Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

An anonymous reader writes "Scheduled to be released next month, Ubuntu 12.10 now includes both Amazon ads in the user's dash and by default an Amazon store in the user's launcher. The reason for these 'features'? Affiliate revenue. Despite previous controversies with Banshee and Yahoo, Canonical is 'confident it will be an interesting and useful feature for our 12.10 users.' But are the 'users' becoming products?" Update: 09/22 19:35 GMT by T : Reader bkerensa scoffs, calling the Amazon integration unobtrusive, and says objections to its inclusion in the OS should be ignored, "because in reality ads will not be found in 12.10 unless you are seeing them on a third party website you go to in a web browser." He's got screenshots.

Comments

I see

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass migration in 3...2...1...

Re:I see

[rubycodez]

you mean the second one, of those people remaining after the Unity / GNOME3 rendered any concept of multi-task workflow useless

stick a fork in Canonical, they are done

Re:I see

[udachny]

WTF does "right" have to do with claiming that adverts are "for your benefit"?

Do you consider FB, Zynga works of the "left" or the "right"? How about Google? How about Microsoft? How about Red Hat?

You are pushing political agenda into the world of software, so you have to define then what it means for software to be 'right' or 'left', these monikers don't have much meaning outside of software, but in software they are completely nonsensical.

Or is the meaning of "left leaning software" to be software designed and developed by the hungry?

---

I am not for or against ads by Canonical, it's their business, you can still download the source if you want to disable the ads I am sure, otherwise it's GPL violation.

Re:I see

[Gordonjcp]

after the Unity / GNOME3 rendered any concept of multi-task workflow useless

What's "useless" about it? It works just fine here...

Re:I see

[wvmarle]

I'm going to migrate, for sure. And this is definitely making it more so.

I've not migrated. I'm lazy. I know I should check out Mint, haven't done so. The Gnome Classic UI from Ubuntu 12.04 sucks badly: disappearing window borders, amongst many other irritations and bugs, so I'm already refusing to upgrade. My office is on 10.04 LTS, bugging me all the time for new LTS, not going to happen. I like 10.04, I really do, and am sad to see it go. That is one distro that Just Works. For me, at least. After I fought badly with it getting users to authenticate against Kerberos what Mandriva did out of the box. Unfortunately Mandriva is too much of a zombie business to use.

I understand the need of revenue, Red Hat does too, and is pretty profitable now, while they still have their free distro, Fedora. Without intrusive ads.

I have no problem with pre-installed stuff, preferably removable (Android violates that idea - can't even hide the Google Maps and Facebook apps on my phone, to name a few, but at least they're not in the way). If I happen to like Amazon I may actually use it. Like Firefox setting Google as default search engine, and getting a cut for doing so. I can choose Bing if I wanted to, make that default, and forget about Google. Amazon was there too.

But no ads, please. And a decent, well working UI. No everything-fullscreen shit. No huge icons for applications; a nicely arranged start menu and top bar with some shortcuts to often used stuff is just fine. Those things both Gnome and Ubuntu messed up. Too bad, it was nice working with it.

Re:I see

[wvmarle]

They may have fixed it, but my experience was so terrifying (in 11.04 or 11.10, I forgot, when it was first introduced) I'm not going to try the latest version. Here my key complaints:

- everything runs full-screen. That sucks. No drag and drop between windows, without first un-maximising them.

- after you close an application in a not-maximised window, it will relaunch maximised. I un-maximised it not just because!

- the above works when the not maximised window is - the "start" menu sucks. A few "favourite" applications, the rest you have to search for. A HUGE screen area taken for each application; scrolling galore as I don't have a 25" monitor. Or you have to start typing the name of the application to narrow down your search. Big suck. A well arranged menu searches quicker, takes little space, and no need to remove my hand from the mouse.

- crtl-tab window switching did not work. I had to dig deep first online then on my machine to get that basic switcher working. It took me seconds from installing Unity to find that out, all in all about half an hour (!) to fix that. And it still didn't work really well. Now that was a total show-stopper, if I had never before tried Ubuntu I'd have dropped it there and then, and not bothered to find out how to get it working.

Then in the process I found out that there is a "Gnome Classic" too, switched to that, and didn't look back. When upgrading Ubuntu I'm just selecting Gnome Classic and not even trying anything else. It's just that in 12.04 Gnome Classic sucks too, just not sucky enough to go through downloading and installing a whole new distro which sucks too. I'm first and foremost a user of my computer, after all!

Re:I see

[AliasMarlowe]

Unity - I hate it. Pulled it off my system. Ubuntu with Gnome 2 is ok.

I tried Unity in several iterations using VMs to test Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. The result was depressing - all workflow was affected, and never positively. The new and allegedly "improved" features of Unity were regressive at best, and led to more clicks and more mouse movements to do the same stuff compared to Gnome 2. I briefly tried Gnome 3, but it was disastrous on multiple monitor systems.

Testing a VM with Xubuntu led to the least disruption to our workflow. So I then migrated all three of our home systems to Xubuntu 10.04 before upgrading them to Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. When I got a new laptop for my older daughter, it also got Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. Xfce is about as close to Gnome 2 as we could get.

We might migrate to Mate or Cinnamon or similar after they settle down a little. I'll also reassess Gnome 3 after another couple of minor versions, in case it actually improves enough to be tolerable. Otherwise, we'll either stay with xfce or move to KDE.

Re:I see

[realityimpaired]

Not that I'm a hater or anything, but if you're going to go with Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, why not switch to a distro where it's officially supported? Mint has an official MATE roll, which is a Gnome2 fork that showed up specifically because of the whole Gnome3/Unity fiasco. And... because Mint was originally a Ubuntu derivative, it will be familiar enough in terms of package management that there should be effectively zero learning curve.

And no, I'm not trying to evangelize for Mint... I use a different distro entirely. But if your criteria are wanting a Gnome2-based distro with apt repositories, then Mint/MATE should be a pretty good choice.

