Ubuntu Shamed by Webbook

[scottuss]

I went into a mobile phone store today as they advertised a Laptop running Linux called the Webbook. The other laptops around it were running Windows Vista, and had a bit of interest from other shoppers but the Linux based Webbook had no one looking at it. So few people that in fact both display models were actually switched off. And now I know why...

I powered them both up (don't ask why both lol) and was very very happy to see the Ubuntu boot screen. I own an EEE pc and expected this Linux netbook to boot in around the same time.

It didn't. It took several minutes which I felt was unacceptable, much slower than all of the other devices on display. When Ubuntu finally loaded, it was a stripped down torn apart version.

The theme was messy, so many applications had been removed or replaced and the 3G broadband connection software (the main point of the netbook, as it is sold with a contract) wasn't even a native Linux app. (WINE)

So the company that put this kit together did an half a***d job, and now Ubuntu looks bad to so many people! It just makes me a bit angry 'cos we all know how great Ubuntu really is! They should have customised Ubuntu more specifically for this hardware (or perhaps not used Ubuntu at all?) and then put some effort it. If we want Linux to take off big time, people need to see how great it is, not how rubbish it can look after some random company tears it up.

Just my thoughts...

[Shippou]

Hmmn.. seems like they are angry at Ubuntu, or Linux in general.

Or they just don't know how to set things up.

[karellen]

the same concern is expressed here: http://somethinggoodenough.com/082708-Netbooks

[LateNiteTV]

they probably make money selling vista licenses...

[TBOL3]

Um, isn't this illegal? Their using the ubuntu logo w/o canonicals permission.

[LateNiteTV]

Um, isn't this illegal? Their using the ubuntu logo w/o canonicals permission.

iiiiiiiimmmm pretty sure theyre not breaking any laws.

[Polygon]

If they have their own stripped down version of ubuntu, im sure they removed all traces of the ubuntu logo, since it only really appears in a couple of places.

[TBOL3]

Then how did he know it was ubuntu? He said he saw the ubuntu load screen.

[scottuss]

Yep it was def Ubuntu, there was the splash screen and the logo in the top left of the screen for the Applications menu.

I'm pretty sure that they can do this legally, even if it means an agreement with Canonical. It just seems such a shame!

[LateNiteTV]

ubuntu is free. you can do what you want with it, except sell it. they cant charge for the ubuntu software... they CAN charge for setting it up for the buyer. they can use their logo w/o breaking any law.

[steeleyuk]

ubuntu is free. you can do what you want with it, except sell it. they cant charge for the ubuntu software... they CAN charge for setting it up for the buyer. they can use their logo w/o breaking any law.

Yes you can sell it. But the cost doesn't cover the software, it covers the cost of the media, instructions, packaging or whatever else. Walmart sell it in the US.

[scottuss]

Yes you can sell it. But the cost doesn't cover the software, it covers the cost of the media, instructions, packaging or whatever else. Walmart sell it in the US.

Yeah good point, I believe it was going for around 20 dollars?

[olskar]

Why dont you talk to the storeowners about this? :) Many people is happy if they can get helped by other people with for example setting up Ubuntu in a nice way

[smartboyathome]

ubuntu is free. you can do what you want with it, except sell it. they cant charge for the ubuntu software... they CAN charge for setting it up for the buyer. they can use their logo w/o breaking any law.

You can't use the logo without agreement from Canonical. It is trademarked to Canonical, as well as the names Ubuntu and buntu, so the laptop IS breaking the law.

[TBOL3]

You can't use the logo without agreement from Canonical. It is trademarked to Canonical, as well as the names Ubuntu and buntu, so the laptop IS breaking the law.

That's what I was saying. However, if they did get permission from Canonical, then it is legal.

Oh, and yes, you can sell the software, it's just a nominal fee, that has no limit on it. So, I can sell you an ubuntu cd. But charge you 5 grand for the production of it.

[spoons]

And if they are shipping it with non-free software then as far as I know that violates the GPL?

[smartboyathome]

And if they are shipping it with non-free software then as far as I know that violates the GPL?

No, it doesn't. They just have to pay for a copy of the software for each copy of it sold.

[swoll1980]

ubuntu is free. you can do what you want with it, except sell it. they cant charge for the ubuntu software... they CAN charge for setting it up for the buyer. they can use their logo w/o breaking any law.

They can sell it too

oops to late

[TBOL3]

No, it doesn't. They just have to pay for a copy of the software for each copy of it sold.

