Why doesn't Canonical make laptops?

[UtnubuLap]

Pardon my ridiculous question, but...

Why doesn't Canonical make laptops? They are teaming up with BQ to make phones and tablets, why not team up and make laptops, stationary computers and servers? After all, Ubuntu started out as a desktop and server distro.

I know System76, Entroware, etc make laptops, but they are a real pain to get if you live outside of the US or UK. If they would ship, I would have to pay 25% import tax, and not get a Norwegian keyboard or adaptor. Making it no where near competitive to just getting a Windows laptop at the store and installing Ubuntu myself. Dell did make XPS, and they are available in Norway, but they are massivly overpriced (here at least), though they are apparently excellent laptop's, so I guess the pricing is justifiable.

I can get an Ubuntu phone here in Norway at a reasonable price vs what the price is in other countries via a internet shop within the country. Being able to get Ubuntu laptop's in a similar way would be incredible!

Getting a pre-installed Ubuntu laptop with average spec's at an average price seems to be impossible just about everywhere, except US and UK. I'd get a System76 or Entroware laptop in an instant if I lived either place.

Is it just easier to make phone and tablets, since there is no need to fit different language keyboards? The phone and tablet market more profitable? Too much of an investment and risk with making and shipping laptops? What other reasons are there?

It's not a rant, I am just genuinely curious, and pardon my stupid questions. :)

[bapoumba]

Thread moved to The Cafe as it is not a support question.

[MartyBuntu]

I would buy an Ubuntu laptop, if Canonical offered one that had respectable specs and reasonable shipping costs.

[Irihapeti]

Why not contact Canonical and ask them the question.

[izznogooood]

Hello fellow Norwegian!

I too would buy a laptop preinstalled with Ubuntu. However I don´t think there is a marked (outside US/UK) big enough for profit just yet. There are far too many busynesses dependent on the MS office (and family) tools. And there are no "real" alternatives if you are communicating with multiple busynesses. There are alternatives, but they are not compatible enough. (Without lots of fiddling)

But the idea of a small notebook with ubuntu, like the small asus things released some years ago with XP. Under 200Euro ... That would sell....

[Frogs Hair]

Mir and the next Unity are part of a proposed cross device integration, but it is unknown if that will lead to Canonical branded laptops.

[vasa1]

Pardon my ridiculous question, but...

Why doesn't Canonical make laptops? They are teaming up with BQ to make phones and tablets, why not team up and make laptops, stationary computers and servers? After all, Ubuntu started out as a desktop and server distro.

I know System76, Entroware, etc make laptops, but they are a real pain to get if you live outside of the US or UK. ...

I can get an Ubuntu phone here in Norway at a reasonable price vs what the price is in other countries via a internet shop within the country. Being able to get Ubuntu laptop's in a similar way would be incredible!

...? Too much of an investment and risk with making and shipping laptops? What other reasons are there?

..., and pardon my stupid questions. :)

You question isn't ridiculous or stupid by any standard.

In my opinion, Canonical may view itself more as a software company rather than a hardware company.
Canonical has some sort of tie-up with Dell, in some countries, to sell Canonical-approved (?) laptops with Ubuntu pre-loaded. India and China are two countries mentioned in this context. I've seen mention of Dell laptops pre-loaded with Ubuntu 12.04.

The IT shop closest to my home sells assorted laptops, desktops, including Dell laptops pre-loaded with Ubuntu but doesn't remember selling even one without replacing the OS with a pirated version of a commercial OS.

It's also not clear what happens if one upgrades or does a clean install of 14.04 (or higher) or installs any other official flavor: will the warranty be voided?

As suggested above, one could contact Canonical for information.

[pauljw]

Why doesn't a Norwegian company build an Ubuntu powered laptop?

[grahammechanical]

Canonical is a software company. It is not rich enough to make hardware. If you go on insights.ubuntu.com & canonical.com you will get the impression, as I have, that Canonical will partner with just about anyone if it means more users of Ubuntu.

