Canonical’s “Ubuntu Friendly” hardware-validation program, which officially debuts next month along with Ubuntu 11.10, should make life a little easier for people with computers that don’t get along so well with Linux. But what if your computer is designed from the ground up to run Linux flawlessly? I recently got a chance to speak with ZaReason CEO Cathy Malmrose, whose company has been shipping Linux PCs for years, about precisely that question. Here’s what she had to say.
With the exception of ZaReason and a handful of similar Linux-oriented vendors, such as System76, few OEMs give much thought to how well their hardware can run open source operating systems. That’s why the Ubuntu Friendly program, which encourages Ubuntu users to run simple tests to measure how well their computers work with Ubuntu and then upload their results to a public database, is a great move on Canonical’s part. It promises to make it easier to choose Ubuntu-friendly PCs before purchasing, or find solutions for compatibility problems on the hardware one already owns.
ZaReason’s Take
I expected Malmrose to be excited about the Ubuntu Friendly program, since ZaReason’s hardware is almost certain to pass the tests with flying colors and enjoy prominence in the database as being among the most Ubuntu-compatible hardware around. Instead, although she expressed no opposition to the Ubuntu Friendly initiative, she emphasized a goal that surpasses the simple “compatibility” that the Ubuntu Friendly site seeks to gauge.
In Malmrose’s words, “ZaReason hardware is not ‘compatible’; it’s built for Ubuntu. If you want to make me growl, call it ‘compatible.’”
The difference between being compatible and being designed for Linux from the get-go, she explained, is that ZaReason doesn’t simply work to patch over hardware-support issues via proprietary drivers or in-house bug fixes that only ZaReason customers can enjoy. Instead, Malmrose stressed the importance of making hardware work flawlessly using only upstream code.
“The difference between us and others is that we don’t do our own drivers. When we fix bugs or otherwise make improvements we send them upstream. Not the greatest business model, but excellent for the community.”
She was also keen to underline ZaReason’s focus not just on Ubuntu, but on Linux as a whole: “We have no trouble supporting a variety of distros because everything we do goes upstream.”
The Pitfalls of Being Compatible
Malmrose raised an important point that merits greater consideration: In general, a majority of Linux users are happy just to find hardware that works — and if the vendor actually puts any effort into helping ensure that it does, it’s only icing on the cake. Most of us, excepting the bona fide members of Richard Stallman’s Church of Emacs, don’t worry too much if running Linux involves proprietary hacks or out-of-tree code, as long as they get the job done.
While getting things to work is a good prelimary goal, however, it’s not the same as true Linux-friendliness, as Malmrose stressed. Being Ubuntu-friendly using only the open source modules and firmware that ship with the Linux kernel itself is a world apart from working on Ubuntu once proprietary drivers are installed.
It would be interesting for the Ubuntu Friendly program to draw a distinction between these two different degrees of compatibility. That may be asking a lot of an initiative that’s only getting off the ground, and which already offers a great resource to users. But since Linux is all about constant improvement, this is a goal worth aspiring to.
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Tags: Cathy Malmrose | Hardware Compability | Hardware Validation | System76 | Ubuntu 11.10 Oneric Ocelot | Ubuntu Friendly | ZaReason
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Is this still a legitimate concern? The last time I worried about a computer being ‘compatible’ with linux was 2006, 5 years ago. Hardware compatibility has taken insane strides since then, and most kernel updates nowadays are solely focused on improving that compatibility.
The kernel at least certainly supports more architectures and set-ups than anything else out there. And there are plenty of distros that maintain that compatibility all the way up, Yellow Dog for example. And if you’re running on an x86/x86-64, you would need some WEIRD peripheral hardware for it not to be supported by basically every distro there is.
Yes, this is still a concern. Windows 8 is supposed to ship with a secure boot feature (UEFI). In order for the OEMs to get the Windows logo, they’ll have to enable this feature. It works by using secret signing keys. If your boot loader isn’t signed or if the vendor didn’t bother to put your keys in their ROM, then your OS won’t load. This is quite hostile to the FLOSS community. It is possible that vendors *might* allow the user to disable this feature in the BIOS, but they have no financial incentive to do so.
Great article, and it’s good to see ZaReason getting the positive press it deserves. Incidentally, while ZaReason might ship Ubuntu with most of its offerings, the company has the foresight to also offer other distros with its hardware, like Fedora, Linux Mint and Debian (or no operating system, if you really have a hankering to install Crunchbang or another of the 320-plus active distros out there).
Larry Cafiero
Larry the Free Software Guy
NickG: this is still a concern not only because of the issue Hal Eisen points to, but also because, although most modern Linux distributions work very well on a wide range of hardware, in many cases they rely on proprietary drivers or firmware to do so. Examples include some Nvidia video cards and Broadcom wireless cards that only work with Broadcom’s closed-source “STA” driver.
