Canonical Chases Deal to Ship Ubuntu Server OS

Kurtz'sKompund writes "Canonical, the company that supports Ubuntu Linux, is trying to work out a deal with hardware vendors such as Dell to make Ubuntu available pre-installed on servers. 'Canonical, despite obviously supporting such a deal, had little to do with Dell's decision. Dell said it was merited by customer demand. Likewise, the decision of whether Ubuntu Server will ship pre-installed will be determined the same way.'"

Comments

Pre-installed OS

[totallygeek]

I wonder how many of you want pre-installed operating systems - any operating system. It seems to me that most installations have a central installation service (kickstart, jumpstart, etc) and would like boxes to be configured with certain parameters and niceties, such as partition and block sizing, configuration files, kernel versions, cfEngine keys, local accounts, etc... I really am curious, as I have never used the factory-installed operating system. Even if it came with one, the first item on the 'to do' list was to wipe the drive and start over.

Re:Pre-installed OS

[Hercynium]

Well, while I tend to go thru the same exact process on every server I deal with, I can see *one* big advantage - Reputation.

The typical PHB has by now recognized RHEL as *the* Linux for servers. Thru good marketing, development, support, and business, RedHat has become the de-facto standard for Linux in the enterprise server market.

Case in point - Not ONE of the enterprise apps I work with is supported on anything BUT RHEL, (or in one case SuSE) HOWEVER, I've tested many of them in the lab with Debian and Ubuntu and found that all work very well... but there's a snowball's chance in hell that management would let me use Debian or Ubuntu. RedHat's reputation as Linux for serious business is entrenched in their minds, and entrenched in the market.

I have a lot of respect and appreciation for RedHat's offerings. I prefer Debian, and in the corporate world, Ubuntu is the only Debian derivitave that has a chance of becoming a contender.

Being a default offering on Dell servers is a golden opportunity to start building the reputation they need. PHBs will see the Ubuntu option on Dell's web-site and after about a thousand times they may begin to wonder if it's something worth investigating. :)

If Canonical produces a systems-management/data-center platform that can compete with offerings available for RedHat, I believe that sysadmins, enterprise software vendors, and even managers will start to take notice. If Ubuntu can garner reputation as an alternative to RHEL, we may start seeing not just hardware support but also software support.

Granted, this is all just a wild dream for me, but let me tell you - if someday Oracle announces support for Ubuntu, it could be a dream come true!

the ballmer effect

[User 956]

Dell said it was merited by customer demand.

In other words, "No, Microsoft, we haven't been talking to other OS vendors. It was the customers' fault. honest. Put down that chair."

Worst-case-scenario for Linux as a whole

[SpiritGod21]

It's fantastic to see such purported demand for Ubuntu, but I have trouble envisioning the conversion of our servers to their distro. The article itself reports that the server product is in its early days and that there are gaps in its functionality, and the biggest gap seems to be in support. I seriously doubt that Dell is going to pick up the bill for enterprise-level 24x7 support, and the offerings from Canonical seem to be local individuals who put their name on Ubuntu's website, so there's little guarantee regarding their expertise or availability.

I just can't help but worry that Canonical is overextending themselves (even if it is in reaction to Dell asking them to do so), and that the distro will eventually cave once bad PR builds up from a few high-profile failures at the enterprise/corporation level. Those in the FOSS community might not care about bad corporate PR, but it would certainly set Linux back quite a bit adoption-wise to have its golden front-runner made to look extremely foolish.

Re:Worst-case-scenario for Linux as a whole

[radeex]

1. Actually, Canonical offers professional support services for servers and desktops. http://canonical.com/support

2. My impression is that the "gaps" referred to in the article are mostly about certification from third parties like Oracle.

Why Ubuntu?

[rduke15]

I'm currently running Debian stable on all my servers. Why would I want to get the next with Ubuntu? Would it be just as stable?

The install with netinst is very fast. What takes a long time is all the configuration of the needed services, and customization (backup scripts, various checks and email alerts, etc. In short everything one adds to /etc/cron*). So I wouldn't really gain any time.

Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware. I had to use backports a few times, and that was a hassle. Any other advantage I'm overlooking?

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[whoever57]

Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware.

I think you answered your own question. How many hours are spent researching Linux compatibility before purchasing new computers? Buying a system with Ubuntu pre-installed gives one a guarantee that the hardware as a basic level of support in that distro.

Also, perhaps the PHBs who are used to buying computers with Windows pre-installed will feel more comfortable about buying (or rather, approving the purchase of) a server if the OS is pre-installed.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're investigating server software, don't forget to check out the BSDs.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Shados]

I don't disagree with you, but one has to realise that servers are not all the big mission critical machines in datacenters we tend to picture them as. There are probably as many "non-mission-critical" servers as there are the others, and for those, a "Server for Dummy" install probably is cost effective in the long run.

Case in point: the company I work for offers a relatively advanced web solution. The software doesn't actually deal with mission critical data, it is used for projections and on the fly analytic operations, on a user per user basis. So each user has a copy of the data and basically mess with it the way they bloody want until they get an acceptable result, print a report, then go to their primary system (which isn't by us, and is totally independant in every ways, shape and form) and perform mission critical operations THERE.

For our servers, we can toss the app on anything, passwords can be in plain text (well, could if users didn't reuse passwords all over, which isn't the case so I guess they can't!), the machine can be tossed and kicked around, it doesn't really matter if the system's down for a day, or a week, as long as it comes back and it "works".

This is actually an incredibly common scenario, and more and more as a lot of software is moved to simple web apps (because of the Web 2.0 overhype) and other such things, especially since hardware is so cheap (I've seen servers running cache engines made with less than 300 lines of code, including comments, in a farm... hardly mission critical either), so there's IS a pretty high demand for "dumb-friendly" servers that don't even require the sysadmin intervention when they screw up.

In such cases, something like Ubuntu Server probably fits the bill amazingly nicely. If the machine screws up BAD, you call the sysadmin...but the rest of the time, let said professional handle the important stuff, and have the junior manage the non-critical, novice friendly environments. Saves time and money for everyone.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[oatworm]

Just installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server on a box. Let's see what's running...

Netstat -an shows no open ports.
The root account is disabled.
Ps -ef shows some kernel modules, some gtty instances, and that's it.
Oh, did I mention I don't have an X console or anything?

Am I missing something? Last I tried CentOS (an older version, mind you), root was not only enabled, it was what you logged in as initially. When I installed Debian Sarge a few years ago for a class I was taking, the first thing we had to do after the initial install was shut down a couple of services so only SSH was running (FTP was one of them, if I remember correctly) - with Ubuntu Server, I'm going to have to turn SSH on, along with anything else I want on. That said, Ubuntu Server does make some interesting choices - for example, single user mode has network support. That's a little strange. Other than that, though, no complaints. Granted, SELinux isn't on, but that's fine by me - I didn't turn it on, and maybe I'd like to use something else. At least Ubuntu isn't trying to make that decision for me. Seeing as there's no way for anyone to access my box remotely at the moment anyways, I can make that decision on my own time.

Anybody care to elaborate on this?

Why would there be failures?

[khasim]

Let's look at the possible scenarios that lead to "failure".

#1. Hardware dies. Only an idiot would blame this on Canonical/Ubuntu. If it's under warranty, Dell should be able to replace it.

#2. Software corruption. This would be Canonical's/Ubuntu's fault. But I've run their stuff for years without any problems. Why would there be problems now?

#3. Driver problem. Well, this is why you have these "partnerships" so the software vendor can work with the hardware vendor to solve these problems BEFORE you purchase their products.

#4. Stupid admin problem. Yeah, like there's anything Canonical or Dell can do to prevent that.

So, the only real potential problem looks like the exact thing that such a partnership would be designed to resolve. I'm not seeing the problem here.

Re:Why would there be failures?

[Qzukk]

#4. Stupid admin problem. Yeah, like there's anything Canonical or Dell can do to prevent that.