Re:I see

[Gordonjcp]

- everything runs full-screen. That sucks. No drag and drop between windows, without first un-maximising them.

Uhm, no it doesn't, and checking back to 11.04 it didn't even then.

- after you close an application in a not-maximised window, it will relaunch maximised. I un-maximised it not just because!

No it doesn't, and it didn't in 11.04

- the above works when the not maximised window is - the "start" menu sucks. A few "favourite" applications, the rest you have to search for. A HUGE screen area taken for each application; scrolling galore as I don't have a 25" monitor. Or you have to start typing the name of the application to narrow down your search. Big suck. A well arranged menu searches quicker, takes little space, and no need to remove my hand from the mouse.

I must admit in "old-fashioned" UIs like Gnome 2 I mostly start with alt-f2 and begin typing the name of the thing I want to run. That still works in Unity, although it works better if you just hit the <meta> key.

- crtl-tab window switching did not work. I had to dig deep first online then on my machine to get that basic switcher working

I don't think <ctrl-tab> ever switched windows - in Firefox it switches tabs though. Maybe you're thinking of <alt-tab> which switches windows but was admittedly buggy as all hell in 11.04? It works pretty well in 12.04 though.

Re:I see

[jbicha]

Because the MATE developers don't know what they're doing... Attempting to maintain all of GNOME 2 by themselves has always been a stupid decision.

Re:I see

[hairyfeet]

Which just proves what I've been saying, there is no money to be made in Linux desktops. Canonical will join the ranks of Corel, Linspire, Xandros, Mandriva, and more we have forgotten in the list of failed Linux desktop business ventures.

In server you can make money with support, there is simply no business selling support to home and business desktop users. Windows server can cost many thousands of dollars when you figure in the CALs and depending on what features you need, Windows desktops are $100 for Home and $140 for Pro, and a hell of a lot lower than that for OEMs. At numbers that low you have to get huge economies of scale going to pay for the developers, the lights, the building, but its a catch-22 because you can't make money until you get huge economies of scale but you can't survive long enough to get the huge economies of scale because the money runs out.

As I said here more than 2 years ago when Shuttleworth announced he would sink no more millions into Canonical that it was over and now we have the final nail. Look at their history since the Shuttleworth announcement...Ubuntu Netbook (trying to get into the netbook craze after the ship had sailed), selling search results to Yahoo, selling MP3s through Amazon, trying to get into the server business after Shuttleworth talking about how Ubuntu was gonna be "the desktop Linux" for the masses, trying to come up with Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu TV...their entire history since that announcement has been that of a desperate company trying to find SOME way, any way, to stem the flow of red ink and find a positive revenue stream.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again...Linux on the server, the embedded space? There is money to be made there. as far as Linux on the phone it would be hard to see how Google is gonna make back their billion dollars a year development costs but of course Google wants as many eyeballs as possible so hard to know what their monetary strategy is, but on the desktop? Sorry, not gonna happen, as Shuttleworth found out it costs millions to make and support a Linux desktop and there is just no money there to be made, this is one area where being "free as in beer" hurts more than it helps.

Final prediction? Canonical joins the other dead Linux desktops in a year and a half, maybe sooner. All those based on Ubuntu better be switching to Debian as a base NOW because it won't be much longer before Shuttleworth pulls the plug and hits the lights on his way out. I wouldn't be surprised to read in a month or two he has it up for sale just to try to recoup some of the money, doubt there will be any takers though, just no money in desktops.

Re:I see

[TwilightXaos]

This is Linux. Distro is a proper subset of Settings.

Re:I see

[hairyfeet]

Ya know I just have to say...I find this all VERY enlightening.

I mean here we have a company that was the darling of the community, who heaped praise upon it, yet when they are bleeding to death and trying to try to survive what does the community do? "ZOMFG block it!" or "I'm going somewhere else, how dare they try to keep the doors open!" and it just goes to show that ALL the community cares about is "free as in beer".

For a site that supposedly has so many libertarians you'd think TINSTAAFL wouldn't even have to be said, hell the history of the company since Shuttleworth stopped the gravy train has been one of desperation, even unity was an attempt to get an Ubuntu tablet, yet the nerd rage here at Canonical trying to keep the lights on is just incredible.

But I don't think anyone will have to worry for much longer, the era of "Linux for humans" that was Canonical is nearly over. When the community refuses to buy shit and blocks everything the check from Amazon won't even be enough to pay their phone bill. So long Canonical, it was a nice idea, too bad you can't make money on free desktops.

Re:I see

[The Snowman]

This is why Red Hat actually succeeds. They make their money from the enterprise users: servers and business desktops with RHEL. The "desktop for the masses" is Fedora. Everyone wins: Red Hat makes money from the server/enterprise market, and home users can reap the benefits of a solid distribution.

With Ubuntu you have a (until recently) good desktop distribution, but no clear way to make money and keep the train rolling. If Shuttleworth had created a server distro and aggressively marketed it, things probably would have turned out better than they will in another year or so. Just like Microsoft, Canonical is going to be late to the tablet party and pretty much locked out of the market. For a variety of reasons, Apple and Google control that market and it is unlikely that either Microsoft or Canonical will be able to control more than a few percent of the market. Definitely not enough to matter.

Re:I see

[Electricity Likes Me]

+1 - Cinnamon is great. MATE is what I install on a server or system not capable of running Cinnamon.

Re:I see

[Sipper]

A couple of notes concerning Mate, Cinnamon, Xfce, and KDE 4. Note that I'm writing this from a "Debian point of view" rather than it being Ubuntu-specific, simply because I don't run Ubuntu (for a bunch of reasons).

We might migrate to Mate or Cinnamon or similar after they settle down a little. I'll also reassess Gnome 3 after another couple of minor versions, in case it actually improves enough to be tolerable. Otherwise, we'll either stay with xfce or move to KDE.

