ubuntu

Ubuntu now has 'cloud computing inside'

Ubuntu 9.10 will be code-named Karmic Koala, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced on a posting on the ubuntu-devel-announce list Friday. As usual, efforts surrounding the Linux distribution are divided between two target deployments, desktop and server. The desktop goals are primarily around "first impressions," with Shuttleworth indicating that "boot will be beautiful." He also promises that the appearance of Ubuntu will change significantly:

The desktop will have a designer's fingerprints all over it - we're now beginning the serious push to a new look. Brown has served us well but the Koala is considering other options.

I am sure others here at CNET will give the desktop portions of the announcement the serious treatment it deserves, but the server functionality that Shuttleworth announced is much more interesting to the cloud-computing community.… Read more

Ubuntu displaces CentOS at Groundwork: Good?

What's the takeaway when one free operating system displaces another when running your application?

That's the question I'd be asking myself at Groundwork in the wake of news from the Works with U blog that 29 percent of its new users are using Ubuntu to power its IT management application instead of CentOS, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone. When your users are falling all over themselves to avoid paying for an operating system, can the application be far behind?

Within my own company, we weight leads heavier if they are running our application with a paid … Read more

Ubuntu desktop apparently scares Microsoft

Ubuntu must be giving Microsoft fits on the desktop. That's the only reason I can come up with for Microsoft's LinkedIn search for a new director of open-source strategy, with a focus on the desktop:

The Windows Competitive Strategy team is looking for a strong team member to lead Microsoft's global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors.

Given Red Hat's relative inaction on the desktop, this position likely will focus on Novell and Canonical's Ubuntu, but of these two, only Ubuntu's desktop is really catching the imagination of the market.… Read more

HP's Ubuntu Netbook interface now available

There are a lot of Netbooks on the market that are more or less the same, save for some cosmetic details. One of the Netbooks that manages to stand out from the pack is the HP Mini 1000 MIE, which sports a custom interface that sits on top of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

HP now plans to make that interface available to the public, according to Download Squad. Netbook prices can be cut way down when they don't have Windows installed, which is why HP offers a Linux option. The MIE interface is intended to shield users from … Read more

Canonical survey: Ubuntu Server is mission-critical

Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu Linux, and analyst firm RedMonk have released survey results that show usage patterns for the Ubuntu server product.

The survey, completed by nearly 7,000 respondents, shows that Ubuntu Server Edition is being used for most enterprise tasks, such as Web sites, files, databases, and mail servers, and is considered "mission-critical" by most respondents.

This is an interesting set of results, even if they are biased, considering that Ubuntu has largely been known for its desktop grace and focus on developing a better Linux user experience. But the enterprise is where all … Read more

The free-download economy is dead

Perhaps you didn't notice, but 2008 marked the last year when SourceForge downloads mattered.

Throughout the year, and for a consistent period of several months, the statistics function on SourceForge stopped working. My own company, which had been tracking our downloads closely, suddenly was flying blindly.

Guess what? Life went on. Not only that, but we moved our central downloads repository to our own Web site because we needed consistency that SourceForge apparently couldn't give us. It also became obvious that download tallies were secondary to something SourceForge never gave us: insight into those downloading our software.

The … Read more

Ubuntu Launchpad to go open source

Just seven days after Bastille Day, France's day for celebrating its freedom, Ubuntu will unfetter Launchpad as an open-source project, as announced on the Launchpad news blog.

Launchpad is an open-source project-hosting service that promises to make it "easy to share code, bug reports, translations, and ideas across projects." It's a great service--so robust that MySQL moved its project hosting to Launchpad in early 2008--but has been proprietary, and will remain so until it goes open source on July 21.

I'm a big fan of Launchpad and expect that opening up its source code … Read more

Ubuntu takes on Microsoft in a full-frontal assault

Microsoft's hegemony depends upon two cash cows: Windows and Office. Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, has his sights firmly set on Windows, and has both the means, the chutzpah, and the community to credibly commandeer an assault on Fortress Redmond, as suggested by Ashlee Vance in The New York Times over the weekend.

Others have tried to beat Microsoft at its own game and have failed miserably. The difference with Shuttleworth, however, is that he's not necessarily trying to beat Microsoft at its game. He's hoping to "fundamentally change the operating system market," something … Read more

Challenging Windows with Ubuntu (NY Times)

The NY Times is running a great piece titled "A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows " detailing the vision behind the Ubuntu Linux OS and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu.

Canonical, based in London, has more than 200 full-time employees, but its total work force stretches well beyond that, through an army of volunteers. The company paid for close to 60 volunteers to attend its developer event, considering them important contributors to the operating system. An additional 1,000 work on the Debian project and make their software available to Canonical, while 5,000 spread information about … Read more