If we accept that Canonical is the expert when it comes to Ubuntu. Then we have to accept that Canonical is not the expert when it comes to the manufacture of hardware. So, it is "Yes" to partnerships and "No" to hardware manufacture.

http://partners.ubuntu.com/find-a-partner

Regards.

[buzzingrobot]

Canonical would need to purchase the laptops from a manufacturer, pre-install Ubuntu, market them, and create a service and support capability. (This is what System76, etc., do.) That's a business decision, and would also be a major change for Canonical.

The approach to phone/tablets seems to be to supply the software other vendors use on products they make, market, and support.

[mastablasta]

it is understandable that canonical is not in hardware business. but they instead partnered with various manufacturers. i am not sure how true is this still today, but there are other Dells with Ubuntu preloaded. there were Vostros and Inspirons. in developing countries there is more choice form low end ot high end of preloaded laptops. you get Asus (or was it Acer) with their Linpus, Lenovos with Ubutnu (i think it was ubuntu), Dell with Ubutnu...

yup here is dell vostro on dell.de:

Auswahlhilfe: BetriebssystemeDas Betriebssystem gehört zu den wichtigsten Programmen auf Ihrem Computer.

- Jeder PC benötigt ein Betriebssystem zur Ausführung der anderen Programme.
- Das Betriebssystem führt grundlegende Aufgaben durch. Unter anderem dient es zur Erkennung der Tastatureingaben, zum Senden der Ausgabe an den Monitor, zur Verwaltung der Dateien und Verzeichnisse auf der Festplatte sowie zur Steuerung von Geräten wie optischen Laufwerken und Druckern.
- Über das Betriebssystem wird auch festgelegt, wie der Computer auf verfügbare Netzwerke zugreift.

Windows
- Windows 10 Pro (64 Bit)
- Windows 8.1 Pro (64 Bit)
- Windows 8.1 (64 Bit)
- Windows 7 Professional (64 Bit)
- Windows 7 Professional (32 Bit)

Linux
- Ubuntu 12.04 Linux
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS




http://pilot.search.dell.com/ubuntu


in Europe you can buy laptops with no OS preloaded. since cannonical is partner of some of these manufacturers they worked with them to get the laptops certified: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/

for example a whole range of buisiness HP laptops comes with SUSE EL preloaded here. since they are also Ubutnu certified it is easy to replace the OS and everything will work out of the box (hint they also work out of the box with OpenSUSE). not ideal, but this is an option.

[UtnubuLap]

I understand the responses, however as Canonical have partnered with BQ to make phones and tablets, I don't see anything stopping them from partnering with someone to release "official" Ubuntu laptops. Here in Norway, you can only get laptops from 1 vendor with Ubuntu pre-installed, which is Dell. One of which comes with a Celeron processor and the others are high priced XPS laptops. There is no medium spec'ed laptop at a decent price. Either a "useless" laptop, which will give Ubuntu negative rep., or high end laptops, which most casual laptop users will not throw cash at. If you want an average laptop, it's the old story; buy a laptop with Windows pre-installed, install Ubuntu yourself, and face potential hardware/driver problems. The person walking down the street does not want to/know how to download Ubuntu, put it on a USB, install it and fix potential problems. Most new users won't register on an online forum or join IRC to ask how to get wifi, trackpad, etc to work. Software and hardware "needs" to go together for the majority of users. They want to press the ON button and then use an internet browser, e-mail client and create some documents and spreadsheets, and then press OFF. Not trawl the web for solutions and driver tinkering.

I realise that in many case it's not as rough as I have portrayed, and that once Ubuntu is set up it is smooth sailing. (ON - inet browsing/e-mail/text document/spreadsheet - OFF) Just want to note that I don't wish to see Ubuntu "locked down" to specific "official" laptops, but I wish for there to be an easy option, which may make Ubuntu a bit more mainstream.

(Just bought a new laptop, with Windows 7 and a Windows logo key. Will install Ubuntu on it, and fix any small problems that may be present with the help of more tech savy people on this forum and IRC, but I still can't wait for the day when I can get a laptop that comes with Ubuntu (or any other linux distro) that works out of the box, and where I don't have to tinker, but where I am able to tinker if I wish.)

