The VAR Guy was flipping though his Sunday morning paper when he spotted an article about Ubuntu Linux. He took a few more sips of coffee to perk up and make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Sure enough, Ubuntu had made the leap into the mainstream media — earning coverage in Newsday, the eight largest newspaper in the nation. Has Ubuntu reached its tipping point with consumers?
Newsday’s Personal Technology column includes a question from a reader who intends to purchase a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop with Ubuntu preloaded. Sweet. The VAR Guy already has a Dell Ubuntu desktop, and also is looking at an Ubuntu laptop.
Newsday’s columnist walks the readers through some potential issues related to Ubuntu (scan down toward the middle of this Newsday page). But overall, letters like this reinforce an undeniable truth: Ubuntu is quietly becoming a mainstream phenomena.
The VAR Guy isn’t predicting that Ubuntu will ever topple Windows. Dell only sold about 40,000 Ubuntu systems within a few months of launching Ubuntu pre-loads, according to several published reports. But those 40,000 licenses represent true consumer choice, something the PC market lacked a decade ago.
The Newsday coverage shows that Ubuntu’s early adopters aren’t necessarily geeks. More and more of those Ubuntu users apparently live on Main Street U.S.A.
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[…] and more of those Ubuntu users apparently live on Main Street U.S.A., according to The VAR Guy. Details here. March 10, 2008 · Linux, News, Open Source […]
I get that newspaper and didn’t see the story until you mentioned it. Never would have expected this six months ago. But Dell’s support of Ubuntu is stirring interest among some home users who are fed up with Vista.
using ubuntu as a flagship is a dumb idea.
it hardly shows what linux is capable of, there are much better variants out there.
ah well like I ever cared about dell anyway.
Its is very important that people know that there are many linux variants. However, there is nothing wrong with a particular linux distribution becoming mainstream, let it be ubuntu or any other. Clearly other distributions will follow quickly.
But one thing that the linux community doesn’t need are zealots,haters, etc (that would be you knifemonkey).
I have run Ubuntu myself, and I have to admit it’s not my preferred distro. That being said, I would still choose it over any MicroSoft OS in a heartbeat! I agree with Marcos in that once people realize the freedom and diversity they gain through *any* Linux distro, other distros will gain popularity as well since there is no one “perfect” Linux distro.
One need only visit the “Save XP” petition website to appreciate the sad, limited future being foisted on most Windows users today. On the other hand, anyone who is disappointed with their Ubuntu installation has literally hundreds of other distros to choose from, and choose they will.
The consumer desktop lacked choice ten years ago? The consumer desktop lacked choice last year! Only Dell is bringing choice to the desktop, unless you consider XP || Vista choice.
[…] as if one awakening isn’t enough, The VAR guy also writes about this […]
This is great news. I started using Ubuntu about a year and a half ago and I love it. I hope more outlets cover Ubuntu in the future.
Story added…
This story has been submitted to fsdaily.com! If you think this story should be read by the free software community, come vote it up and discuss it here:
http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Mainstream_U_S_Media_Discovers_Ubuntu_Linux…
My company provides IT support and advice for home and small business users in the UK. Linux and Ubuntu are an excellent way of introducing existing PC users to features and reliability previously unknown. So far we have helped over 400 customers (in 18 months) to move from a windows-based platform to Ubuntu, many of which are running small desktop publishing businesses.
Although several comments here point out that Ubuntu may not be the best linux iterative for publishing, it does seem to be a preferance for my customers, maybe because it is an easier step (cosmetically) from windows than other linux versions.
I saw the mentioned column in my towns paper about 8 months ago. Old news my friend.
I myself am a Fedora contributor. If my mom and dad, living in another city asked me what PC to buy I would sure recommend a PC that come pre-loaded with GNU/Linux. Today I don’t have a much choice. If Ubuntu is the only distro offered, be it. Of course Ubuntu doesn’t do any harm, does it? Free software is any day better than proprietary software.
Regards,
Sudheer
[Excuse me. I am correcting myself]
I myself am a Fedora contributor. If my mom and dad, living in another city asked me what PC to buy, I would sure recommend a PC that comes pre-loaded with GNU/Linux. Today, I don’t have much choice. If Ubuntu is the only distro offered, be it. Of course Ubuntu doesn’t do any harm, does it? Free software is any day better than proprietary software.
If you want to see the true power of the Ubuntu community. Go to http://www. onlyhelping.com!
or http://www.onlyhelping.org
Look, if 95% of people buying machines with Linux preinstalled end up with Ubuntu, it really doesn’t matter. They’ll find other distros down the track, their kids will install other ISOs, etc. The important thing is that Linux is reaching more people. Hardware manufacturers won’t be able to ignore the market, and if they release drivers for ‘Ubuntu’ those who choose to run a different distro will still have more luck with those drivers than they would with Windows ones … right?