Or whatever the person who made the non-free software wants, say, a one time fee, that could be big.

But if you couldn't include non-free software, it wouldn't be OSS, because, unless I'm wrong, one of the requirements is that it cannot require linked software to be open.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Hate to say it, but this seems to be a serious problem at the moment with Ubuntu that is happening across the board. Look at Valusoft, for example. Their Ubuntu package contains broken English, confusing / inaccurate claims all over the packaging, a redundant and flawed manual ("Press F10 and choose to boot from CD-ROM" -- Not every BIOS works that way) as well as other items that basically eliminate any capacity for it to be taken seriously.
Oh, and it just looks plain ugly.

I really hope that Canonical will defend their trademark more vigorously in the future. I am not saying they should deny people the right to distribute it, but what is happening here risks dilluting the brand being built. Companies that use the resources properly should be encouraged, while poor implementations of the product should be dealt with. Not denied, but concerns raised and possible solutions provided to ensure a good product gets out the door - one that gives a good example of the Ubuntu operating system we know.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Actually, this reminds me a lot of Sony. They have wonderful hardware, but their consumer-level computers are infamous for having incredibly bad preloaded software that completely demolishes the experience for most users.
For example, I was today helping someone over the phone with a Sony laptop on which ZoneAlarm could not be installed. Some existing software was causing a criptically described conflict and there were issues with "missing drivers". This was a brand new computer.
Some recent models have had not one, but two Symantec security products installed from the start.
Running their recovery disk requires clicking through countless errors as trials fail to install themselves due to the system clock not yet being set and such errors they should have fixed.

When Sony laptops cause errors, people assume the fault is with Microsoft.
In short, we are not alone here. Without a doubt, even Windows would be seen in a better light if it was not for companies like Sony. (And Symantec). The problem is we give too much power to incompetent software developers.

Edit:
Sorry about the double post :o

[Alan Bell]

Hi folks, I am a bit late to the thread, sorry about that. I am one of the folk who helped put Ubuntu on the webbook. It was not a surprise to Canonical and not done without discussions of a commercial nature (which are not much to do with me). The bootup time of the eeePC is indeed impressive, partly because of the SSD drive rather than the 80GB sata disk and partly because Xandros doesn't do very much on bootup (and beyond for that matter). Xandros also has a compressed file system with a unionFS overlay which means that on bootup it has less data to pull from the disk. This approach has significant downsides too in that you can't really update the software on disk because that fills up the unionfs very very fast. The Ubuntu on the webbook is 100% genuine Ubuntu installed from the alternate CD with the OEM option. We added a couple of extra packages (planner, tuxpaint, wine and some others that don't spring directly to mind) from the repos and we took nothing whatsoever out. (what precisely was missing from the one you saw - the only thing I can think of is that they set up a second non-admin user for the display which might have less admin stuff in the menus)
The broadband dialer on the first few thousand units is this one http://www.pharscape.org/ which is GPL licensed, on the rest it is a new dialer called Wader which we commissioned as a GPL development, are hosting from a launchpad PPA. There should be a press release about that soon so I won't go into too much detail yet. There never was a wine based dialer, that would totally suck. Some of the broadband dongles have a stupid feature of including a pseudo CDROM containing windows drivers and a dialer. It is possible that on the display models you saw someone installed these windows drivers. I kind of regret installing wine because of this.
The graphics driver at the moment is the openchrome driver, which is a bit buggy. We have a VIA unichrome driver patched to drive the 1024x600 LCD, but it isn't built for the current kernel so we can't deploy it yet. You have no idea how much this irritates me, I have Compiz running on my webbook but I can't let everyone have it just yet.
One of the problems with the graphics driver is that the XV extension doesn't work. You can turn this off by running gstreamer-properties. More details on the webbook blog http://webbookblog.com/?p=44

There are certainly challenges in getting a network of stores and several layers of call centres up to speed and enthusiastic about selling and supporting Ubuntu. On the technical side we are trying very hard to do the right thing.

[billgoldberg]

ubuntu is free. you can do what you want with it, except sell it. they cant charge for the ubuntu software... they CAN charge for setting it up for the buyer. they can use their logo w/o breaking any law.

You can sell Ubuntu, no prob.