I've recently tried Mate and Cinnamon, and they have a common problem: they don't seem to respect the "Debian menu". i.e. there are normal menu items that don't show up and instead you get the menu that Mate or Cinnamon wants to show you. My experience (in testing Ubuntu-based distros in VMs) is that Mate works in 2D, but Cinnamon is 3D-only, so it sucks to run Cinnamon in a VM. Mate hasn't been accepted into Debian, so it's not even an option for me to run right now. There are DDs that don't want it to be included, partly because it (supposedly) depends on old Gnome 2 libs, and partly because they'd rather see more effort put into Gnome 3 (which I cannot stand using). Cinnamon isn't in Debian either, probably for similar reasons. I've looked at both the Mate and Cinnamon packages available in the upstream repositories and both seemed to need work and didn't appear to be stable yet, and installing them via the external repositories looked troublesome.

Xfce is great, and what I generally recommend today, especially on low-end systems. Users I've given it to seem to like it too. The only thing I don't like (which is not really a problem with Xfce itself) is that Debian has changed the default network manager used for the Xfce task from wicd to network-manager, but this is is fixable because the package is a Recommends rather than Depends, so this is a minor complaint. I think the reason for the default change is that network-manager is IPv6 enabled where wicd is not. I've had several problems with network-manager that I don't have with wicd though, which is why I stick with wicd.

KDE 4 is good, but only if you turn off Nepomuk and Strigi file indexing, otherwise it runs terribly. [I'm primarily a KDE 4 user and love it otherwise.] These settings are in K->Settings->System Settings within Workspace Appearance and Behavior -> Destkop Search. It isn't easy to figure out what you'll be giving up by turning these features off, but thankfully someone has come up with a web page and document that explains these features. https://kdenepomukmanual.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/detailed-kde-nepomuk-manual/ One additional interesting thing to note about KDE 4 is that it can do compositing (or not, your choice, easily switchable via Alt+Shift+F12) without using compiz -- instead it's built-in. KDE 4 also has several rendering engines for both raster and OpenGL, so it works on both 2D-only and 3D enabled systems.

As for Unity -- no. 3D only so it sucks to run in a VM, and it interferes too much with how I work. Also I'm told that Unity is an add-on to compiz, and that systems that run for days get slower over time and eventually compiz crashes requiring a restart of X.

Re:I see

[Sipper]

Because the MATE developers don't know what they're doing...

Attempting to maintain all of GNOME 2 by themselves has always been a stupid decision.

Unfortunately after having a look at it, I agree. That said, I consider Gnome 3 to be a usability disaster, so there are good reasons why people are trying to get back the functionality they had with Gnome 2. Cinnamon is 3D only and Mate works in 2D. My choice as a fallback is Xfce. [I primarily use KDE 4, with Nepomuk and Strigi (in "Desktop Search") turned completely off.]

Re:I see

[stasike]

The problem is, you do not get the same results.
Mint also makes it difficult for you to change their Google search, restoring the config to the default after reboot.
When I discovered this fact, I actually went and tried out several other distros. Sigh ... I guess I am too spoiled by Mint and I wasn't satisfied with other systems.

When I type something like '1.2 * 123 Usd in Eur' into a vanilla Google, I get the numerical result. When I type those into the search box in firefox at Mint Linux, I do not get numerical result. There are many more examples.
Fortunately, it is trivial to *add* (not change the one installed by Mint ;-) ) additional search engine, so I added a Google.com search engine - the one that doesnt redirect you to regional version of Google.

For a time I tried to switch to the search engine provided by Mint for searches that I knew would provide very similar result, but I do not do that anymore. Sorry Clem. No revenue from my hijacked search queries.

In later versions Clem made pact with duckduckgo search engine and made that default. I tried to use duckduckgo as well, but, somehow, I gravitated back to using Google.com.

At the moment I use Mint Linux Maya KDE as my main home desktop.

Re:I see

[slack_justyb]

I second Gordonjcp! About 80% of the complaints that I've heard about Unity are just pure bunk. Many of the warehouses that I oversee have Ubuntu 12.04 with the Unity interface for many of the order processing stations and users have had great experiences with Unity. Additionally, I know many of the javascript developers in our IT department to be using Ubuntu 12.04 with the Unity UI. Never have heard a peep from them, more so, they get to choose the OS they want to use and they choose Ubuntu and Unity, that should say something.

Honestly, I think there's just a bunch of old timers that just object to everything that isn't GNOME 2 or KDE 3. To them that was the high point in desktop environments. They simply need to get over themselves.

Re:I see

[realityimpaired]

The previous versions were bad enough that I don't really have any desire to try a newer version. In seriousness, however, can you honestly give me a good reason to consider switching to Unity when I'm already happy and productive with e17?

I think the answer to that question will give you the answer to why people hate Unity so much. They were happy with a system that worked well for them, and which gave them a workflow that they were used to. Without even considering the merits of Unity itself, why did they need to foist it on people who were happy where they were?

I understand fully the desire to have a system that works for new users, and which is relatively intuitive, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and the "classic" interface was half-assed, from all I've heard about it. Now again, I don't use it... I use e17, and have done for years.... before that I was on XFCE, and before that KDE... last time I used Gnome, RedHat 6.2 was bleeding edge. But honestly, did they really need to ditch Gnome and the UI that everybody as used to and happy with, and did they really need to push Unity to users who were already working with Gnome the next time they updated their system?

Re:I see

[unixisc]

Either that, or if one is agnostic about Linux/BSD, one could use GhostBSD, which still doesn't use Gnome 3. The only BSD that offers Gnome3 is OpenBSD.

