Ubuntu One Hits the Million Users Mark

dkd903 writes "Roberta Nilerud of Canonical has announced that their cloud storage service – Ubuntu One – has hit the one million users mark. Ubuntu One is a cloud storage service from Canonical that is very tightly integrated into Ubuntu. Although Ubuntu One is installed by default in Ubuntu, it is also available on Windows and Android."

Comments

huh

[Anonymous Coward]

took them this long?

Re:huh

[AliasMarlowe]

It's not clear what proportion of Ubuntu users actually use Ubuntu One. We have three PCs at home running Ubuntu (four users), and have never registered with Ubuntu One, and are unlikely to do so.

Re:huh

[AvitarX]

I'm more curious how many are paid.

I pay for a 20pack and the mobile. it leaves a little to be desired (I'd really like to see a plugin for a music player to play out of the could, so on my computers with small HDs I can play from the cloud, but sync and play local on others). But it is quite funtional on my phone.

It's also not as cheap as Amazon's solution, but it is open and accessible (note, they recently included a free 20GB for the $3.99/month music service, so it may be cheapest).

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

another proxy is popcon. says 2million
http://popcon.ubuntu.com/

Re:huh

[allo]

package installed != using the service

Re:huh

[stevey]

That's actually pretty interesting - As it says that about 50% of the users with the packages installed are using it.

Higher than I'd have imagined.

Re:huh

[donaldm]

That's actually pretty interesting - As it says that about 50% of the users with the packages installed are using it.

Higher than I'd have imagined.

I very much doubt that 50% of Ubunto users actually use the so called cloud especially since the the report states 1 million users have subscribed. Basically that means only 2million people in the world are Ubunto users (what rubbish!). If you believe the shoddy reporting Journalists been saying for over 10 years, that is "Linux has only 1% of the PC market" then I suppose most ill informed people would believe that.

If you would like better statistics about PC Linux use try here . Simply put, there are between 10 and 20 million Fedora users world wide and I would assume there are between 3 and 6 Ubunto users for every Fedora user and I have not taken into account the other distros which could double or even triple that figure again. It must be noted that I am being extremely conservative in my figures which if you work it out results in active Linux PC usage between 50 and 100 million world wide which is much much more than the 1% we keep hearing from the media.

Getting back on topic for one million Ubunto users subscribing to the "cloud" I would assume only 1 in 40 would actually subscribe which is more in-line with what would be world wide usage of Ubunto. Stating 50% is definitely wrong. Of course with shoddy technical Journalism reporting today if you say something enough times then people will eventually believe you and this suits certain monopolies.

Re:huh

[ynp7]

You talk about shoddy reporting and then pull numbers straight out of your ass? Good show, my man. Good show.

Re:huh

[hairyfeet]

Sorry to burst your bubble but yes Linux only has 1% and if you will bother to read this link they have the numbers from several sources to back it up.

And why is that so hard to believe? I frankly have yet to see a single Linux install on any of my test beds survive the 6 month upgrade deathmarch without 1 or more drivers shitting themselves, there is no "rollback driver" or any other simple user friendly way to fix drivers when they break (with Windows it is "reinstall driver, reboot" and that is if a driver breaks, I honestly haven't seen it in years) but instead you have to trawl some forum, hope they have a fix, tweak said fix because it is for hardware b rev g and you have hardware d rev j and then IF you manage to pull off that, and put it all perfectly in a 70s era term, with NO spellcheck or autocomplete? Well then you might have your drivers back up...until the 6 month upgrade happens all over again.

In my shop I tried ubuntu/Mint, I tried Mepis, and I tried PCLOS, and in ALL of the above the drivers shit themselves. As one Linux user told me "Oh it happens, Linux guys just accept it and learn to deal" but you know what? Joe and sally average will not deal with that bullshit nor will the trawl forums for fixes, nor will they deal with a 70s era term.

Quit acting like the terminal gives you magical gonad powers and make it friendly for the masses and you know what? they WILL come. But sadly after dealing with the Linux community for years it is pretty damned obvious they will accept nothing less than the world doing things their way and it is never ever not in a million fucking years gonna happen, okay? Vista was a dog and you STILL didn't gain shit, instead a company with a $1000 price of entry gained like mad. If a product that costs $1000 stomps your product which costs ZERO dollars? That should be a big old clue stick whacking you in the head.

Now waste your mod points but it won't make up equal down, black equal white, nor will it make my words any less true. Fix the God Damned driver model already!

Re:huh

[smash]

Having done the linux thing for years (started with slackware in 96) i have to say I agree. FreeBSD is better in that respect (they generally don't break shit from release to release - linux on the other hand has previously swapped my DMZ and OUTSIDE nics when i upgraded the kernel due to different hardware detection order) but its still not exactly user friendly. Part of the problem with linux is no stable ABI for releasing binary only drivers. Yes. We get it. Open souce people would prefer to have source for drivers.

However, the alternative is less drivers available. Get the market share THEN demand open drivers. Trying to dictate to hardware vendors how they shall support your product when you have a miniscule market share is never going to get you anywhere.

Re:huh

[AvitarX]

Where do you get ten to twenty million?

I see 850000 in two months after a release. I will make the assumption that is clise to half the users, putting you at 1.6 million.