[Cap'n Skyler]

Hi folks, I am a bit late to the thread, sorry about that. I am one of the folk who helped put Ubuntu on the webbook. It was not a surprise to Canonical and not done without discussions of a commercial nature (which are not much to do with me). The bootup time of the eeePC is indeed impressive, partly because of the SSD drive rather than the 80GB sata disk and partly because Xandros doesn't do very much on bootup (and beyond for that matter). Xandros also has a compressed file system with a unionFS overlay which means that on bootup it has less data to pull from the disk. This approach has significant downsides too in that you can't really update the software on disk because that fills up the unionfs very very fast. The Ubuntu on the webbook is 100% genuine Ubuntu installed from the alternate CD with the OEM option. We added a couple of extra packages (planner, tuxpaint, wine and some others that don't spring directly to mind) from the repos and we took nothing whatsoever out. (what precisely was missing from the one you saw - the only thing I can think of is that they set up a second non-admin user for the display which might have less admin stuff in the menus)
The broadband dialer on the first few thousand units is this one http://www.pharscape.org/ which is GPL licensed, on the rest it is a new dialer called Wader which we commissioned as a GPL development, are hosting from a launchpad PPA. There should be a press release about that soon so I won't go into too much detail yet. There never was a wine based dialer, that would totally suck. Some of the broadband dongles have a stupid feature of including a pseudo CDROM containing windows drivers and a dialer. It is possible that on the display models you saw someone installed these windows drivers. I kind of regret installing wine because of this.
The graphics driver at the moment is the openchrome driver, which is a bit buggy. We have a VIA unichrome driver patched to drive the 1024x600 LCD, but it isn't built for the current kernel so we can't deploy it yet. You have no idea how much this irritates me, I have Compiz running on my webbook but I can't let everyone have it just yet.
One of the problems with the graphics driver is that the XV extension doesn't work. You can turn this off by running gstreamer-properties. More details on the webbook blog http://webbookblog.com/?p=44

There are certainly challenges in getting a network of stores and several layers of call centres up to speed and enthusiastic about selling and supporting Ubuntu. On the technical side we are trying very hard to do the right thing.kudos for stepping in and explaining what is going on.would not be shocked to know the sales staff is the issue(they be not linux knowledgeable) so i bet they dont make any effort to figure it out.can the co you work for send the word to make sure the sale staff will have these units up and running and available for people to play and explore with?and not just push them aside and power them (or set screensaver to black) down?

please do post up any news from this that would be useful :):popcorn:

[Alan Bell]

It is a variable picture on the sales side. Some stores are really enthusiastic about them, others not so much. I am some distance from that side of the project. If you can tell me the store location (private message should do it) then I can do a bit more about it. I think in general terms the point to learn is that we need a way for the stores to properly reset the display webbooks they trash.

[Johnsie]

you can sell Ubuntu... you can also set it up on computers and sell those computers. Cannonical dont force people to use every non base-system package and they certainly don't force people to use a specific set of packages. That's why they offer a base install. If you don't like how other people configure their systems then tough luck lol :-)

[Alan Bell]

One thing I have not put a lot of thought to up to now is what we should do with the display models specifically. There is no rolling demo mode or anything like that, they are just regular production models like the ones that go to users. Should we do something different with them? I don't particularly want to lock them down more or folk will think the real thing is locked down. There is some merit to reflashing them daily. What would be the ideal setup for a display model of an Ubuntu computer?

[StumpyMcDonut]

A display model surely should have everything available to it that will sell it. Putting useful keyboard shortcuts and links on how to find useful software as the background image might be useful, as will perhaps letting the users customise it a little, such as installing a good variety of themes (Not many, just different ones) as default and letting them see them, and show how to change them. The screensaver should be impressive (The Matrix one never seems to fail at that), and the plethora of accessibility options are very useful.

You could also make sure there are shortcuts to information about the system, tutorials and such. I'm wondering if you could get a deal with canonical over their online training thing that they do, and (If it were possible) let people that bought the laptops use it? Then again, some pdfs on the desktop would be extremely handy

It shouldn't be hard, as long as you restrict access to terminal and other such things that could cause headaches.

Last thing - make sure its pointed out clearly how simple it is to install software. And make sure its pointed out how safe it is to do so on top of this.




If you had a display model with a "proper" laptop, compiz would be impressive to show (Perhaps it works on the webbooks, I'm unsure of the specs - an eeePC can handle some simple stuff), because Vista has a good amount of eye candy, and Ubuntu isn't exactly the sleekest OS in its vanilla form - many won't draw the conclusion that Vista would look just as bad and run ten times slower on the same laptop, they'll just think "ugly"

I'd suggest changing the default theme, but you'd have to make it the default with the install disc you give them, too.


