Ubuntu's Unity will save Linux

[dawgdoc]

I just read in this blog posted by Jack Wallen at TechRepublic three days before the release of Natty, that he was

sure everyone grown tired of hearing how Ubuntu must be the big savior of Linux, but I firmly believe, in this case, it might well be a truth some will just have to swallow.

This blog was the result of an article he read that said

...something a bit disturbing. Sometime around December the iPad iOS ranked above Linux in the listing of desktop operating systems. I really couldn’t believe it. A mobile OS was being used more than the Linux OS on the desktop. I wanted to discard it as just another marketing scam, but it turns out there was fact backing it up.

I would guess the fact in the article he read must have summed iOS on iPhones, iPads, and iTouch's.

I did not realize Linux was in need of salvation. I guess his blog brings us back to the arguments about who cares how popular Linux is and if it needs to be bigger than OS X or Windows. Linux is not depending on increased users to drive sales which would increase revenue, so in a sense the numbers do not matter. As a personal preference I hope the use of Linux does burgeon,as I realize that an increase in users may eventually lead to an increase in developers. This growth would lead to a better Linux and better applications.

The benefit he sees in Unity is this

With the upcoming release of Natty, Ubuntu could take advantage of that ever-popular Something new. Ubuntu 11.04 does have something new to offer and it’s something I believe the public is ready for. Canonical has, for the longest time, been perched on a precipice that could serve as a serious launchpad for Linux.

Linux has been my primary OS for less than 3 years. I am not a developer, so have made no contributions in improving code. I hope I have improved the user experience of some few with my contributions here. I will continue using Linux even if there are more Symbian users than Linux users. I have no problem with Linux growing. I do not have the attitude of an xkcd character who did not want more people using linux because he would no longer be cool. I hope thee are always choices available that allow me to avoid "dumbed down" systems.

[odo5435]

Linux is not depending on increased users to drive sales which would increase revenue, so in a sense the numbers do not matter. As a personal preference I hope the use of Linux does burgeon, as I realize that an increase in users may eventually lead to an increase in developers. This growth would lead to a better Linux and better applications.

True. Also, more users might give hardware manufacturers some incentive to make components that are designed specifically toward Linux.

[Habitual]

Let's see. a writeup on a tech-oriented site about a pending release just 3 days before its release-date... Stevie Wonder could have seen that coming.

Yawn.

[Fandangio]

He also goes on to say;

And, in order for Linux to enjoy the same level of acceptance, the same level of In your face, in your hands marketing must take place.

For me this is the crux of the issue, marketing and as he says in your hands marketing.
Everyone who's seen my desktop literally loves it, my wife now complains about how clunky Windows is by comparison (she has to use it at work).

I also think that when Linux adoption hits a critical threshold in a given market/country it will then gain massive traction. Once the FUD is removed.

[dawgdoc]

Oh, I think it has the acceptance, albeit unwittingly. Everybody who says it's too hard, for geeks/nerds, not good enough, etc. are mostly speaking from popular wisdom, not from experience. How many of these people have and Android phone, a set-top cable box, a dvr, or some other device running Linux and accept such as being mainstream. I know, some of these do not have an interface recognizable as Linux. Yes, many an average Joe has no idea they are Linux based. Macs, iPhones, and iPads are supposed to be easy. Is it realistic to believe anyone who could operate any of these could not operate the Linux equivalent? Take a Windows user who has never used a Mac, will OS X be any easier than Mint or Ubuntu that they purchase pre-installed on a system? Isn't Tivo, another Linux based product, the brand name for retail DVRs?

Two weeks ago a small business owner was adamantly telling me that it was not possible to run a business using Linux based computers. This was as he answered an appointment call during supper on his DroidX. I have known this guy for ~7 years and understand him well enough to interpret what he said to mean he can not run a business using Linux and still use the same exact proprietary software he has always used. Do not ask him to learn something new. Two years ago he bought new business laptops and paid ~$100 extra for the "Stay with Win XP" option. Last month he changed to Win 7, but kept the classic *XP* interface.

I think his animosity towards Linux seems to stem mostly from having paid an non-programmer between $500 and $1000 that mostly went to hardware purchase. He wanted an interactive, touchscreen, scheduling application to be interfaced with an unspecified rfid device that would bill into Quickbooks on the WinXP machines on his network. The "developer" was an avionics technician who ran Ubuntu on his laptop. The guy actually did fairly well but the app had a bad memory leak due to one of it's dependencies which he could not overcome.

