva is, I'll give you a chocolate bar.
I've got gOS Rocket on the other hand right here in a VM, and it's basically like Ubuntu with both hands tied behind your back. Ugh.
Another story today about how Shuttle was going to ship Ubuntu in a new $199 pc but then switched to . . . Foresight Linux. Now I've no idea, it may be great and all, but it's certainly not going to win any sales the way a more name brand distro might. I would really like to know what we're doing wrong to blow distribution opportunities like this.
I have to wonder if maybe Ubuntu (or Fedora or Suse) just make it too easy to install bazillions of packages and customize, in a way that shortly makes the hardware limitations of these machines painfully apparent, and creates a support problem. Something like gOS and Foresight might be more of a move towards enforced simplicity. For one thing, the manufacturers can simply only enable certain repos of their own control by default, and thus avoid having to support the kitchen sink available in something like Ubuntu or even Debian Stable.
Have we come to the point where Linux is seen as a good way for a mfg to limit their exposure to support problems by restricting access to as much nice software as possible? Looks like. This is very unfortunate trend and it would be good to do something about it.
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ArtInvent wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 22:53
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@ shovelhead
If Ubuntu can't be the low cost OS leader, than it's probably going nowhere, because hardware is quickly becoming a near-commodity. PC prices are being forced down fast. There will of course be higher end machines, but $200 desktops and $400 laptops are going to be the meaty heart of the market rather than a low-end niche in a couple of years. An early position as the leader in that market would have enormous advantage.
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madjr wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 03:43
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@ArtInvent
If Ubuntu can't be the low cost OS leader, than it's probably going nowhere, because hardware is quickly becoming a near-commodity. PC prices are being forced down fast. There will of course be higher end machines, but $200 desktops and $400 laptops are going to be the meaty heart of the market rather than a low-end niche in a couple of years. An early position as the leader in that market would have enormous advantage.
totally agree with you.
the new eeePC comes with 1gb of ram now and a monitor that supports higher res, etc and costs the same.
linux as a hold does have an advantage here. Yes, ubuntu should take advantage.
Right now the next version of mandriva is doing a good job in this aspect (specially with the eeePC):
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_What%27s_New#Asus_Eee-friendly
mandriva also has a USB flash live version, making it easier to install in the CD-ROM less eeePC.
as you see i give credit to mandriva since they aren't too popular but they have good developers and most of the time are 1 step ahead, making linux advance even faster :)
Ubuntu should do the same :)
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jam wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 13:10
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Yeahh I'm with you on this one mate..
I have an eeepc,and I put Ubuntu on it... It would have been a lot better if it was the default OS to begin with..
Jam :)
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elitepenguin wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 14:17
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I thought Canonical is a company, not a Linux Charity Organization.. They really need to learn how to do business and "sell" Ubuntu to Asus, Everex, etc This is great opportunity to make some money (eg by selling support) for further development of Ubuntu.
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jimmux wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 14:43
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I understand that HP is soon to release a UMPC to compete with the likes of Asus. If HP hasn't yet committed to a flavour of linux then this might be a good place for ubuntu to get into the market.
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keen101 wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 17:34
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It actually is Ubuntu, just not Gnome. But, I see your point.
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Loïc wrote on the 11 Mar 08 at 03:12
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As an Ubuntu user and an old Linux user, I would indeed prefer Ubuntu preinstalled.
However, considering the appalling number of regressions that happen with each release, I am not sure that's the image of Linux we want to give to the public.
For example, Edgy broke support for webcams that were already supported in the previous version, Feisty broke a lot of scanners because of the insane decision to include usb suspend in the kernel when even the kernel developers considered it to be unstable. Considering that most of those regressions are clearly never fixed but postponed to the next release, and you end up with unusable systems.
If every 6 month one of these PC's features just broke (either the webcam, the screen, the touchpad, the USB devices) that would be the best advertising campaign for Windows.
Installing distros with smaller release cycles, and more important, better attention to quality might be more advisable. Even some users that bough the Dell laptops sold with Ubuntu preinstalled got problems when they upgraded to Gutsy a few month ago.
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Loïc wrote on the 11 Mar 08 at 03:13
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Sorry, I meant disros with longer release cycles :)
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brettalton wrote on the 13 Apr 08 at 17:06
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Windows XP is supported on sub-notebooks and it's not "the cheap OS".
Linux's market is not in any one place; its in the high-end (scalable clusters, TOP100 supercomputers), mid-end (desktops, laptops), low-end (sub-notebooks) and also in mobile (android, etc.)
There is and should be no problem for Ubuntu to be installed and supported on such devices as it would really be positive-reinforcement if someone could install Ubuntu on an EeePC AND their home desktop. Brand recognition my friend.
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aysiu wrote on the 14 Apr 08 at 21:38
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One of the huge complaints Eee users have of the Linux OS (which we know of as Xandros) is the difficulty involved in installing new software. A lot of these people end up installing XP instead.
It's a shame Ubuntu is losing out on this budding new market. I just read that the new HP competitor will have Novell Suse.
What a shame.
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fluxy wrote on the 25 Apr 08 at 00:17
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Great point.
If the potential of sub-notebooks has been enough to force Microsoft provide a diet-xp version for them (despite the fact that they wanted to kill xp), then ubuntu should make a move too, FAST. Perhaps they could provide top-notch support for those devices and find a way to make some money too.
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Folk_Theory wrote on the 30 Apr 08 at 00:32
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Shame on you! you call mandriva "sad" and then you say SUSE is better than it....
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keen101 wrote on the 31 Jul 08 at 04:51
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gOS now comes with gnome.
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