Malmrose’s big point was that ZaReason wants all its hardware to work relying only on free code–and my argument (which plenty of others have advanced before me) is that the free-software community should draw a greater distinction between simply making stuff work, and making it work without proprietary bits.
having built my own computers from the motherboard up – i know my hardware inside and out and that’s why I build my own custom kernels.:)
It’s still a concern.
E.G. the Tungsten spectacle. Another example is Gobi HSDPA modems – used extensivly (built in or optional) in “all” business laptops from HP, Dell and Lenovo.
Drivers are there. But how many distributions are plug and play with Gobi? Should really have been every single one. I have to pull the simcard out and use my Novatel for Linux.
@Ace:
Good for you
But it’s not for the masses. A lot of Linux users would like to keep the “geek factor”, but that will never sell to the crowd with money to spend. There’s a lot of great distros. But hardly any of them are tuned for average Joe consumers.
At best they are put together for the enthusiasts. Great – I like it – but it’s not really for the consumers.
I find Malmrose’s reaction to the phrase “compatible” sort of a shock.
Canonical offers a certification program for OEMs as a value-add. OEMs like ZaReason are suppose to pay Canonical for the certification to move beyond the “compatible” moniker. This is Canonical’s bread and butter business model. This is how money flows from consumers of Ubuntu pre-installed hardware purchases from OEMs to Canonical to pay for the Ubuntu project release model. If linux friendly OEMs like ZaReason don’t see value in the Canonical certification process, then how on earth is Canonical going to keep the lights on for Ubuntu? How does consumer purchasing power sustain the cost of keeping Ubuntu running as a deliverable if OEMs are not trickling money back into Canonical to offset staffed manpower costs?
Why doesn’t ZaReason value the certification process enough to pay for it and participate in it? Every single ZaReason product should easily be certifiable through the Canonical certification program. Every single ZaReason product sale with Ubuntu pre-installed should trickle money back to offset the development manpower Canonical is expending to manage Ubuntu. But that isn’t happening. Why isn’t that happening?
-jef
I would guess that ZaReason isn’t paying Canonical for a certification because they just don’t make that much profit. They aren’t a Dell or Lenovo. They just don’t sell in that kind of volume. Thus as it is, their products already seem overpriced by comparison to other OEMs–OEMs that are paying the Windows tax, no less!
It’s already hard to make a case for an Ubuntu computer when you have to pay more for it than for a windows PC. I wonder how much worse it would be after paying Canonical.
And yet if I really wanted compatibility, what would I buy? I would buy from System76 or ZaReason. I wouldn’t buy a PC that was “certified”. Why? Well first of all, computers often don’t stay on the market that long. By the time something gets certified, it may not even be for sale anymore!
But that’s the lesser reason. The more important one is that just because I buy a laptop that’s certified for, say, 10.10, does not mean it will stay certified for 10.10+. And my experience with one of these certified laptops I bought a couple years ago, is that with every new Ubuntu version it seems like there is some brand new quirk. It’s a comedy of errors. Intrepid, the sound card didn’t work. Karmic was the CPU fan control, Lucid was the fan and card reader. Nearly every version has had at least some trouble with suspending. Used to be really bad. I’d lose a lot of work that way. What good is this certification then, unless you’re the kind of person who is determined to stick with an LTS?
I can’t be sure if System76 or ZaReason will be better at this, but I’m hoping so. My guess is that they are truly committed to making their devices continue to work, not just have Ubuntu say that they do at one point in time.
I know this is off the wall, but I wish Ubuntu would sell their own computers. You know how much I would pay for a well-made machine, where I could be so confident in its support that I would never have to think about it? Like the adage says, “Linux is only free if your time has no value?” I want to pay for that time! Just give me a machine that doesn’t suck it up trawling forums for commands to run, modules to blacklist etc.
Daniel,
There is a very common misconception in your arguments especially with how you choose to use the phrase “windows tax.” Fact, large OEMs get promotional kickbacks from Microsoft to promote Windows. Those kickbacks can be substantial. The “windows tax” is only problematic for consumers who want to buy a computer and use an alternative OS than what an OEM accounts for. A “windows tax” on computers purchased to be used as Windows PCs is perfectly valid. In fact an “Ubuntu tax” on Ubuntu pre-installed PCs would also be perfectly valid as a way to offset the cost of producing Ubuntu.
Just because the software going into Ubuntu is open source does not mean the cost of integrating it into a consumer friendly OS is a zero cost endeavor. There are real costs Canonical is incurring that OEMs are not directly incurring. And the cost of any consumer purchase of a pre-installed Ubuntu system should be flowing back to Canonical as revenue to pay for that development. If the OEMs are keeping the full profit margin, without doing any profit sharing with Canonical on a per system basis..that is unsustainable. Consumer cash out of pocket has to flow back into Canonical someway.