Like you, people who see my desktop are impressed and ask how. I have Compiz installed and the only time I use it is to show off. The cube, fire and the rain effects do catch the eye. If this is what is meant by "in your hands marketing" how far will it really go? There are vendors selling laptops and desktops preloaded with Linux. How much advertising do they do? How many non-Linux users have heard of zaReason or System 76. Dell has a Linux option on their site for purchase by individuals, but it seems harder to find than a living jackaloupe.

In the context that you and he used "in your hands marketing," where are the advertising budgets coming from? Not Red Hat, they are in a different market. One of the current system builders? Canonical? Why? I understand Google doing the Android development gratis and advertising in conjunction with the telcos and handset fabbers, consider its ad revenues. What distribution is going to buy a Superbowl ad? Does anyone think Canonical expects enough revenue from the Banshee music purchase residuals to fund a global campaign, or even one limited to heavily industrialized markets?

I think Unity will pull in more people, if it catches enough eyes. I hope it does. As adverse to change as most seem to be it will not be as great an influence as the "Year of the Linux Desktop" crowd would desire. I think it will be smart phone users who are less than 30 years old who are most accepting. I have not given Unity a test run, but isn't it better suited for a touch interface than a standard work and creative environment? You know, the tablet and netbook market? If the OS is being used to edit videos, create images, use spreadsheets, and do any of the other non entertainment or social work done on a computer, are not most going to resist the interface change as much as they would resist leaving Windows?

Wow, did I just rant? I've apparently spent to much time perusing tech blogs and reading the accompanying comments.

[dawgdoc]

I have not given Unity a test run, but isn't it better suited for a touch interface than a standard work and creative environment? You know, the tablet and netbook market?

I just came across another article that puts more "Linux" competition in this same market. Ryan Cartwright at Free Software Magazine was speaking of Google's Chromebooks when he said

I’d imagine the target market for Chromebooks will be the netbook/tablet one. Most of the times I’ve seen those devices being used is at conferences or in coffee shops.

The article is primarily about ChromeOS being cloud based and the ills associated with loss of privacy and ownership of your data.

[dawgdoc]

It looks like Mr. Wallen's fears will be assuaged even before Unity becomes a factor.

This blog was the result of an article he read that said

...something a bit disturbing. Sometime around December the iPad iOS ranked above Linux in the listing of desktop operating systems. I really couldn’t believe it. A mobile OS was being used more than the Linux OS on the desktop. I wanted to discard it as just another marketing scam, but it turns out there was fact backing it up.

I would guess the fact in the article he read must have summed iOS on iPhones, iPads, and iTouch's.

If you count Androd as Linux and remove the iPod Touch from the count, then Linux seems to be gaining. In a filing in its lawsuit with Samsung, Apple stated

Though the iPod touch is lumped into the rest of Apple's (generic) iPod sales figures, it is also an important part of the iOS platform. According to Apple's legal filing, it has sold a total of roughly 108 million iPhones and 19 million iPads to date. At 60 million units, the iPod touch represents roughly one-third of all iOS devices sold.

from ArsTechnica article by Chris Foresman

Comparing those numbers from Apple with some stats released in the keynote address at the Google I/O 2011 puts Android and iOS, sans iPod, about equal.

Google has now activated more than 100 million Android devices worldwide and as of April 2011, Google is activating nearly 400,000 Android devices every single day.

from this TechDriveIn article by Manual Jose

I have no idea the number of Mac OS desktop devices compared to Linux desktop devices. So someone else can tally the current overall standing.

[lmintnewb]

dawgdoc, sure you've helped more than a few linux mint users have a better experience participating in the forums. Would think you've contributed more than your share to Linux Mint. Just in tech support.

Not a programmer either. So Linux is much better off w/o me trying to directly contribute to it's code. As for the gist of the article. Think opinions are like A-holes. One persons views on summin don't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme me thinks. Though I could be missing the big picture as regards the subject.

Cannot see ubuntu saving anything. There are so many linux distro's that blow it out of the water. At least on my system and don't see how that could be diff for others. Also have found the best ubuntu I've come across wasn't made by ubuntu itself. Stuff like Mint and Crunchbang etc.

Though CB ( went to pure debian apparently ) and Linux Mint is making efforts to move towards same. Trying to figure out how ubuntu amassed so much hype surrounding it. My experiences with pure buntu stuff. Found it to be bloated, low-performing and user-unfriendly junk. Compared to other stuff it couldn't begin to hold it's own.

Then considering so much of buntu is Debian wearing an african mask, lol. If anyone deserves credit for "saving linux". Would have to think Debian has a much better basis and rights to that claim. Having been the grandfather of so many great variations of the OS.