Honestly not that bad

[TechieRefugee]

It really isn't. I mean come on, a distro as large as Ubuntu is gonna need revenue from places other than donations. And, as long as it isn't too obtrusive in the UI, I won't really complain about it. Besides, there's always other flavors of Ubuntu which may have the ad feature removed.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[betterunixthanunix]

I mean come on, a distro as large as Ubuntu is gonna need revenue from places other than donations

Then they should do the one thing that actually turns a profit for free software vendors: subscriptions (for e.g. support, updates, etc.), targeting business users. If Ubuntu is now turning to ad revenue as a way to make money, they must really be in trouble (or they just do not get "it").

Re:Honestly not that bad

[jedidiah]

I dunno. Perhaps they should try what every other serious consumer oriented distribution has done: actually sell the product.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Nerdfest]

The biggest deal for me is that ads are quite a large exploit vector. I block ads in my browser because I consider them to be from an untrusted source. If these are simply text and PNG, then perhaps it's not so bad.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[AaronMK]

Besides, the software is still free, so why are people complaining?

ad supported != free

In general, operating systems are more becoming more walled gardens for the vendor's "store" and designed around "affiliated" experiences rather than actual pieces of software that make it easy for the user to install and use the software and services of their choosing. "Free" or not, Ubuntu going down this slope reflects this frustrating trend.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Nursie]

I know it's no longer fashionable to bitch about pulseaudio, but...

Any time anything goes wrong wit linux audio, it seems to be because pulse has been brought in by some package dependency, and it's screwed something up. Flash can't play sound at the same time as another program? Pulse. Sound dies after a while for no reason? Pulse.

Now, I'm sure that in many cases the problem is other programs and their sound support being buggy or just rong, but in pretty much all cases I've encountered, ditching pulse and dropping back to ALSA gives me a more functional system.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

And, as long as it isn't too obtrusive in the UI,

surely you mean, "as long as I can easily uninstall it"? I'm not one to complain about Canonical trying to generate revenue, and I'd leave the ads there initially, but if they annoy me, I want to option to easily remove them. Otherwise... new distro!

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Raenex]

Then they should do the one thing that actually turns a profit for free software vendors: subscriptions (for e.g. support, updates, etc.), targeting business users.

They do that already.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[squiggleslash]

Are you reading the same Slashdot I am? Because the only comments I'm reading that aren't scorning the idea are those from people who want to devote their comments to Unity and how much that sucks instead.

And speaking for myself... I have no objection to Ubuntu shipping with an Amazon store of some kind, but ads is another thing. I'll use 12.04 for as long as necessary, and switch to Mint in the long term, if that happens.

I've stuck with Ubuntu for a while. I'm ambivalent about Unity, largely because I respect what they're trying to do but feel the UI just isn't there yet, and because, in terms of my own workflow, I actually get a better desktop because of their work (GNOME 3 with Unity's menu system and some other widgets actually works well for me.)

I want to upgrade, because there are issues in 12.04. The system doesn't fully support MTP for example, meaning I need to install hacky, barely working, packages just to transfer files from my Galaxy Nexus. I was looking forward to an upgrade, albeit with some concern that the GNOME+Unity mixture might finally break with this release.

Ads? No, that's the last straw. I'm happy with all kinds of revenue streams, even the infamous "swapping in Canonical's affiliate id into Banshee" incident. But I'm tired of every two bit marketer out there refusing to accept that at some point they have to ask for money, and insisting - INSISTING - that ads be foisted upon their users instead, especially in an era where advertisers are either clueless, or sociopathic, and think nothing of transmitting a highbandwidth presentation with audio without warning to their hapless victims.

Now, I should add this: yes, I understand Canonical is grasping around at the moment trying to find something that works. The cloud storage thing was probably looking good until Google and Apple jumped into that realm. The music store, well, maybe not so much as Amazon's been there from the start with a superb MP3 store. But you have to at least work from the premise of being rewarded for adding value. When your chosen revenue generator removes value, users go elsewhere. And especially in an open source environment, you're fooling yourself if you think you can remove value and get away with it. Mint exists because many Ubuntu users perceived Canonical as removing value from Ubuntu by moving away from GNOME 2. If Mint didn't already exist, putting ads in Ubuntu would result in its creation tomorrow morning.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Osgeld]

They would need less ad revenue if they didnt constantly shit on, and drive away their users.

Re:Honestly not that bad

[Osgeld]

in fairness your not paying (at the time) 130$+ for the privlage of ad's, Ubuntu is still a free OS, and personally this smells a little desperate, as they have caused a mass exodus on their own product with this whole unity lets make it pretty, but mostly useless tablet OS with bugs that date back to v8

Enough Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm switching to Linux... oh wait

Re:Enough Microsoft!

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

What surprised me from reading TFS was that Ubuntu only has 12.10 users.

Profit!

[Fished]

1. Build a free operating system.
2. Support it for years.
3. ... have Amazon "affiliate" ads ...
4. Profit!

We've finally found out what the '...' stood for. Look for a fork of Ubuntu in 5 ... 4... 3...

Re:Profit!

[Samantha Wright]

I don't want to scare you, but there are already dozens of those.

Easily disabled

[drinkypoo]

I too am offended to be getting advertisements by default. But thankfully, they are trivial to remove. FTFA,

Removing Shopping Results from Unity

Much like the Amazon and Ubuntu One Music web-apps you can disable the âShoppingâ(TM) feature easily.

Just open up a terminal and run:

        sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

Re:Easily disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Your grandma also doesn't care if these ads exist.

Re:Easily disabled

[jamstar7]

I'm a grandfather and I run Linux, you insensitive clot!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I ain't foolin', either!

Re:Easily disabled

[Tubal-Cain]

Email a shell script. After that you're just down to the 45-minute "Download and double click" walkthough.

Re:Easily disabled

[drinkypoo]

Just open up a terminal? My grandma is not going to "just open up a terminal". That doesn't count as "trivial to remove", sorry.

You almost had me, but everyone knows that anonymous cowards don't have parents.