Canonical isn’t Google, they don’t a proven reliable advertising revenue stream to tie into their OS development model to offset development costs. Canonical isn’t MS, they don’t have an application suite(MS Office) for purchase which is pulling in enough revenue to help offset OS development costs.
Canonical needs OEMs to play ball in some sort of profit sharing and trickle money back from consumer purchases. And if the overtly linux friendly OEMs aren’t profit-sharing that is a real problem. It’s exactly those OEMs that are positioned to be the most resilient against Microsoft market tampering via kickback promotions that larger OEMs participate in when working with Microsoft.
Right now the certification program Canonical offers is pretty much the only mechanism to drive consumer cash of out pocket through OEMs and into Canonical’s hand to fund Ubuntu development and to keep Ubuntu consumer relevant. If OEMs don’t value that certification for laptops and desktops that is a real business model problem and it directly impacts Ubuntu as a sustainable consumer device offering. OEMs leveraging the gratis status of Ubuntu without working with Canonical to profit share are in effect gaming the system…eating their seed corn so to speak. OEMs that see long term value in Ubuntu as a consumer platform will profit share with Canonical to ensure the survival of that platform. OEMs that do not see long term value will milk the gratis nature of Ubuntu for short term gain.
-jef
Jef,
Your point about profit sharing takes me back to the idea at the end of my last post. If only Ubuntu sold its own line of computers.
- We’d get cheaper computers because you could reduce testing and development effort.
- Our computers would be supported for much longer because Canonical would not lose interest in supporting future Ubuntu releases.
- You’d be able to buy/upgrade your Ubuntu release on day one. Not when your vendor gets around to releasing/re-certifying the next release
- Our computers would be rock solid and fully supported (like Macs are) because full advantage can be taken of having control over the full stack.
- More potential for innovation. Ubuntu’s trying to make its own way in user experience, but they can only do that on the software level. For hardware, they seem to just build support for things (like touchscreen) and hope the hardware comes around to support it.
- More consistent specs and quality. I didn’t know when I bought my laptop that it didn’t support multitouch. Ubuntu supports it, but the OEM doesn’t care about that…
I could go on, but it’s probably just a pipe dream.
So, all I meant by the “Windows Tax” is that at the end of the day, Microsoft must be making money off each laptop sold. If you total all kickbacks to each OEM, you wouldn’t think it would *exceed* the amount that MS is asking in licensing costs. It’s possible that, as you say, they’re using MS Office to offset that cost and they’re actually losing money on Windows licensing. But are they? As far as I know, there is still a cost to Windows. To the OEMs first, and then to users by extension.
Even if that’s not the case, that’s how an average person (including me) expects it to work, so when it costs me *more* money to buy a computer preinstalled with an OS that is free of charge, it’s going to look really bad.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have to pay anything for Ubuntu. I fully recognize that there are costs. It just seems that the costs should be considerably less for an Ubuntu PC than for a windows one. After all, how much does Canonical pay its staff to churn out Ubuntu, and how much does MS pay for the same?
Sadly, I agree with your assessment that Canonical does need money somehow. I just worry that expecting the only OEMs who really put the effort into making Ubuntu work, to fund Canonical is not sustainable either. It’s not sustainable because will further drive up the cost of an Ubuntu computer and make it less appealing to buy.
And getting back to the other point I made, it will not only drive up the cost, it may not add that much to the product. Certification of Ubuntu seems to be a moving target, and there’s nothing in the current program to ensure that an OEM will stay committed to maintaining compatibility.
Thanks for your answer, Jef.
–Daniel
Daniel,
I’m not saying certification is the right way to trickle money back. If its not the right way, because its a bad value proposition for an OEM like system76, then there needs to be an on the record discussion with the Ubuntu community about how OEMs can use their position to pay for development in a sustainable way. Canonical’s inability to field a business model that makes sense as an OEM services value-add should not prevent OEMs from funding Ubuntu development with consumer dollars. If there is a better way its time for OEMs that care about Ubuntu to speak up and put a counter proposal on the table to fund Ubuntu development.
-jef
@Jef
“Right now the certification program Canonical offers is pretty much the only mechanism to drive consumer cash of out pocket through OEMs and into Canonical’s hand to fund Ubuntu development and to keep Ubuntu consumer relevant.”
Shuttleworth isn’t stupid. Canonical has many revenue streams. Landscape, Ubuntu One, Ubuntu One Music, Launchpad.net closed source project license fees, store.canonical.com which includes merchandise, apps, support licenses, training, and more.
Last I heard Firefox and Banshee as included in Ubuntu also provide a revenue stream to Canonical.