Wondering how buntu came to be synonymous with Linux. Only thing I could conclude, is must be better marketing and promotion via canonical or summin. What am I missing folks ?

***

(edit) Was beginning to wonder about myself there for a second exploder. Asking whether ubuntu wasn't the horrid junk I've so far found it to be and thought maybe I was doing summin wrong.

Buntu 10.10 is still sitting in a desk drawer, may as well be in the trash. Never plan on reinstalling it on anything or giving it to anyone to try. This lil distro you directed me to puts buntu to shame and it's only a couple 100mb install total. Might not have an endless selection of software packages avail but it's got everything the avg comp user could possibly need for daily computing.

Had to install another browser ... like it, but midori doesn't make the grade. However a cool japanese variation of firefox called shiretoko is just a package manager search and install away. It's like FF 3.5+ or summin ... neat.

V

[exploder]

I don't see Ubuntu as saving Linux. Ubuntu is the king of hype and they make a lot of noise but their quality is horrible. All the articles in the world will never fix all of the bugs and regressions in Ubuntu. Ubuntu seems to build a lot of interest over little cosmetic things but the underlying system is massively bug ridden. Ubuntu 11.04 has problems with; plymouth, nvidea , udev, random errors, MPlayer, and the list goes on and on. As the IT Manager where I work said, "Ubuntu looks more like alpha software than a finished product".

The Ubuntu Developers simply do not listen to what the public has to say or want. I used to go through every release cycle and report bugs, it is a complete and total wast of time! Ubuntu's bug report system is all for show, they are only going to fix what they want even if patches are available. People want new versions of popular software, they do not want to add ppa repos and it is ridiculous that they do not offer updates. Ubuntu does not offer updates because it would take away from the hype and articles about the next release. Ubuntu is nothing more than a mass marketing machine.

I would guess that one third of Ubuntu downloads result in a CD that ends up in the trash because of the poor quality of their releases. Unity is not such a bad idea but until the base system itself is built decent, it is nothing more than a pretty screenshot. I don't think for one minute that Ubuntu or Unity are saving Linux.

[z06gal]

I don't see Ubuntu as saving Linux. Ubuntu is the king of hype and they make a lot of noise but their quality is horrible. All the articles in the world will never fix all of the bugs and regressions in Ubuntu. Ubuntu seems to build a lot of interest over little cosmetic things but the underlying system is massively bug ridden. Ubuntu 11.04 has problems with; plymouth, nvidea , udev, random errors, MPlayer, and the list goes on and on. As the IT Manager where I work said, "Ubuntu looks more like alpha software than a finished product".

The Ubuntu Developers simply do not listen to what the public has to say or want. I used to go through every release cycle and report bugs, it is a complete and total wast of time! Ubuntu's bug report system is all for show, they are only going to fix what they want even if patches are available. People want new versions of popular software, they do not want to add ppa repos and it is ridiculous that they do not offer updates. Ubuntu does not offer updates because it would take away from the hype and articles about the next release. Ubuntu is nothing more than a mass marketing machine.

I would guess that one third of Ubuntu downloads result in a CD that ends up in the trash because of the poor quality of their releases. Unity is not such a bad idea but until the base system itself is built decent, it is nothing more than a pretty screenshot. I don't think for one minute that Ubuntu or Unity are saving Linux.

Right on exploder. Excellent post.

[exploder]

Right on exploder. Excellent post.

Thanks z06gal! That's just how I see things.

[Fandangio]

Oh, I think it has the acceptance, albeit unwittingly. Everybody who says it's too hard, for geeks/nerds, not good enough, etc. are mostly speaking from popular wisdom, not from experience. How many of these people have and Android phone, a set-top cable box, a dvr, or some other device running Linux and accept such as being mainstream. I know, some of these do not have an interface recognizable as Linux. Yes, many an average Joe has no idea they are Linux based. Macs, iPhones, and iPads are supposed to be easy. Is it realistic to believe anyone who could operate any of these could not operate the Linux equivalent? Take a Windows user who has never used a Mac, will OS X be any easier than Mint or Ubuntu that they purchase pre-installed on a system? Isn't Tivo, another Linux based product, the brand name for retail DVRs?

Two weeks ago a small business owner was adamantly telling me that it was not possible to run a business using Linux based computers. This was as he answered an appointment call during supper on his DroidX. I have known this guy for ~7 years and understand him well enough to interpret what he said to mean he can not run a business using Linux and still use the same exact proprietary software he has always used. Do not ask him to learn something new. Two years ago he bought new business laptops and paid ~$100 extra for the "Stay with Win XP" option. Last month he changed to Win 7, but kept the classic *XP* interface.

