Ubuntu Will Soon Ship On 5% of New PCs

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Phoronix: "Chris Kenyon, the VP of sales and business development for Canonical, just spoke this afternoon at the Ubuntu 12.10 Developer Summit about what Canonical does with OEMs and ODMs. He also tossed out some rather interesting numbers about the adoption of Ubuntu Linux. Namely, Ubuntu will ship on 5% of worldwide PC sales with a number of 18 million units annually."

Comments

Finally

[Nerdfest]

All i can say is "about time". It's nice to see this happening just before the UEFI change-over as well to help ensure than Microsoft doesn't lock out other OS options, or at least there's a token commercial opposition. I'm not a fan of Canonical's Unity desktop, but I know some people are, and it definitely looks (and acts) better than 'Metro''. Overall, Canonical's timing could have been a bit better, but it could have been worse. Just before the change-over to a questionable version of Windows, and after a couple of fairly major OS X scares is a decent time to get some advertising in place.

Re:Finally

[Pav]

So the users that reject the "rock" get to find the "hard place"? This isn't the way to differentiate yourself.

Some time ago I made the mistake of recommending Ubuntu to some friends wanting to ditch Vista on their laptop, but this was right before the window-controls debacle. I give them credit for persisting until Unity, but last time I saw them they'd gone back to Vista (and will probably buy a Win7 laptop before 8 comes out). I guess Vista actually looks good after experences like these - "Ubuntu? Wrong way, go back!"

Re:Finally

[hairyfeet]

They lock it on ARM for the same reason Google does it with ChromeOS, because if you can just bypass the boot security on a mobile device ALL security is as easy to bypass as "Hey want a free copy of "Plants VS Zombie" well just run this!" which then installs itself into the boot and ur pwned.

What I want to know is what kind of assurance is Canonical gonna provide to the OEMs. Are they gonna guarantee they won't screw the drivers in the main branch like they did with Dell or are these OEMs gonna have to do like Dell and run their own repos (which of course leaves them behind the curve and vulnerable) which will cause their support costs to go through the roof?

Lets face it there is a REASON why OEMs ain't been using Linux, and it ain't because writing all them checks for OEM copies of Windows gives them a big happy, its because the Linux driver model sucks when it comes to updates. Nobody is gonna continue to sell Linux boxes, I don't care if they are Ubuntu or PCLOS or any other flavor, if their support costs go up due to borked drivers. Now we ALL know that Linux has some serious problems with upgrades, especially wireless and Nvidia or ATI drivers so unless these OEMs are ONLY gonna sell the LTS and ONLY warranty it for the amount of time left on the LTS then this is gonna be a problem unless Canonical steps up and makes damned sure their upgrades don't go poop on the drivers. If Canonical is gonna step up? great wonderful, glad to hear it. if they are not? Well then this will probably end up a lot like an experiment in how quick to turn off the OEMs to ever using Linux.

Re:Finally

[rtfa-troll]

What is sad is how little you seem to know about ARM which has no ASLR except in ICS and it has been found wanting

• ARM is a processor architecture (well, really an ISA, but let's not confuse the beginners here).

• ICS is an operating system version.

• There is no ICS version of ARM.

• ASLR has often been found wanting. It is not a primary security layer, just a backup defence when the other layers fail.
• none of these facts are even relevant to the discussion.

so YES YOU CAN screw the boot sector by simply writing to the correct memory address (which since we are talking hundreds of thousands of identical handsets isn't hard)

The thing you want to look up is memory protection. This is before we even start discussing the .NET runtime which is what should be providing the protection against hostile code running in user owned memory space on a Microsoft environment, which is what we were discussing.

I will now just quote part of your post, putting beside each other two different things you said:

the engineers at Google they are idiots since they are doing the EXACT SAME THING as MSFT? [.....]The ONLY difference between MSFT's version and Google's is that Google has a "dev mode" that will cripple the security

Ah yes, the engineers at Google are doing the "EXACT" same thing except it's different. Yes. Not "a very similar thing". Not even "the same thing" but "the exact same thing". But different. I think I have a tip for you from a real actor.

But hey, what can one expect with troll in their name except trolling.

Given the quality and hilarity of your post; I guess I should take it up full time and not just when people fail to read the article. I thought you guys were professionals.

Re:Very Sad

[rubycodez]

Unity takes away a user's freedom. Why do Unity and GNOME3 developers hate their users so much?

Re:Very Sad

[Seven_Six_Two]

They surely won't! But the difference is people can be shown how to do something that is possible, whereas Metro users will have a choice of Metro or...um...Metro. Don't like it? Too bad. As for your condemnation of the UI, it's kind of egocentric to think that your workflow is the same as everyone else's. What's really important to me is that I can get the things done that I need to do, and I do them using Unity. I'm sorry for you that not everyone wants to stick with your Windows 3.1 era idea of UI perfection, but that's just the way it is. Can you tell me the specific UI blunders that Unity has done wrong? I'm assuming that you are a UI professional, with credentials that you're willing to share, right?

i bet what they dont mention is

[FudRucker]

ubuntu is only pre-installed on low end PCs in places like Brazil & Mexico, China and other places where the cost of the PC is whittled down so bare-bones low that even OEM MS_Windows installs are cost prohibitive, but you can count on pirated copies being printed up on CDr sold out of disposable alleyway shacks

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Very Sad

[westlake]

Yes, it is a shame that Ubuntu users are locked into Unity with absolutely no way around it.
Oh, wait...

Ubuntu's primary appeal is to users who will never willingly stray far from the default UI --- even assuming that they are aware of the alternatives.

The upcoming UEFI disaster.

[robbak]

The main problem with UEFI is that it is so complex and bug-ridden that the only use for it is going to be preventing the removal of malware. If ever there was a system that needed to be "so simple there are obviously no errors" it is this one, but instead we have an implementation that is larger than the Linux megalithic kernel.
Oh, and the future is not going to be X86, and Microsoft blatantly attempting to lock out all other OSes on other hardware.

Re:Best of luck, but I don't see a major impact

[Artemis3]

I find this scenario much better than the alternative: Windows Starter.

In all countries, it should be mandatory to offer an OS-less or free-OS choice; it should be illegal to provide windows only pre-installs, because that is benefiting a particular corporation which is anti-competitive at best.

It is the user's problem if they buy a windows license or install ubuntu, but at least they are not forced to pay the Microsoft tax.

In my work, many brand machines with windows pre-installed have been wiped in favor of Debian. So is not like the opposite doesn't happen, all it takes is a company policy change and thats it.

Ubuntu pre-installed will introduce it to people who would have never tried it before, even if they wipe it, they will now learn there is "something else" out there... And perhaps one day they will give it another chance, perhaps after utter frustration and countless windows reinstalls, or the Windows 8 Metro Experience ;)

It doesn't matter if the impact is minor, choice is always good.

Re:Cool....

[Bert64]

It's not just a lower and more savvy userbase that reduces the malware on linux...
The system is better designed than windows has been, with a number of features that make the spread of malware more difficult, for instance:

central updates of all software (vs windows update which only handles the base os, leaving acrobat/flash/java easily exploitable)
non root user by default (which ms have finally caught on to, years after everyone else)
downloaded files dont have execute permission by default
file extensions are not only less important (aren't used to determine if a file is executable) but are also not hidden by default
doesn't automatically execute anything on inserted media
package management - users are less likely to download and execute random binaries, if they want to install something they can select it from the package manager