Additionally, ubuntu is unlikely to be more than double fedora IMO (based on my assumption that a /. User is a typical linux user, and the comments I see).

Also, I think ubuntu one is installed on all ubuntu installs (I could be wrong, but I remember a link on my clean install.

I personally like ubuntu one and think it's fair, the new phone app for files is great (I like that it uploaded all of my photos easily), and the cloud music is pretty good (I wish it would group songs with guest artists into their album though).

It's not the cheapest music cloud, but it's cheap enough for me, and it worked without a special upload, which I understand to be a requirement for amazon.

I hope that the 1000000 means they have enough paying customers to keep it going, at the price of 1.5 usb drives a month (the type without a wall outlet) it is a little steap for backup outside of important documents and music files for me, but it is a great way to get access to what I need effortlessly where I need it.

Re:huh

[justforgetme]

I'm guessing here but from what I see in the linux world ubuntu to fedora is more like 5/1 or even more...

Re:huh

[hairyfeet]

Actually even having the source doesn't help without a stable ABI, as I tried following the advice and only using open drivers...what happened? The sound and network shit itself and died! We are talking bog standard Realtek chips, the same shit that is on a good 90% of the hardware currently sold, but when the 6 month upgrade was applied POW bye bye sound and network. This doesn't count the Intel "This driver is flaky this way, that driver is flaky that way" BS, nor does it count the open source Nvidia and ATI drivers I tried, one of which gave me black screen o' death, the other would flash the screen on and off after the upgrade like a cable was loose.

Why the community which prides itself on geeks can't seem to do basic math is beyond me. You have X number of people currently qualified to maintain kernel drivers, you have Y times tens of thousands of drivers. Simple math will tell you even if the kernel devs stayed up 24/7 and did NOTHING but fix drivers all that time they will always be behind! With a stable ABI both free and non free could be "write once, use for years" which would free up the kernel devs for QA, reverse engineering those OEMs that won't give Linux a driver, working on features, etc.

I think the problem is Linux geeks think because something is easy for them then others will find it easy as well and nothing could be further from the truth. if you want the world to adopt Linux then you have to give the world what it wants, NOT expect the world to adapt to you. Joe Public will NOT learn Bash, nor will he trawl forums, nor will he deal with broken drivers every 6 months. I like Linux, I really do. It has some damned nice DEs and plenty of software, it also does the jobs most home users want a PC for.

But until I can sell a Linux PC and KNOW it will "just work" a year from now with ZERO intervention from myself? Well sadly the cost of Windows HP is actually cheaper than dealing with Linux is for me and my shop.

Re:huh

[AvitarX]

Fair enough, I use Linux as my primary OS as home, but am hardly a part of any community (I have one friend that does the same, and is in a similar situation), we both use Ubuntu, so I guess my actual in thw wild stat is 2:0 ubuntu:fedora.

I would honestly say my primary browsing device is either my work windows vista computer, or my android phone though.. it actually shocks me how low the phone numbers are for the web browser stats.

Also surprising to me is that iphone users appear to browse the web twice as much per phone as android users (looking at browser share vs phone os share).

I personally think browser access to a website is a valid metric, and has the benifit of counting dual boot machines as a percentage of each (including boot camp).

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

I frankly have yet to see a single Linux install on any of my test beds survive the 6 month upgrade deathmarch without 1 or more drivers shitting themselves

In your shop, where the half-wit is considered wise. Next time we have a problem with the servers at the stock exchange we'll be giving Hairypalms a call - NOT.

Re:huh

[Pigskin-Referee]

Having done the linux thing for years (started with slackware in 96) i have to say I agree. FreeBSD is better in that respect (they generally don't break shit from release to release - linux on the other hand has previously swapped my DMZ and OUTSIDE nics when i upgraded the kernel due to different hardware detection order) but its still not exactly user friendly. Part of the problem with linux is no stable ABI for releasing binary only drivers. Yes. We get it. Open souce people would prefer to have source for drivers.

However, the alternative is less drivers available. Get the market share THEN demand open drivers. Trying to dictate to hardware vendors how they shall support your product when you have a miniscule market share is never going to get you anywhere.

FreeBSD doesn't break from release to release because they don't actually do anything between releases. Someone crosses a "T" or dots an "i" and they bump the version. They are in a race to reach version 20 by the end of the decade. Worse yet, FreeBSD doesn't actually have any drivers. They attempt to use those designed for Linux, but that is about it. After more than five years they still have no working support for "N" protocol wireless devices. "PATHETIC" to say the least. They have so totally screwed up their platform that they cannot reliable install LaTex, now TeX Live on their system. It requires a Computer Science Master's degree to get even some basic programming working correctly on that platform.

FreeBSD users are in lockstep with the other open-sore community in their refusal to blame themselves for their own misfortune and rather adhere to the "blame everyone else," specifically Microsoft" for their failures rhetoric.

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, GP consistently misspelled Ubuntu.