I think his animosity towards Linux seems to stem mostly from having paid an non-programmer between $500 and $1000 that mostly went to hardware purchase. He wanted an interactive, touchscreen, scheduling application to be interfaced with an unspecified rfid device that would bill into Quickbooks on the WinXP machines on his network. The "developer" was an avionics technician who ran Ubuntu on his laptop. The guy actually did fairly well but the app had a bad memory leak due to one of it's dependencies which he could not overcome.

Like you, people who see my desktop are impressed and ask how. I have Compiz installed and the only time I use it is to show off. The cube, fire and the rain effects do catch the eye. If this is what is meant by "in your hands marketing" how far will it really go? There are vendors selling laptops and desktops preloaded with Linux. How much advertising do they do? How many non-Linux users have heard of zaReason or System 76. Dell has a Linux option on their site for purchase by individuals, but it seems harder to find than a living jackaloupe.

In the context that you and he used "in your hands marketing," where are the advertising budgets coming from? Not Red Hat, they are in a different market. One of the current system builders? Canonical? Why? I understand Google doing the Android development gratis and advertising in conjunction with the telcos and handset fabbers, consider its ad revenues. What distribution is going to buy a Superbowl ad? Does anyone think Canonical expects enough revenue from the Banshee music purchase residuals to fund a global campaign, or even one limited to heavily industrialized markets?

I think Unity will pull in more people, if it catches enough eyes. I hope it does. As adverse to change as most seem to be it will not be as great an influence as the "Year of the Linux Desktop" crowd would desire. I think it will be smart phone users who are less than 30 years old who are most accepting. I have not given Unity a test run, but isn't it better suited for a touch interface than a standard work and creative environment? You know, the tablet and netbook market? If the OS is being used to edit videos, create images, use spreadsheets, and do any of the other non entertainment or social work done on a computer, are not most going to resist the interface change as much as they would resist leaving Windows?

Wow, did I just rant? I've apparently spent to much time perusing tech blogs and reading the accompanying comments.

Blimey Dawgdoc, of course you're spot on!

I think the mention of in your hands advertising related to letting people use such systems instore. To browse the web, email, music and photos etc (as for the home market that's probably about 90% of the market. And honestly most Linux distros are far better than MS for this purpose.

On the home front it also annoys me the amount of people that cite (mainy on tech blogs as you say) a lack of photoshop, dreamweaver or any other indusrty standard software as a reason not to use linux. I know I am generalising but most home users probably only use these programs to about 10% of their capability. The average user will not spend >£500.00 for a piece of sw to remove red eye from a photo...

[rekik]

Hi exploder

Ubuntu is the king of hype and they make a lot of noise but their quality is horrible

So what are the good linux distros ? All Ubuntu derivatives inherits upstream bugs, and Debian causes more problems (see LMDE section in the forum) than Ubuntu.
PCLinuxOS ? OpenSuse ? Fedora ? Pardus ? They don't provide as much softs in their repos as Ubuntu, but are they less bugged ?

[DrHu]

I did not realize Linux was in need of salvation.

You are correct, it is not in need!
--recognize that type of comment as simply market-speak, and essentially irrational

The mobile devices market, which you might say was started by smart-phones and perhaps popularized by Apple and their IPad/IPhone has been exceeding home devices for a while; that is it has overtaken other devices or systems, such as desktop (notebooks surpassed those within the last few years), and increasingly more mobile devices, such as a tablet computer (read that as IPad), although it is not the first tablet or umpc (Ultra-Mobile PC)

So, can it be any surprise that trendy marketing (tech if that is what it claims to be) analysis portends Apple beating ouyt Linux
--in fact Apple's OSX has already been proclaimed as the number 1 OS alternative to windows, and is sometimes lumped in with a UN IX/Linux measurement..

I do not have the attitude of an xkcd character who did not want more people using linux because he would no longer be cool. I hope thee are always choices available that allow me to avoid "dumbed down" systems.