That seems to be what the GP is talking about in terms of support. On the desktop you'll get questions like "I bought this computer with this newfangled leenooks thingy, how do I play my card game?"

On the server, you get questions that have nothing at all to do with the stupidity of the admin. Like "When the database has written 1 GB of data to the drive, the system stops responding and has to be powercycled causing a lot of data corruption, what's going on?" (true story, the answer is "plug in a PS/2 mouse") Multiply that by however many Dell sells, and the grandparent has a point: can they handle it?

Re:But is it supported?

[radeex]

I already mentioned this in response to another post, but yes, it's really really supported. http://canonical.com/support

Canonical is hitting above its weight

[Anonymous Coward]

The wiki article on Canonical says that it has 90+ employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_Ltd Mark Shuttleworth himself is rich but not remarkably so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

Given that other Linux distros have more employees backing them, it is pretty impressive that Ubuntu has made the progress it has. Given all of the above, I am led to the conclusion that Mark Shuttleworth is indeed a very smart guy. In that light, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the servers ship and sell well.

You guys will have to seriously take it up a notch

[outZider]

As a user of Ubuntu Server on a 60+ machine deployment for $work, Canonical is seriously going to have to take the server distro up a notch before this could possibly work. The server distro, in stark contrast to Desktop, is a horribly hacked together mess that gives off the impression that it isn't really studied much at all. While Desktop shows the best and brightest of Linux integration, the server distro is just as barebones as the alternative distro, and manages to screw things up in terms of out of box experience.

Am I looking for a UI? No. I want a few basic things.

1: A proper, usable deployment system. debian-installer is good for the basics, but it's a pain in the behind to set up, and doesn't support scripting a RAID/mdadm install, or LVM. This "sucks". Take a look at Redhat or CentOS for a little inspiration.
2: A boot screen that doesn't look like vomited output. Why does the login prompt appear before services have finished loading? I support being able to use the machine before services have stopped. I do not need "Starting PostgreSQL" appearing as I'm entering my login credentials locally.
3: A server kernel that always installs. Why does the installer give me the generic kernel when I'm installing the server distro? Why do I have to manually install the server kernel on boot up, and then remove the generic kernel?
4: Easily add services. You get 'LAMP server' or 'DNS server' or nothing. I had to create a custom installer just to have openssh-server install by default on first load, without apache or MySQL, or other crap floating around in there as well.

It sounds whiny, I know, but we really like the debian-style package management system with the modern services Ubuntu provides. It's great for that purpose. As a real server distro, though, long way to go yet.

I hope this lights that fire under Canonical to pay some attention to Server.

Re:Pre-installed SHOULD mean "working drivers".

[Zonk (troll)]

Even with imaging WinXP, you'll need the drivers. You'll have to find the drivers. Somewhere. And build your image with them. They're all right here.

Re:!ElLobo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look out for a user named 'ellobo'. He likes trolling Linux related stories, he calls Linux 'Linuzzz'. Do an in-page search for 'linuzzz' and you'll see him. :)

Re:Pre-installed SHOULD mean "working drivers".

[Sillygates]

f it comes with an install CD with all of the necessary drivers included ... awesome!
Even with imaging WinXP, you'll need the drivers. You'll have to find the drivers. Somewhere. And build your image with them.

This isn't WinXP here. The type of hardware that ends up in server boxes usually has complete support in any recent kernel release.
And, companies like RedHat make sure all the kernel modules for HBA cards are compiled too.

Re:I disagree...

[mabhatter654]

I'm kind of surprised Dell hasn't caught on to that idea yet. If they sell Dell hardware and make sure Ubuntu has all the drives they could load up a custom live CD with all sorts of troubleshooting goodies. Then rather then asking a zillion stupid questions they could point you to the CD if you have to call with broken hardware.. no matter what OS you chose to use! Live CD can read the hard drive, connect to the internet, have 3D desktops, etc.... they're far from tech only "recovery" discs they used to be. Moves like that would go a long way to making regular users see Linux as Legit.