Re:huh

[smash]

NIce troll. You know, except for stuff like ZFS, Dtrace, and other "not invented here" stuff that the linux crowd refuse to embrace to maintain some semblance of compatibility with the rest of the world. But yes, they suffer from many of the same problems, though to a lesser degree, as linux. Given that the desktop is not the target environment for FreeBSD, the lack of wireless N is of little consequence. Couldn't care less if my firewall has wireless N or not, however i do care that it can sit there and process packets in a reliable manner without needing to be patched every 5 minutes (2 security updates for FreeBSD this year in total) or breaking in strange and mysterious ways when I *do* patch it, like Linux.

Re:huh

[Pigskin-Referee]

I have been using FreeBSD as a hobbyist tool since 2000. I am presently running Apache22 along with Postfix + Dovecot in conjunction with SQL back-ends, etcetera. FreeBSD claims to be a fully serviceable OS for both "server" and "individual" user use. Obviously, it is not.

Now, your requirements are are far more fundamental than many other users of FreeBSD. A simple perusal of their mailing list will prove that fact. FreeBSD has gotten to the point that they issue a new major version number every 18 months (+/-) regardless of what actual improvements have been made to the OS. There is not a dimes worth of difference from version 6 to versions 8.2. They have crossed a few "t's" and dotted an "i" or two, and that is about it. Every time FreeBSD issues an improvement which in reality is just playing catchup with the rest of the industry, they bump the major version number.

Now, you may not have any use fro "wireless" or its associated devices; however, you are not in the majority of users either. What type of moron would install an OS on a modern laptop that did not fully support modern wireless protocols. The fact that the protocol (N) is over 5 years old and FreeBSD still does not support it says a lot about FreeBSD and it relative worth in the modern market place.

I am glad that you find FreeBSD useful in your relatively limited environment. For many of use, that is not so.

Re:huh

[smash]

It comes back to using the correct tool for the job. Forget what the media release says, use what works. If you're after a laptop OS FreeBSD is not it. Linux is not really there either. Windows has its problems as well. The only laptop I've seen that actually reliably works as advertised with suspend/restore/etc in a reliable manner is a Mac.

just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you enjoy being a drop in the cloud, sheeple. Real men use something that no one uses yet OR that no one uses anymore.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.
  All the Ubuntu users I know signed up for this, used it once and promptly decided that it was not for them. So these try it and don't buy it users have been counted?

Pah,
  Stats, stats and dammed lies methinks.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[stonedcat]

I just use it for a 3rd backup of the games I purchase online. Never know when a vendor site is going to simply shutdown or stop offering my key downloads and physical damage could occur to my burned or hard drive stored copies at any time in the future. I could give two shits about the "cloud", if my data ever disappears or they start charging for basic accounts I'll simply go elsewhere. It's a decent enough convenience atm with 5gb of free storage.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Technician]

True story.. This year I used DOS Backup.

Needed to retrieve some family letters and records from a deceased relative's backup on 3.5 inch floppies. Rebuilt a Windows 3.1 machine and restored the DOS backups to recover the files. The PFS First Choice files could not export the files into anything that would preserve the formatting in something more modern. A Google search provided the answer. Import the documents into Star Office and export them as MS Word 97 files. This was done on a Windows 98 machine. Sometimes it pays to keep old software for emergencies. Real Men keep backups.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[equex]

Actually, I'm the guy without the TV, and also an avid hater of the Cloud. Maybe useful for a few people but its really not a big deal and certainly not the Next Big Thing (tm). It's the whole cycle of thin clients and mainframes all over again. It's gonna end up with people preferring to have their shit locally, just like they decided that it's useful to have a beefed up workstation instead of a centralized CPU monster.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[KreAture]

6GB wouldn't store more than half a game would it?

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[KreAture]

Err 5GB.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you enjoy being a drop in the cloud, sheeple. Real men use something that no one uses yet OR that no one uses anymore.

Real men put all their data on public ftp servers and use the big cloud.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

From a major studio making a Need For Speed or a Call of Duty, yes. But for games like World of Goo, 5GB is more than enough.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[donaldm]

Well I use ASCII for my document and file format and I have never had any problems reading them even on files I created over 30 years ago, of course you could have put your files into pdf or even odf which you could still look at for as long as the human race exists without ever having to install an obsolete OS. however these formats are nubies compared to ASCII.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the cloud for storage is stupid. It means you don't have constant and instant access to your stuff all of the time.

I thought once or twice about trying out some cloud storage, but then came to my senses when I looked over at my 4TB external hard drive.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Technician]

The key here is it was NOT my backup that needed recovered. Having a backup of the old software was the key to converting it and keeping the format.

Saving as an ASCII text file was an option and is still an option with MS Word. We should do this for future generations.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[certain death]

RSYNC over SSH FTW!!!!

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily "Games for Windows" but stonedcat might not buy many games or might be paying for more storage ($3/20GB/month).

https://one.ubuntu.com/services/

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[justforgetme]

If you have the technical know how you can go and build your own cloud storage with ec2/rackspace (or both in tandem) a VPN and some scripting...

That's what I am tinkering with on sundays and it's quite rewarding. Plus the fact that all my data comes from my home nas. Drawbacks are of course the slow transfer speeds because of the limited upload of consumer links.

If on the other side you don't know how to set up all that stuff then your only solution for having your data accessible is to use some cloud storage service like mentioned above.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

REAL men write their own software to handle obsolete file formats.