..who did not want more people using linux because he would no longer be cool
Yup, that is dumb
--and I venture to say is not the general attitude of most Linux users..
..allow me to avoid "dumbed down" systems
I hope so as well; if not I will have to go back to Gentoo to get a real Linux
--the problem is market; and Ubuntu sees itself as per Mark Shuttleworth as a market force to be reckoned with, they have said as much on their blogs. As such dumbing-down an OS to appeal to the largest number of (possibly dumb) users is something that is bound to increase over time

Perhaps due to the rise of the mobile device(s) force, or other rational/irrational reasons for going in that direction

The only thing I can say about mobile OS systems is that they works best on mobile devices, not home PCs nor even regular notebooks or net-books
--since a larger screen with a touch interface is almost a complete waste of time despite any touch PC manufacturer's (HP, others) efforts to persuade consumers that it is a better way.

Unless voice control worked as well as the Startrek computer or HAL in 2001, the keyboard is an efficient productive interface method, and likely best for most people..

[dawgdoc]

I listened to Mark Shuttleworth's keynote address to Ubuntu developers at UDS from last week sometime late last night. In it he said he wanted Ubuntu to have 200 million users in four years. He specifically mentioned Ubuntu had fallen behind iOS and Android. My math may be faulty, but 200 million will not catch Ubuntu up with where the two combined mobile OSes are at this point.

On a side note, he gave some praise to Ubuntu's documentation team for contributing back to Gnome3's documentation. There is another can of worms. (he asked for the team to raise it's hands for recognition, one person responded - off camera.)

[altair4]

Save Linux from obscurity? Ubuntu? Unity?

I remember reading somewhere that according to Gartner mobile devices will in the next few years overtake desktops / laptops so Unity, which seems more at home on such devices, would be a natural. But that means competing with Apple and Google. Unless Ubuntu starts manufacturing mobile devices themselves I don't see mobile device manufacturers putting Ubuntu on their devices.

Linux in the server space is a success. Of course that doesn't belong to Ubuntu either.

[dawgdoc]

I saw this article at The H: regarding Linux desktop usage around the world. It is about a report analyzing data from Statcounter and the conclusion was

StatCounter says these numbers indicate that, given a global internet population of 1.97 billion, there are at least 15 million active desktop Linux users globally and that the number "is probably significantly higher since there is a lot of overlap in these stats with people who use more than one OS and more than one computer".

If we exaggerated and said there were 20 million Linux desktops AND they all used Ubuntu (Dream on Mark S.), it still looks like a stretch of the imagination to see Canonical reaching the goal of 200 mil in four years.

Regarding the intent of the article, the region of the world with the highest %age of Linux desktops was Europe. Asia (not Oceana) and Africa had the lowest usage, I guess MSoft piracy lowers the usage of a no cost OS. As far as usage by nations went: Cuba had the highest usage (so it's not poverty that causes Windows piracy and low Linux usage). Both the USA and UK were below the mean of usage rates.

[Cacogen]

First of all, I loves me some Mint.

Unity is OK (especially if you're more a keyboard than mouse person). I don't know about "saving" Linux. But I can imagine a Unity desktop at 12.10 providing an option that is attractive to, for instance, people who do web dev or something on Macs. An OSX "lite," if you will, that might be attractive in terms of giving them non-Mac hardware options. And there's an outside chance that Ubuntu could play a role in landing Adobe CS for Linux. That would be big.

I don't know -- I can't abide KDE, but I've grown really sick of Gnome panels...so clunky and primitive.

My brother-in-law just purchased a nice new Lenovo laptop, and gave me permission to install Linux on his couple year-old, crap-ish HP. Primarily for my sister. He's _fairly_ tech-savvy, she's not. Think I'm going to dual-boot Mint 11 and Ubuntu 11.04. Curious to see which they prefer.

[exploder]

So what are the good linux distros ? All Ubuntu derivatives inherits upstream bugs, and Debian causes more problems (see LMDE section in the forum) than Ubuntu.
PCLinuxOS ? OpenSuse ? Fedora ? Pardus ? They don't provide as much softs in their repos as Ubuntu, but are they less bugged ?

I think PCLinuxOS has fewer bugs and regressions than Ubuntu. No software is perfect but I think these guys go above and beyond to fix and deal with bugs and regressions. Mepis is also heading in the right direction too. Mepis is not a rolling release but their community repo does provide updated packages for popular applications. Both these distributions are small compared to Canonical but they release when ready and I think they try harder than most distros to have good hardware compatibility.

Don't get me wrong, Clem does a lot to make the Ubuntu base usable. I needed better support for my nvidea graphics, with the Ubuntu base the drivers will work and suddenly quit. I never know if and when Canonical will fix issues like this and if they released when ready rather than on a schedule I would not have to deal with this type of problem.

[rekik]

Thanks exploder. Intriguingly, it seems as best distros are done by the smaller teams