Seriously though, if you didn't set up your Grandma's machine to be remotely administered by you when you installed it, then you probably aren't qualified to be using slashdot. Or a web browser. Or a computer. Or your thumbs. You log in remotely, you run the command, the problem goes away. Also, if your grandmother can't click the terminal, copy and paste the command, and answer yes to any prompts, then she probably shouldn't have Ubuntu. She should probably have Android, or even iOS. She needs her hand held. There's nothing wrong with that, and it should be accounted for. How do you think this theoretical grandmother (since we've already established that you don't have one, since there is no you) would react to Windows crapware? You think she could figure out how to remove programs from Windows 7 or 8? You think she could manage to uninstall the right thing? Give it a rest.

Re:Easily disabled

[Yfrwlf]

You forgot the other ones. You need to remove the video and music lenses which pull info from YouTube, Google, and others, otherwise you will be querying those businesses even if you are just trying to search your own computer for content. It's a form of spyware.

Also having to remove crapware you don't want after you install something was an often-heard compaint about Windows. I'd rather not have it be on Linux now too.

Canonical: You're getting your morals turned around. Community should come before money. Forget what the spirit of Ubuntu was supposed to represent?

Re:Easily disabled

[Chemisor]

You forgot the other lenses and scopes, which also bring up external search results. So instead, open a terminal window and type:

% sudo dpkg --list |grep "lens" | awk '{print $2}' | xargs sudo apt-get remove
% sudo dpkg --list |grep "scope" | awk '{print $2}' | xargs sudo apt-get remove

See? Easy as pie. Absolutely anybody ought to be able to do this. Ubuntu is not like Windows where users are assumed to be incompetent morons. On Ubuntu, every user is smart, skilled, and infinitely patient. It's paradise, really.

I'd prefer to pay

[pr0nbot]

I've enjoyed using Ubuntu. It was the first Linux distro that "just worked" for me (by which I mean, wifi/video/audio worked out of the box). And it's free!

I don't know what kind of ARPU they expect from this, but as an Ubuntu user I'd prefer to just pay. A freemium model would do, maybe something like "get the previous LTS version for free, get the current one for $X". Or "donate to enable advanced features" or something. But peppering my work/leisure environment with third-party advertisements (i.e. spyware and probably malware at some point)? No thanks.

The headline sounded bad, but they did it well.

[raymorris]

I groaned when I read the headline, picturing permanent banner ads on the desktop. When I TFA, I saw they did a goof job of it. An unobtrusive maybe even useful, way for non-coders to contribute a just a little bit to Ubuntu development. I do continue code, weekly, but still I wouldn't mind those types of carefully integrated search results too much.

Dash

[Halo1]

Ubuntu 12.10 now includes both Amazon ads in the user's dash

I hope I'm not the only one that got visions of a /etc/profile spewing out Amazon commercials when reading the above.

But are the 'users' becoming products?

[overshoot]

Here's a hint: if you're not paying for it, you are the product.

This has very obviously been Microsoft's business model for operating systems from the very beginning: they don't sell the OS to you, they sell you to the OEMs.

Re:But are the 'users' becoming products?

[betterunixthanunix]

Here's a hint: if you're not paying for it, you are the product.

I do not pay for this:

https://www.scientificlinux.org/

Somehow, I do not think that Fermilab or CERN view me as the product.

Re:But are the 'users' becoming products?

[ae1294]

Somehow, I do not think that Fermilab or CERN view me as the product.

Surely not! Now If you would be so kind as to climb up and start the rotors we can bring the anti - mass spectrometer to 80%.

Re:But are the 'users' becoming products?

[wvmarle]

CERN and Fermilab want a linux distro that's tailored to their needs, so they create one. They pay for that, just like most companies do for their software (by buying Windows, or Red Hat, or Suse, or whatnot). Bigger companies pay for their software even more by hiring an IT department.

SL goes a little further, creating their own OS. And because they're nice (and scientists like to be nice and share their ideas usually), and because it doesn't cost them much if anything extra, they allow the world to get a copy of their software and use it as they like.

They don't care if they make money out of that, because they build it for a totally different reason. They have an itch, and scratch it, that's all. As soon as that itch they have with commercial products is gone they may just as well drop SL altogether.

hi debian

[dasacc22]

Wow, glad I just finished setting up Debian testing on my new x230 and migrated to Debian stable on a personal server I while back after the uefi bit. Ubuntu got me into Debian and away from slack and gen too from way back. Been good Ubuntu, bye.

Re:hi debian

[tomhath]

I prefer Debian anyway. Never understood what was better about Ubuntu - bloated and ugly

Re:Is it only in Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those bastards at Ubuntu are trying to pay their employees again, I hope they burn in hell for trying to make a tiny profit off of me without any negative effect on my end.

Re:Adbuntu

[Knuckles]

I wonder how long until someone releases a tool to disable the ads.

Big deal. sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping. Or for the GUI, open Ubuntu Software Center, search for, e.g., "shop". Click "Show technical items" and uninstall the lens. That could be made a bit more obvious, but it's not like what you are implying.

Re:Didn't everyone move to Mint?

[rubycodez]

oh yes.

Mint offers xfce, cinnamon, MATE, and KDE variations of the ubuntu-based edition. And they also have Linux Mint Debian Edition with MATE, cinnamon or xfce. And of course many other desktop managers you could install if you don't like those......

The users have become the product.

[QuietLagoon]

But are the 'users' becoming products?

More specifically, the attention of the users has become the product being sold. Similar to magazine subscriptions, the object is to profit off the attention of the user (reader).

Two points here

[rumith]

1) Remember, while most geeks will either be annoyed or even outright disgusted of this move, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets an operating system rolling for the wider audiences (IMO) and adds economical grounds for further expansion. Could this also be Amazon testing the potential of making Ubuntu a partner OS, since they currently lack a desktop operating system integrated with their online shopping "experience"? Maybe.
2) However what I know for sure is that this feature is likely to be US-only (unfortunately for those international Ubuntu users who prefer buying their music instead of pirating them), as is much of Amazon's stock. I mean, come on. I know that overseas shipping of physical items is hard, but working out the paperwork with the studios for selling a damn file? How hard can that be?