Re:just a drop in the cloud

[antdude]

Couldn't use a virtual machine (VM) for DOS and Windows 98?

Link?

[Ambvai]

So neither the article or the summary actually link to the main product at hand. Convenient.

Here: https://one.ubuntu.com/

Re:Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here...
They simply knew that nobody who even remotely calls himself a geek would even touch a "cloud" with a pitchfork.
Speaking of pitchforks... please hand in your geek card, or I might have to use one to bring you down to "pitchfork-and-lava central", if you know what I mean. ;)

Re:Link?

[infotechms]

no, see more at: http://infotechms.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/phuong-phap-hoc-tieng-anh-hieu-qua

Re:Link?

[Funnnny]

Learn to link please! Screw those spam people.

Support for other distributions?

[halfaperson]

it is also available on Windows and Android

Perhaps, but I've got a few computers all running different Linux distributions (as is common amongst Linux geeks), and as long as they can't sync, Ubuntu One will have to wait.

Re:Support for other distributions?

[Keruo]

You could use alien to convert the package to rpm/tgz/pkg and use it in your preferred distro.

Re:Support for other distributions?

[halfaperson]

I don't think it's as easy as just converting the package, since Ubuntu One ties into a lot of other Ubuntu specific packages. I know some have tried it for Fedora, with varying levels of success.

Re:Support for other distributions?

[donaldm]

it is also available on Windows and Android

Perhaps, but I've got a few computers all running different Linux distributions (as is common amongst Linux geeks), and as long as they can't sync, Ubuntu One will have to wait.

All you need to do is nominate a master machine in your environment and then use "rsynch" to synchronise all important data to it.

Payment options

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then I guess they're over the initial investment, about time they implement more payment options for those who don't have a CC. Stupid thing is, I can pay for U1MS with Paypal, but I can't store more then 2GiB of mp3s in there because that requires a CC. And at the same time there's nothing stopping you from buying 5GiB+ of music (except it's a bit expensive to do that, but certainly feasible with ~â250). Makes no sense, especially since the store (where you buy pressed CDs and tshirts) has always accepted PayPal.

Way to go, canonical. See you when you have at least Moneybookers.

Re:Payment options

[yourlord]

Music purchased from their music store doesn't apply against your storage limit. They will store any amount of purchased music for no extra charge.

Unless they changed their rules since the last time I bought music there..

Now, I no longer buy music from Ubuntu One Music Store due to the multitude of problems I've had with the service.. I've made 4 purchases, 2 had billing issues along the lines of double billing me, or billing me and never transferring the music to my storage space.. And a 3rd transferred an entire album of corrupted files. Even after deleting and retransferring them from 7digital they were corrupted in exactly the same way.. After the 3rd strike, I washed my hands.

Now, their customer service always made it right for me, but still, a 75% failure rate is pretty abysmal.

Mac OS X support?

[osssmkatz]

Mac OS X is a full Unix operating system, complete with rsync. Is it possible we could get support for the Mac too?

Re:Mac OS X support?

[ThorGod]

For that matter, Windows support isn't actually available - yet. Windows support is, merely, "coming soon".

If you want to use Ubuntu One, you have to either install Ubuntu or install it on one of your mobile devices. I have to wonder at it's usefullness...

Re:Mac OS X support?

[Anonymous Coward]

The windows client is in beta: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Windows

Re:Mac OS X support?

[binarylarry]

No one cares about proper "Unix" anymore, Linux is the new Unix.

Re:Mac OS X support?

[Knuckles]

True, but to balance it out the submitter forgot about the existing iPhone/iPad support.

Re:Mac OS X support?

[Asic Eng]

The client is supposed to be OSS, so it should be possible to port it.

Re:Mac OS X support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess quality doesn't matter anymore.

Re:Mac OS X support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly not, just look how many Macs they're selling these days.

Haven't Bothered Yet

[Zamphatta]

Funny, I use Ubuntu as my desktop (technically my laptop) for almost a month now since Windows Vista became too much of a pain, but I have yet to bother with the Ubuntu One service. Maybe I'll click that icon now, and try it out. I'm actually not even sure what it is exactly.

Re:Haven't Bothered Yet

[History's Coming To]

Took me a while too!

Essentially it's a remote backup service, plus a couple of bits. You tell it which folder/s to use and it uploads them to remote servers. Any time you're connected it syncs local and remote folders to the newest versions. It can run on multiple machines connected to the same account, so for example my Documents folder is identical on my netbook and desktop, and sync'd whenever either is online. There's also a web based interface so you can also access your files from *any* machine connected to the internet.

Useful, I like it. I'm not going to rely on it, and there's nothing particularly new there (you could have done exactly the same in the 80s with cron and ftp if the bandwidth was there), but it is quite handy.

Re:Haven't Bothered Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

So its essentially a dropbox clone?

Re:Haven't Bothered Yet

[gbjbaanb]

So its essentially a dropbox clone?

but without the security and privacy issues?

1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Linux since the 90s. Not even all that long ago, Linux used to be such that if you had a configuration issue or a missing driver or were running into some bug, you could Google it and get some reasonable information. Now, if I do a search for issue $foo, annoying forums full of not very knowledgeable Ubuntu users clog the intertubes discussing $foo and a few dozen similar-sounding but very obviously unrelated issues [the obvious unrelatedness not seeming to dawn on people or keep them from "me too" posts], and due to the stupidity of the participants these threads inevitably lead nowhere. When I have a real Linux issue (as in, one that can't be solved by RTFM or some trivial amount of digging), I get a million idiots typing at a million X displays and no useful information.