I just read through it, seems like a rant, sorry about that, it isn't, I just really would like to see Ubuntu official laptop's. :)

[mastablasta]

I understand the responses, however as Canonical have partnered with BQ to make phones and tablets, I don't see anything stopping them from partnering with someone to release "official" Ubuntu laptops. Here in Norway, you can only get laptops from 1 vendor with Ubuntu pre-installed, which is Dell. One of which comes with a Celeron processor and the others are high priced XPS laptops. There is no medium spec'ed laptop at a decent price.

yes that is an issue. but i guess Ubutnu doesnt' have strenght with bigger OEMs while smaller ones are not interested in the small market. which is why this happens (low end and higher end only).

on the other hand liek i wrote oyu do have Vostros (which shoul dbe medium range business laptops available in germany and a si undertsand also with Ubuntu.

Same with HP - business versions with SUSE. not saying these are not good for home user.

and if you look at independents - System 76 - pricy and not known in general public. there are a few smaller vendors like that over Europe i believe. Norway is outside of EU so customs and tax might be an issue. but i bet you could pop in to Sweden or Denmark and get a well priced laptop with no VAT attached. :) my faviourite part when not in EU - German PC stuff. already cheaper than here and then you can get them in without VAT.

[izznogooood]

(Just bought a new laptop, with Windows 7 and a Windows logo key. Will install Ubuntu on it, and fix any small problems that may be present with the help of more tech savy people on this forum and IRC, but I still can't wait for the day when I can get a laptop that comes with Ubuntu (or any other linux distro) that works out of the box, and where I don't have to tinker, but where I am able to tinker if I wish.)

I just read through it, seems like a rant, sorry about that, it isn't, I just really would like to see Ubuntu official laptop's. :)

I understand where you are coming from and believe me when I say I would like that as well. Especially the just install and no tinkering necessary part. However, the main problem is within the licensing of the proprietary software/drivers.And all though there are many options there are none that offers full support for both MS and Linux.

On my system I use Evolution to substitute Outlook, Libreoffice with font "twinkles" for office. And I have no substitutt for Visio so i have a Vbox with Win10.

What would be great would be a sidestep from Ubuntu with all the Proprietary drivers / fonts / tweaks you need. There are how ever a lot of legal issues that need to be clarified. Like is it possible to have this preinstalled and all you need to do is accept the license after install etc... Just thoughts.

[irv]

This is on topic but a little off. I have a little Chromebook running KDE and a hot key to switch between KDE and Chome OS but I still miss my My laptop with Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity. So I started looking at Acer's 14" Cloudbook, (but of course it comes with Win10). To me, this would be perfect for Canonical and Acer to get together on this one. Right now you can get the Cloudbook for under $200, In fact, I found a referb for $159 and it was a 64gig, not a 32.
Just think if Acer is selling this low-end laptop with Windows on it, it would even be cheaper with Ubuntu. Now I know I can buy one and put Ubuntu on it, but it is hit and miss from reading install threads on it. One guy got 6 of them and 4 worked out great but had trouble installing Ubuntu on two of them. I think Acer is using different hardware. maybe video chip problem. I plan on sending Acer a request to see if they would consider selling them with Ubuntu or no OS at all.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the one thing I like about this low-end laptop is the battery life. I think it was something like 12 or 15 hours. Got a love that because I am looking for an on-the-road laptop, and this thing only 3.5 lb. This is like a Mac Air but at a 10th of the price.

[Geoffrey_Arndt]

Seems there are "ample" pre-installed Linux PC's available in most areas (see link in signature below). I'm sure there are other "system integrators" not listed but some research will turn them up. So, Canonical having any kind of a hand in manufacturing or even branding HW is a "non-starter" . . .

Most OEM's and SYS.Integrators want/need to promote their own brand, with some minimal level of marketing. System76 does a pretty good job at that but is not the only one. Why not support those small companies that for 10 years or more have been trying to make a go of it by selling Linux hardware?