Re:Two points here

[rubycodez]

no, Ubuntu's only viable option for cash flow is larger acceptance into corporate workplace. The huge user base is what got them to the top & to be noticed. if they cut that off (continue the mass exodus that Unity started), then there will be no one pushing it in the corproate environment and Canonical will die. good riddance.

Re:Two points here

[Bieeanda]

What? Amazon's entire sales regime revolves around making shopping as thoughtless as possible, hence that infamous one-click buying patent. Shilling for a branded browser is one thing, but a whole operating system? Come on. There's fantasy, there's conspiracy, and then there's utter delusion.

He who pays, owns.

[goodmanj]

This is not just annoying, it's the beginning of the end of Ubuntu as free software. No matter how unobtrusive the ads are, if Amazon is paying Ubuntu, Ubuntu is bound to become dependent on that cash stream, which means Amazon controls what happens to Ubuntu. And Amazon has shown little interest in the future of free software.

Now, this isn't entirely a new thing: companies like IBM and Google have been paying for Linux development (in the form of hiring Linux developers) for years. But when an entire distro is financially captured by the biggest online retailer on the planet... that's something new.

Re:He who pays, owns.

[Kjella]

This is not just annoying, it's the beginning of the end of Ubuntu as free software. No matter how unobtrusive the ads are, if Amazon is paying Ubuntu, Ubuntu is bound to become dependent on that cash stream, which means Amazon controls what happens to Ubuntu. And Amazon has shown little interest in the future of free software.

So who cares if it's just incidental? Amazon pays to develop Ubuntu => Ubuntu has polish => users choose Ubuntu => ad revenue from some of the users => more money to develop Ubuntu. As long as that circle is turning a profit and code gets written, who cares? The only thing they could possibly close source on are the things Ubuntu owns 100% copyright on, which is very little. And how exactly would that improve their cash flow since they'd lose an enormous amount of community goodwill and charging a subscription fee would kill 99.9% of their ad revenue potential? Amazon will have an interest in making more people use Ubuntu, thus writing code that makes it more usable. I'd say their interests seem pretty well aligned with the community.

ubuntu forgets the one thing

[rubycodez]

all the people who run it, but never paid, are not "freeloaders", they are the massive user base that gave the Ubuntu distro momentum and pushed it to the top of linux distros. they got it into the corporate workplace (my employer uses Ubuntu), they make the helpful forum posts, etc.

your monetizing needs to be done outside of those people, it's done with services, support, add-ons for the corporate environment, etc.

Re:ubuntu forgets the one thing

[TheGratefulNet]

more attacks on the forty seven percent!

(notsureifserious)

Re:ubuntu forgets the one thing

[jbicha]

So you're saying that not only should Canonical give you Ubuntu for free, but that they owe you not to make any money off you to pay their bills, even indirectly via extra search results that don't cost you a dime and can easily be disabled by anyone who cares?

Huh... I guess the appeal of Unity is irresistible

[blind biker]

Now that Unity has gained Ubuntu such a great usage/market share and cemented user loyalty, Canonical can bring home the moolah by integrating Amazon ads with Unity.

(This pas was written in an alternative universe where the above makes sense)

Run until my legs pump batter acid

[halfkoreanamerican]

Can I not go anywhere without being harassed? Now my own desktop is unsafe. If it is easy to disable or uninstall them then I will not scream about it, but if they are obnoxious then I'll just pick a different flavor linux for use. It's not like there are not other options.

So you donated? Or just pretend?

[raymorris]

So the while time you've been using Linux you've been paying, donating to your favorite projects, right? You've always had the opportunity to pay. If someone hasn't donated even $10 ever, I'd say that means they'd rather let it come to this. Users have always had the choice. If you'd rather pay, apt-remove and donate to an ad-free project. I'm about to eat breakfast. I'm a Linux developer. Breakfast costs money. If you'd rather pay, then do so. Lunch is coming up in a few hours and it has to be paid for somehow.

Re:Huh... I guess the appeal of Unity is irresisti

[couchslug]

The "above" makes PERFECT sense, since it's easy to defeat!

I'm all for online ads. I block them so I don't give a fuck about what I do not see.

Re:Free with every Amazon order

[betterunixthanunix]

while posting on ad-supported Slashdot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblockplus

Re:Is it only in Unity?

[couchslug]

It's Linux.

You can disable any adverts easily, and run the WM of your choice WITHOUT switching distros.

You aren't stuck with defaults as you are with Windows.

Adbuntu

[flyingfsck]

Adbuntu, the consumer friendly distribution.

Oh good

[Arancaytar]

And here I thought my switch to Debian might have been premature.

Re:Uninstall?

[Dogtanian]

You realize paying for a prime membership is useless, since you can have 3 months for free with a a new account? Just keep making new accounts every 3 months.

Have you actually done this yourself?

Surely they have something about this in the terms and conditions and a check in place to ensure that people don't keep doing this. My boss opened a second Merchant Account with Amazon.co.uk (under a slightly different name and email) some years after his first one had been closed following problems with customer service (*). Shortly afterwards they closed the new account claiming it was connected with an older one, but giving no explanation as to why. Given that (IIRC) this was shortly after we'd set up the bank details (or something similar), it was quite obvious that they had some sort of system set up to spot this sort of thing automatically.

(*) It should be made clear that this was Amazon's fault. I don't remember the exact details (I didn't work there at the time, and it was several years ago now), but apparently Amazon had repeatedly failed to notify us of orders that had been placed or pass on other essential details as they should have, with the result that we'd been given the blame. The new account was reinstated after we provided clear evidence to Amazon that the original problems had been due to their incompetence. Second time round I'm not saying it was perfect, but it wasn't that bad.