That may sound a bit extreme and I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but I am still very cynical of these new Ubuntu users and their net contribution to the community of users... Remember when Linux used to be cool? I want that back. Send all those lame people to use a Mac or some such and let the serious people get their work done.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should use an operating system which doesn't waste the user's time, and instead switch to an operating system that lets you get your work done.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to use a certain OS to feel good about your computing habits? Sorry bub, you're the one that's lame here.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to not read the actual issue. The problem is that Ubuntu is to Linux what AOL was to the internet in the early 90s... There are suddenly a flood of users who don't know what they're doing, and instead simply add noise to discussion forums. Like the "Me too!" posts from AOLers back in the day. This reduces signal-to-noise which increases frustration when you're looking for real information, not just a bunch of idiots blathering about Ubuntu.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the project maintainers website be your friend then? I do this sometimes when I have obscure issues (which is rare), that I am not able to find on Arch or Debian docs.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[donaldm]

Perhaps you should use an operating system which doesn't waste the user's time, and instead switch to an operating system that lets you get your work done.

Oh you mean Linux ;)

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Anonymous Coward]

I did read it and the fact that you had to say " Remember when Linux used to be cool? I want that back." means that you tied your self esteem to the OS you use. Or maybe you should consider what shit comes out of your keyboard before you click Submit?

Either way, you're a fucktard and a bitch. These same geeks who gave it the cool factor back in the day have made the culture you hate. Learn to like what comes from trying to force something useful on the useless masses. Maybe next time you'll leave the idiots be idiots and learn to be happy just knowing better instead of having to come off as 1337.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Lazy Jones]

Sounds a bit like you have a "clueless idiot" type of problem, for really advanced Linux issues you can almost always find useful info using Google.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Risen888]

He means Arch.

Re:1 million idiots clogging Google search results

[Risen888]

You're a right cunt.

as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comment

[drolli]

a) My primary use for ubuntu one is to buy music from the ubuntu one music store. Its handy to haver everything you bought available on all laptops.

b) a second important function, which i dont use (i dont like my contact data in the cloud) is the synchronization with a mobile phone. There is no working built-in way in ubuntu which allows this.

c) for some time the service was very slow and syncronization was unpredictable, so i dont use it for serious stuff right now.

d) I would like a better integration in the desktop for start/pause sync for single folder or everything (if i am on my mobile AP i do not like to sync everything).

e) it lacks storage encryption (unless you use encfs on the top, and encfs has issues itself)

i do own an artisinal axe

[decora]

http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/axes

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[elsJake]

Just out of curiosity , what issues have you encounters with encfs ? Been using it for years without problems so far.

Downloads is not the same as uers

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of downloads is never an indication on how many actual users are using a product.

A lot of people download crap, just to see what it is. In the case of Linux, a lot of people download the OS, then give up soon after installation (if they manage to install, because many installers don't work on 1st run) when NOTHING WORKS out of the box. Others download and can't even figure out what to do with the downloaded files.

Sure, to people like me, downloading and installing Linux distros is a no brainer. But for the majority of the public, the OSS mode of "it is good enough for me" is not good enough. Ubuntu never works right out of the box. It requires lots of tweaks just to get basic things (like display and wireless ... if ever) working right. In fact, IMHO, Ubuntu is one of the worst Linux distros in the market.

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[siride]

Have you used Linux any time in the last, say, 3 years?

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[lennier]

Have you used Linux any time in the last, say, 3 years?

Three years ago would probably be perfect. As long as the AC hasn't used it in the last two years, when Canonical started getting serious about destroying the user interface, the illusion that Linux is still a viable desktop OS would be unbroken.

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[Darkness404]

Yeah, I know the feeling. I actually switched from Ubuntu to Debian a few weeks ago because it was taking me longer to configure Ubuntu the way I wanted it than it did to configure Debian the way I wanted it.

It used to be that Ubuntu was just pre-configured Debian, now you have to spend so much time reversing crap that Canonical added in that the "expert" distros are easier. And no, this isn't based on obscure technical stuff, but just basic UI and usability. Like, why are the close/minimize buttons on the left side? Sure, its easy enough to fix, but I shouldn't have to do it. Also, what was with getting rid of GNOME and adding in a crappy UI that makes it harder to do anything?

Ubuntu has gone downhill majorly in the past few years.

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[FoolishOwl]

About two months ago, I bought a new Gateway computer, which had just come on the market, with a CPU that had just come on the market in February. I knew I was taking a risk, as Linux is notorious for poor support for new hardware, especially consumer-oriented hardware.

I mounted a second hard drive on the removable hard disk enclosure the computer came with, and installed Ubuntu 11.04, using the default setup. It worked perfectly. There wasn't a single issue with manually installing kernel modules or with unsupported hardware. The only difficulty in the process was switching the default boot drive in the BIOS, so that GRUB would be installed to the second hard drive and the dual boot setup would work -- which would only be a difficulty for someone setting up a dual boot system, and really wasn't that hard.