We’ve heard all this before. And then, welcome back to reality.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVyPFIJPx8NKAzElk21Isx-zQxvgD8VAQTSG0
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I started with Ubuntu and struggled with the forums and all trying to get it do do everything I needed. Then I discovered Linux Mint. It’s Ubuntu with all the codex, flash and everything else that we’ve come to expect already loaded. It’s the true “It just Works!” operating system. Right off of the disc.
I am a geek, I live on Main Street, and I use Ubuntu.
Some folks keep saying there are other distributions out there other than Ubuntu. This was actually voted on Dell’s Ideastorm website before they began offering the product, and a pretty overwhelming majority asked for Ubuntu. Since then, Dell has added some of its own tweaks, drivers, codecs, and whatnot to the product; and some of it–whatever is Free–makes it back upstream.
If you do install Ubuntu 7.10 on your own, most of the codecs are now pretty trivial to add, a rather significant improvement over previous releases.
I say this to second some of the other comments, Ubuntu or not, it’s a GOOD THING that GNU/Linux is being pre-installed on commercial products instead of JUST homebrewed or second-hand computers. We are nearing critical mass.
Some of you keep mentioning the obvious, that being that there are “other linux distributions” that do the job better<>. It is generally known throughout the linux community about the many many choices available to us as linux users. The point of this article like so many others is that for “Mainstreet Windows users” that are just now getting tired of the mess that is “windows” and opening thier eyes, there aren’t too many “mainstreet outlets”(yet) to look for alternatives. That of course is changing but it won’t happen overnight that Linux in general will be a default accepted alternative to Windows. So if it’s only Ubuntu/Dell or some other well known manufacturer/distro, all that matters is that Linux is becoming accessable to the mainstream users. You people just have to remember that is is NOT what you as a individual linux user thinks that matters because you aren’t even considered relevant to the big picture until there is actually new user pool to fish from. You have to view things from the perspective of that all important mainstreet user. Truth of the matter is without the big companys like Dell/HP/Lenova/etc, linux doesn’t stand a chance in hell of ever becoming mainstream so let them do thier job and quit pissing and moaning that they don’t use “your” distro. When the pool fills up with newbie fish, then you can try and hook them over to your specific distro but at least let them get some fish in the pool first.
For me “(K)ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘I can’t configure Debian’”. I never used Gnome so I tried few times to work with Kubuntu, but eventually always replaced it with Debian. Thus said I always use Kubuntu to install Linux on my friends computer. It is Debian based, so I can help them easily, it requires less setting up to work as a windows user might expect and requires less Linux knowledge from an ex window user to run it independently in daily life.
Ah, this is old news. The columnist you are talking about in Newsday has written about GNU/Linux in the past in many articles. He covers all three, Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux. Windows gets the most coverage, but he attempts to round out some articles by also covering Macs and a little less than Macs, GNU/Linux. Can’t remember the past articles, but when I get the Sunday Newsday I always check his articles in case I get any tips (he had a wonderful article on research sources on the internet for school research many months ago), tips on GNU/Linux, updates in the Mac/Apple world (even though I’ve never owned an Apple computer and get nearly all my tech news online), and just to see whether and how much article space he gives to GNU/Linux and whether what he writes is easy to understand for newbies and wannabees.
So there’s nothing eye opening about him mentioning GNU/Linux or Ubuntu specifically this past Sunday (still have the article btw).
Xandros 4 home or home premium would be a better choice for most users,its not free of cost but it is only around £20.00 or $40.00 but is complete with most codecs etc. that you may want or need and it just works !Home premium gets you the ability to install many windows apps inc versions of Microsoft Office although the incuded OpenOffice will do all that most people want !
Nick, please stop this cheap advertising technics! Linux is about free software. All codecs load in Ubuntu automatically when you open media player the first time. I have ubuntu for a year, I installed two distros feisty and gutsy and i don’t remember ever installing any codecs. You just tick a box and they install themselves. And for usability Ubuntu simply rocks. And it has eye candy that beats the cr*p out of windows and levels macOs. Try compiz with emerald, awn and oxygen theme and icons and then we’ll talk. And all this in ubuntu installs without any use of command line. Show me any other distro that does that and costs nothing and I’ll give you a grand. The fact the majority of people are stupid ((80/20) rule applies here too) enough to not care or want to learn anything new is a different issue altogether….