Re:Is it only in Unity?

[msclrhd]

The GPL does not forbid you from (a) selling your software, or (b) making a profit from it. The GPL requires you to release the source code for your product. For example, selling your GPL game with protected assets (art, music, etc.) but open code is fine. Also, RedHat and others make money from supporting their distros/software.

Re:Is it only in Unity?

[realityimpaired]

You might want to follow your own advice... there's nothing in the GPL which says you can't profit from it, nor that you are even discouraged from trying to profit from it, and there are a *lot* of distros that *do* turn a profit in one way or another. That's without even considering software companies like Crossover or Cedega or PlayOnLinux. Pretty much every Linux developer profits from it in some way, if not directly then from being able to put it on their resume, or from job opportunities that arise through contacts they make in the community, or from keeping their skills up while they work on different projects. Even big name companies that pay people specifically to develop for Linux make a profit out of it... thanks to better Linux support, I went from being a rabid AMD fangirl to buying nothing but Intel in my systems, and NVidia graphics for gaming systems, and I'm not the only one.

Besides that, Canonical has been selling support contracts for years. What's new is using an ad-supported model, but even that isn't completely new in Linux, and has been done by others. And you know what? It costs money to keep a server going, and they get a lot of downloads. If they are not making enough from donations to stay afloat, then they have every right to try to monetize in other ways. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time... you know that both Firefox and Ubuntu get money from Google every time you open your browser to the default searchpage? That's their decision to make, and if you have a problem with it you can switch to somebody else, or try giving them money so they don't have to advertise.

Did you try GNOME Classic?

[jbicha]

Or you could just install gnome-panel and choose GNOME Classic from the login screen. It's more similar to GNOME 2 since it's pretty much the same thing just with more bugfixes and a slightly tweaked UI to resemble GNOME Shell a little more. Oh, and you'll need to hold down the Alt key to modify the panels.

Re:Did you try GNOME Classic?

[SteveFoerster]

One family member likes Unity, I and the others do not and use gnome-panel. It just wasn't that big a deal.

Re:Adbuntu

[Knuckles]

Big deal? You'd be shitting up a hate storm if this were a discussion about ads on Kindles. Fucking fanbois. Amazing.

I can assure you that ads on Kindle leave me entirely cold. As for the size of the deal, what I said what that the OP (you?) wrote as if Canonical had gone to any lengths to prevent removal, when OP wrote that someone would have to develop a tool for that. Which is plainly wrong and possibly flamebait.

Unity's pretty good

[Compaqt]

I thought that all features (which use compositing) weren't enabled when you used a VM. Maybe it would have been different if you tried it on a separate partition on the bare metal.

Anyway, as a non-noob user (developer) I'm here to say that Unity as of 12.04 is pretty good for power users and developers.

From my perspective, Unity is pretty good for multitasking workflows. In the earlier versions, Unity was useless for multiple workspaces because you could basically only have one copy of a program usefully running.

In the current version, there are indicators that tell you if one copy of a program is running, or two, or more. And if it's on the current workspace or not.

Although I had thought that I would hate it, it's actually pretty good, because 95% of the time you want to work with the apps, files, and programs you were most recently working with. Also, the Alt+Tab and Alt+` works well. They're basically integrated together so you can move out of one mode to the other (once you're in Alt+Tab or Alt+` mode, try using the arrow keys).

Also, one misapprehension I had about Unity was that youd have a huge number of icons down the left side. But since you only have one icon per program (instead of per window), it's not bad.

Finally, you should install Cardapio. It gives you a hierarchical (organized by category) menu of applications so you don't have to know the name of app before you search for it (a major complaint about Unity).

Re:Unity's pretty good

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

Finally, you should install Cardapio. It gives you a hierarchical (organized by category) menu of applications so you don't have to know the name of app before you search for it (a major complaint about Unity).

So basically, people should download Unity and spend time customizing it to include missing parts of the classic/standard desktop that Unity's paradigm is supposedly superior to?

Re:Be interesting to see how it goes

[tftp]

By continuing to use a product you will validate Ubuntu's belief that ads are OK and the users want them. This will give them incentive to insert more unwanted stuff into the next release.

I'm running 10.04.4 on the server currently. If Canonical does not mend its ways that would be the last install of Ubuntu that I made, no question about that. Since geeks comprise at least 100% of Ubuntu users, and since most geeks are militant about ads and spyware, I suspect that Canonical will soon find their product unclaimed by users.

Re:Uninstall?

[Cinder6]

Because you're not "making use of" the system, you're abusing it.

Re:I'd prefer to pay ... not

[Anonymous Coward]

I've enjoyed using Ubuntu. It was the first Linux distro that "just worked" for me (by which I mean, wifi/video/audio worked out of the box). And it's free!

I don't know what kind of ARPU they expect from this, but as an Ubuntu user I'd prefer to just pay. A freemium model would do, maybe something like "get the previous LTS version for free, get the current one for $X". Or "donate to enable advanced features" or something. But peppering my work/leisure environment with third-party advertisements (i.e. spyware and probably malware at some point)? No thanks.

That was the reason why people liked ubuntu to begin with, myself included: linux was a PITA to install for desktop use. Ubuntu solved most of the problems with installation (video drivers, etc); however, today regular Debian has caught up to the same ease of Ubuntu. Hell, Fedora is just as easy as are most distros now. Why continue using derivatives that are only concerned with form (Unity, ads, etc) when you can use the base that cares only about function?