I usually get testy about people who complain a distribution upgrade sucks because they overgeneralize from their peculiar difficulties, so I don't want to make the opposite mistake and claim that installing the latest version of Ubuntu will be easy for everyone. But I do believe that installation has gotten significantly smoother and easier.

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu One is a service you register for, it's not just an app you download. Downloading and installing Ubuntu doesn't create an Ubuntu One account, you have to actually go and do that. This means that over one million people have downloaded and installed Ubuntu, and *then* registered for the Ubuntu One service.

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[Anonymous Coward]

The close/minimize buttons do make sense in unity, they just added it in a release to early.

Personal I like the crappy UI. Even with its lack of polish I like it better than gnome-panel or gnome-shell (or what anyone else atm).

Re:Downloads is not the same as uers

[Darkness404]

Personally I hate Gnome-Shell too, once all distros "upgrade" to GNOME 3.0, I'll either have to manually switch to Gnome-Panel or start using XFCE. I personally don't understand what is with developers "fixing" what isn't broken on their UIs, it isn't just a problem with OSS, but even websites such as Facebook. UIs that aren't broken don't need change just for the sake of change. While I can understand a change to something like Gnome-Shell for things such as tablets, it makes no sense for full sized desktops/laptops.

it is possible

[decora]

to filter out irrelevant results using the quote marks feature, the plus and minus signs, and so forth and so on.

Re:it is possible

[Anonymous Coward]

The time filter Google offers is usually also very handy to screen out way older questions that doesn't apply anymore.

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[drolli]

Performance/latency issues when exceeding a certain number (tried it on ubuntu 8.04-ubuntu 9.10) of enrypted files.

The numbers are probably skewed just a bit

[Trerro]

"Although Ubuntu One is installed by default in Ubuntu"

So... is that one million users, or one million people who saw it installed, had a reaction of "what does this thing do, I can't tell by the name?" and ran it - once - to find out.

Re:The numbers are probably skewed just a bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question.

The 2010 /guesstimate/ is 12 million Ubuntu users. 1 in 12 for "what does this thing do" clicks seems kinda low, considering how visible it is in the file manager.
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7032/1/

Usage stats are notoriously difficult to get for Ubuntu, and Canonical doesn't reveal methodology. However even without tying to IP, one ought to be able to get a pretty good guesstimate of use based on repository stats. Ought to be good for within +- a million at least. So provisionally let's say 12 million isn't a garbage figure.

Re:The numbers are probably skewed just a bit

[mhall119]

You have to register an account with the Ubuntu One service before you can start using it, so it takes more user action than simply installing Ubuntu.

Re:The numbers are probably skewed just a bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but that doesn't invalidate the point that most people who go look just turn around and leave.

I love Ubuntu, but Ubuntu One is useless

[FoolishOwl]

I signed up for the Ubuntu One beta test as soon as it went public, so I've had an Ubuntu One account for quite a while, but I've never found any use for it.

At the time of its introduction, the only available use for Ubuntu One was file syncing between computers running Ubuntu. Later, you could sync your Tomboy notes and Evolution address books between computers running Ubuntu. I would guess that there are relatively few Ubuntu users with Ubuntu running on multiple personal computers. Even for the narrow purpose of file syncing, before Ubuntu One was released, Dropbox and other apps were available, for free, and were cross-platform solutions. (I've since switched from Dropbox to Spideroak, which works on all the computers I use, as well as my smart phone.)

More recently, Ubuntu One has added premium services -- mostly to do with syncing contacts and music to smart phones. Again, there are better, free, an alternatives for syncing music to my phone -- including running an audio streaming server on my computer -- and given that I'm using Gmail and an Android phone, and all my contacts are in Google Contacts already, there's no point in using a premium service to sync contacts indirectly. I had an email from the Free Software Foundation that noted that about 50% of subscribers to the FSF were subscribed with Gmail accounts; I would guess that the proportion of Ubuntu users who use Gmail is equal or greater.

A lot of Ubuntu supporters were excited about Ubuntu One as a way to secure ongoing financing for Ubuntu, but this project looks to me to be a dead end.

Re:I love Ubuntu, but Ubuntu One is useless

[mhall119]

Here are my primary uses of Ubuntu One:

1) Sync files that I might want to load from another computer of my mobile phone. I do this with my ebooks and FBReader on Android.

2) Sync Tomboy notes, which I can view from any computer or my mobile phone using Tomdroid. Having your notes available anytime, anywhere, is extremely useful.

3) Sync photos taken on my mobile phone to my laptop automatically. Syncing videos takes a little manual work, but I'm told that's being resolved.

Re:I love Ubuntu, but Ubuntu One is useless

[tepples]

including running an audio streaming server on my computer

How much does it cost you per month to upgrade to business class service to eliminate "no servers" clauses in the home ISP's acceptable use policy? And how much of your data plan's monthly transfer allowance are you using with this streaming?

Re:I love Ubuntu, but Ubuntu One is useless

[FoolishOwl]

For clarification: the audio streaming was for the personal use of me and my family, and in practice, only I ever used it. I made a point of making sure it was only accessible through passwords I'd assigned, in order to be able to claim, credibly, that I was only making my music collection available to members of my household. Initially, I was using Ampache as a Web-based front end for controlling the audio stream; later, I found I had better results using mpd to generate an http stream, and MPDroid to control it and listen to it on my phone.