Re:The nerd rage around here is unbelievable

[multiplexo]

Canonical have provided the community with a polished and free OS

Free yes, polished? Are you fucking kidding me? I can tell that you've never used Ubuntu for any serious server work. If you had you'd know that it's anything but polished. Take the Upstart init manager as an example. In theory Upstart was supposed to replace the old SYS V init scripts with a leaner, event driven mechanism for system start up. In practice it has done anything but. Some services start through Upstart, some start through init.d and others, such as sshd have different behavior depending upon whether or not you control them via upstart or start and stop them via init.d. Then there's the fact that the braindead dildos who wrote Upstart set it up so that it kills services via kill -9. Yeah, because nothing bad could ever happen if you ran kill -9 to shut your database down, which is exactly what Upstart does when you run

stop mysql

Apparently no one at Canonical understands that "kill -9" is something that you use only as a last resort and certainly isn't something you want to use when you're stopping and starting a database. Then there's the piece of shit Plymouth boot manager. Guess what, servers don't need splash screens. Really, they don't. My servers live in remote sites or are hosted in the cloud. I don't need a cutesy picture when they start, I want screen after screen of detailed output telling me what the system is doing. But go ahead and try to remove Plymouth from your Ubuntu system. Guess what! You can't. Some useless son-of-a-crack-whore set up the package dependencies such that attempting to remove Plymouth, which is a real piece of shit from an Ubuntu system also removes the core system.

Then there's ureadahead. Ureadahead is an OK idea on laptops I guess but does nothing for you when you're on a server and I've started disabling it on the systems I run. Interestingly enough despite ureadahead's supposed performance benefits I haven't seen any penalty for doing so. I could go on and on and on, the out of date rsyslog that ships with Ubuntu (yeah, because collecting log information is boring and old school, who needs that stuff?), bugs in mdraid that cause it to incorrectly detect disk size when it creates your disk label, thus creating a ticking time bomb that can go off and result in massive file corruption, etc, etc, etc. Oh, and the Ubuntu desktop, what a piece of shit. I'd take Windows XP over this POS any day of the week. Newsflash Ubuntu developers, larding your desktop up with shiny crap doesn't make it more useful. The Gnome and Unity UIs are every bit as bloated and stupid as the Windows Vista UI and if any real functionality or value has been added I have yet to see what it is. Gnome and Unity are nothing more than a shiny coat of paint on top of a nasty, stinky turd.

About a year ago I set up a desktop using straight Debian, and it was fucking amazing. Shit just worked and I realized that the only reason why Ubuntu has been able to stay in business so long is because they've been able to ride on Debian's coat tails and that even though they're idiots they haven't been able to fuck up the solid work that the folks at Debian have done over the years. This cartoon describes Ubuntu best.

http://www.xkcd.com/424/#

Re:Is it only in Unity?

[Deathlizard]

True, but when there's other Distros out there offering a similar or better experience without ads, why stay? I don't want to see Linux Distro's go down the same path as most of the Microsoft PC vendors have gone down

I don't use Linux, I use Windows, but it irritates me that I can't buy a Windows Laptop today without first uninstalling half of the useless AdWare/TrialWare/CrapWare/ETC that vendors stick on it. It's gotten so bad on the windows side that Microsoft had to make a clean PC A Certified Brand! as a selling point just to try to get it under control.

Ubuntu: Where do you want to go today?

[Xeleema]

Long touted as "the" Linux distribution for the desktop, but I just don't see it.
Just like any new distribution, when Ubuntu hit the streets I checked it out. Just the "mood" of the developers turned me off.
Let me clarify - I'm all for making things more user-friendly, and maybe I'm too old-school UNIX, but there's a difference between making something easier to use, and making it retard-proof.
When their forums became crowded with a hundred posts for the exact. Same. Problem. I warned my friends and family.
When the slew of Ubuntu-specific tools, GUIs, and How-Tos washed over the documentation. I distanced myself.
Now, with their community of perpetual noobs, their isolated walled-garden of features/docs/development, they finally think they've "locked-in" enough users to start this kind of nonesense.
Ad-Supported is just a spin-doctor's way of saying "Fuck You, GNU".

Re:Adbuntu

[cOldhandle]

Last time I installed Mint, it had modified Firefox so that built in Google search would kick back some money to the Mint team with referrals. This is a pretty similar situation - easy to remove, and IMHO a reasonable method to support a free distro (I doubt many people donate).

Such hatred!

[Microlith]

The unmitigated hatred against Canonical for trying to find a way to generate income so that they can stay in business and continue developing Ubuntu is amazing. What the hell else do you expect them to do? If they offered a way to buy a copy I'm sure we'd have an equally trollish, hate filled thread here on Slashdot.

Re:quite a large exploit vector

[TaoPhoenix]

"The biggest deal for me is that ads are quite a large exploit vector. I block ads in my browser because I consider them to be from an untrusted source. If these are simply text and PNG, then perhaps it's not so bad."

Good, after scanning most of the thread, you're one of the few looking at the security side. I'll presume that Canonical won't allow a full fledged virus attack, but if ads are in fact integrated into the OS and not just "a web store" or whatever, I think that creates data leak risks that could have really nasty implications.

Since everyone is playing with tablet-phone ideas for OSes, I'll say that some of the ads on some of the free versions of my iPhone apps ARE intrusive. They're sandwiched between parts of the app, so when you reach for a settings or menu button, your finger hits the ad instead, and "poof" - you're ripped away from your app and then get to burn 15 seconds while the App store triggered by the ad loads up. It gets VERY intrusive, VERY fast.

Complain now, or you will get overrun by ads!!!

[Nyder]

I'm going to give you some advice. This is based on history.

If you do NOT complain about the ads in Ubuntu now it's going to get worse. Way worse. This is a toe testing the water. Make the water way the fuck too cold now. If not, you will find, in probably a year, the every linux distro will have ads, and not only in small places. It will ruin linux.

You think I'm wrong? oh no, the greed of the people say this will not stop and only get worse.

This will ruin linux for ever. People will associate linux with ads. MS will say, by a Ad Free OS, not Ad Infested Linux. And worse, Linux distros will start selling Ad Free versions.