So, to get to your questions: I use Comcast, and I checked their acceptable use policy. It prohibits "public servers", but permits providing network services for "personal and non-commercial residential use". I'm fairly sure that covers the sort of use I'm describing.

As for bandwidth use: using the approximation of one megabyte of data per minute of audio, a month of continuous audio is roughly 42 GB of bandwidth, out of a 250 GB limit on bandwidth per month. In practice, I was listening to no more than a few hours a day, so the bandwidth use was considerably better than that.

Other ISPs doubtless have different rules, but at least in the case of Comcast, running your own personal streaming audio server is viable within the rules with a typical residential broadband account.

The reason it even occurred to me to set up a personal streaming audio server is that there's a fair amount of discussion about how best to do it on the Ubuntu user forums, and the software used has been around since well before Ubuntu One was introduced. I'm sure it's not as convenient as uploading content to be hosted through Ubuntu One, but there are similar services being offered by Google, Amazon, and Apple.

Perhaps I shouldn't have described Ubuntu One as useless, as the music hosting service seems at least comparable to the services others are rushing to offer.

real men use...

[crutchy]

...drbd & overhead ethernet from house to shed with headless backup server. oh and backup server should have at least one built-in spider's nest, and the total cost of the installation should be... the cost of a reel of cat5 (from 15 years ago).

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't trust others with my personal data. Anything. If I have a central storage I can access anywhere, I do it like a geek, not a iFag: I set up my own server!
- Files? sshfs-fuse!
- Mails? IMAPS + SSMTP!
- Private networking? OpenVPN!
- Adresses? LDAP!
- Calendaring? SyncML!
(And there are web guis for all those, in case you forgot to bring a computer and/or your phone can't do it because you SUCK. ^^)

I even have a service streaming live-transcoded videos that were downloaded via torrent according to my RSS feeds, which I can use, to watch those, like a TiVo on my phone, wherever I am. And a phone-controllable streamripper relay with always-ready function so i can press a button to keep the current, last, or penultimate song.

How is that not the obvious solution to anyone here?
And if you donâ(TM)t want to do it yourself: Find someone of us to do it for you, that you trust. I mean persontally! Not some random "service".
But do it the standards way. Why set up some custom-made weird "cloud" shit, when it's already all there and proven to work great?

ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations Ubuntu. Your users must be the most impossibly imagined intelligent users anyone has ever umagined. ...Except FreeBSD.

Price per GB is too high

[claytongulick]

I'd love to use this service because I'm a huge Ubuntu fan, but the price just isn't competitive. $3 per month only gets you 20 GB.

For example, you can sign up for a Dreamhost shared hosting account, get unlimited TB of storage and bandwidth for $9 per month: Dreamhost hosting plans

You can throw a multitude of various front-ends on it with their "Easy Install" or whatever the name is, and have pretty much any files you want served to you where ever you want.

I have a lot more than 20 GB of data that I'd want to sync and back up.

From a pure price/features standpoint, rsync.net is roughly comparable in price but has a way better feature set (copied from their page):
- ssh, scp, sftp, ftp ... and tools like rsync, rdiff-backup, duplicity and Unison
- IPV6 connectivity and dedicated Gigabit connections available
- BackupAssist, Backup Exec, Imaging, System Restore, and Bare Metal
- Seamless integration with VMWare, Xen, Citrix and Hyper-V
- ssh key based automation and support for remote UNIX commands
- Multiple logins and custom access/permissions
- Encrypted filesystem support

If Ubuntu one were to change their pricing to be about $10-20 per TB, per month - I'd probably jump on board. I know, that's a pretty tough price point to meet, but others (like dreamhost) are able to do it.

Re:Price per GB is too high

[claytongulick]

*sigh* rsync.net

Re:Price per GB is too high

[TangoMargarine]

"Unlimited TB of storage and bandwidth for $9 per month"? If it sounds too good to be true...

Re:Price per GB is too high

[SirMasterboy]

Well, Crashplan is unlimited space and bandwidth for $2.72 per month. Backblaze is another service that is $5 per month for unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Re:Price per GB is too high

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you output /dev/random to some file, then tell Dreamhost that you're hoping to be able to store a petabyte of randomness for $9 a month (and maybe setup a site on another "unlimited" webhost and constantly download that file over and over again). Do think they'd like that, or do you think they might have some hidden limit in their T&Cs? Now reconsider your statement; do they really offer "unlimited TB of storage and bandwidth"?

Re:Price per GB is too high

[Anonymous Coward]

Who idiot would sync their files (any files) to service what is in hands of corporation what does not inform their financial status fully and promise at least 10 year runtime for current/new clients starting when they sign in?

Who idiot will pass their data to monthly fee service what can do what ever they want to your files if you miss even single payment?

Ubuntu One is for idiots and it is easy to understand as most Ubuntu users are such who use Ubuntu only because it name is Ubuntu. Not by technical, ethical or logical reasons. Only by following others to use it because it is so "popular".

Re:Price per GB is too high

[Anonymous Coward]

They give you the space, but if they detect you are storing "backup" files then you are given notice to remove them (using your server as a personal backup is technically a violation of the service agreement).

I have had a few such notices, but each time I point out that my files are all accessible from online and are considered part of my website (I upload a lot of pics) and they ignore me for a year or two.

Re:Price per GB is too high

[TangoMargarine]

Ah, that explains it. I wonder what the parent has 20GB of non-backup files of, though.

Re:Price per GB is too high

[Anonymous Coward]

Dreamhost has had an unlimited* storage and bandwith hosting plan for ages, it's legit**.

* = within reason. ***
** = they're a web hosting company, they have policies against using the webspace they provide you with as a file store, while you can certainly mount your dreamhost account as an SSH-FS or WebDAV share but don't expect them to be too happy about storing terabytes upon terabytes of data on there.

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered ecryptfs? It's similar to encfs conceptually (it should work fine for Ubuntu 1), but it's in-kernal rather than FUSE, so it's *much* faster (and has other advantages as well).

pos

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty impressive for an app that doesn't even work.

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice informative post!

But all the gay bashing makes me question your sexual orientation, so your entire point is now invalid.

Activation

[tepples]

Never know when a vendor site is going to simply shutdown

In that case, you wouldn't be able to reactivate a game even if you could redownload it. And I doubt that you can legitimately back up those games that are exclusive to consoles.

Re:Activation

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt those parts of the EULA that says that you can't are legitimate.

It is probably not even legal to try to prevent the end user from making backups.

Re:Activation

[tepples]

It is probably not even legal to try to prevent the end user from making backups.

In what country? The United States has the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Where do you live, and what's the best way to qualify for immigrant status?

PayPal debit card

[tepples]

I can pay for U1MS with Paypal, but I can't store more then 2GiB of mp3s in there because that requires a CC.

In which country do you live? A PayPal debit card may be available in your area, and it's accepted anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

Porting the dependencies

[tepples]

it should be possible to port it.

It's always possible to port a free application that runs on a free operating system to a different platform: just run the free operating system in a virtual machine. But porting it to run within another operating environment requires porting all its dependencies. For one thing, it depends on gconf2, Perl, Python, D-Bus, Expat (via D-Bus), ncurses (via psmisc and D-Bus), SELinux (via D-Bus), init scripting (via D-Bus), APT (via python-apport), and many more. (Is there a way to show a package's entire dependency tree on one page?)

How does it handle conflicting changes?

[tepples]

so for example my Documents folder is identical on my netbook and desktop, and sync'd whenever either is online.

I often use my netbook while commuting on public transit. What happens when you make changes to a file in the Documents folder on a netbook while not connected to the Internet, then make changes to the same file in the Documents folder on a desktop PC connected to the Internet, then connect the netbook to the Internet?

Re:How does it handle conflicting changes?

[History's Coming To]

You get a "conflict" - the original and both new versions are kept and you can keep any or all of them.

Google turns up unanswered questions

[tepples]

Eventually I can prune away the obviously irrelevant results, but then I end up with other people asking the same question in threads that have died years ago with no answer. Should I just register on Stack Overflow and Super User already?

SCAM ALLERT

[Anonymous Coward]

This idiot is posting this fake email on every tech side he can find. It is a SCAM. The website is set up to steal your credit card number.

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[Anonymous Coward]

the ubuntu one store sucks for music, however their backup Cloud is top notch.

Let me know when...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I can cleanly install Ubuntu on my laptop that currently runs a variant of RHEL. I.e. I don't have the option of installing it over Windoze, and in fact, on my laptop, I choose not to have a Windoze partition. As a result, when I insert an Ubuntu bootable disk, nothing happens, b'cos it expects to be installed while Windoze is still running.

Re:Let me know when...

[meddle99]

Ubuntu's default install ISO will boot from the CD. You don't need windows, or any other OS.

On which devices did you listen?

[tepples]

using the approximation of one megabyte of data per minute of audio, a month of continuous audio is roughly 42 GB of bandwidth, out of a 250 GB limit on bandwidth per month.

If you listen to four hours a day, that'd still be 7 GB/mo. On which devices did you listen? A lot of mobile devices have cellular data plans limited to 5 GB/mo.

Re:On which devices did you listen?

[FoolishOwl]

My phone is a T-Mobile G2. I've got the "Unlimited" data plan, which means 5 GB/month. I haven't run into any problem with hitting the limit, and it looks like I've used about 700 MB in ten days, so perhaps I'm just not streaming that much. Looking at the numbers, though, it does look like I'd be better off just filling up my SD card with music when I'm at home.

Given the trends with mobile providers, I probably shouldn't recommend that people get worked up about streaming audio to their phone, regardless of the nature streaming server -- we're probably headed for an ugly crunch in a year.

Re:as a cloud sceptic and ubuntu user let me comme

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for god's sake... cry me a river, would you? Boo, hoo!

If you want to be ignorant about something you yourself said is informative, because you think certain group of people deserve special treatment because of your US-typical hypocritical fake-politically-correct mindset, I'm not stopping you. Go ahead... you faggy fag!

Here in grown-up world, it's OK not to like something or someone. As that isn't related to one harming that someone, like it's apparently expected where you're from.