To sum it up, I believe the keyboard shortcuts on the background would be extremely handy for someone new, along with information on what Ubuntu is (Sprinkled in with some handy stuff on open source and security benefits) although setting the screensaver as a slideshow of the features you can get (There must be plenty) would probably draw the most attention - just leave it plugged in and set the screen to only go black after an hour or so. OR, have that as a viewable slideshow, and use the screensaver as something to catch their eye...



Heh, sorry for the long reply. I just kept thinking of stuff, and that last bit is probably unnecessary :S


Its fantastic to see some support though. Kudos to you :)





PS: Had a look at your blog, and its very informative. A link to that would work wonders!

[nothingspecial]

Haha, you have a problem here. Leave the display models as the default install and anybody who messes with them (especially the "it experts" who work in large computer shops), can make them seem rubbish. A few clicks in the wrong place and your beautiful install is ****ed.
Lock them down, and the very people who might like to give linux a go, `cause of it`s freedom and customization might miss the point.
Me, I`ll keep taking the messed up pcs from work.

[init1]

the same concern is expressed here: http://somethinggoodenough.com/082708-Netbooks
Yeah, I sorta agree with this quote:


Once of the reasons why Linux is so great, is also one of the reasons it can never be main-stream.

And if it does become mainstream, it will not because of the reason that make it great.

[Alan Bell]

A display model surely should have everything available to it that will sell it.

totally agree, which is why I presumed just sticking them out there on the stands would be sufficient.


Putting useful keyboard shortcuts and links on how to find useful software as the background image might be useful, as will perhaps letting the users customise it a little, such as installing a good variety of themes (Not many, just different ones) as default and letting them see them, and show how to change them. The screensaver should be impressive (The Matrix one never seems to fail at that), and the plethora of accessibility options are very useful.

I am not worried about LCD image persistence so I don't think we need a screensaver, all the openGL ones are out of the question right now anyway.


You could also make sure there are shortcuts to information about the system, tutorials and such. I'm wondering if you could get a deal with canonical over their online training thing that they do, and (If it were possible) let people that bought the laptops use it? Then again, some pdfs on the desktop would be extremely handy
good idea

It shouldn't be hard, as long as you restrict access to terminal and other such things that could cause headaches.
my inclination would be to leave it all open just not give out the password for sudo access, and give the store a USB key to boot from each day to nuke it and start again

Last thing - make sure its pointed out clearly how simple it is to install software. And make sure its pointed out how safe it is to do so on top of this.




If you had a display model with a "proper" laptop, compiz would be impressive to show (Perhaps it works on the webbooks, I'm unsure of the specs - an eeePC can handle some simple stuff), because Vista has a good amount of eye candy, and Ubuntu isn't exactly the sleekest OS in its vanilla form - many won't draw the conclusion that Vista would look just as bad and run ten times slower on the same laptop, they'll just think "ugly"
when VIA give us the patched drivers that we can actually use it will run Compiz. Looks brilliant.

I'd suggest changing the default theme, but you'd have to make it the default with the install disc you give them, too.
we did change the default theme, just a new wallpaper and GDM theme to match the webbook logo


To sum it up, I believe the keyboard shortcuts on the background would be extremely handy for someone new, along with information on what Ubuntu is (Sprinkled in with some handy stuff on open source and security benefits) although setting the screensaver as a slideshow of the features you can get (There must be plenty) would probably draw the most attention - just leave it plugged in and set the screen to only go black after an hour or so. OR, have that as a viewable slideshow, and use the screensaver as something to catch their eye...



Heh, sorry for the long reply. I just kept thinking of stuff, and that last bit is probably unnecessary :S


Its fantastic to see some support though. Kudos to you :)





PS: Had a look at your blog, and its very informative. A link to that would work wonders!
A link to the blog on the webbook would indeed be a good idea. Want to guess how "official" the blog is? :-)

[scottuss]

I'll be honest, I dont think that the staff would bother nuking them everyday. They aint interested in the Webbook. Since my discovery I posted about the other day, I decided to check out the webbooks in some other stores and their demo models were also switched off, badly customised with terrible looking themes and terrible boot up times.

There is a patched kernel for EEE Pc's (array.org) that I am now running on mine that allows the eee to boot nearly as fast as Xandros (no kidding!) Surely something similar could be done for the Webbook?

[phenest]

I could be off-topic here, but perhaps Linux needs to be 'sold' differently. It's already confusing that Linux based OS's have 2 names: Ubuntu (for this one), and Linux. I know Linux is not an OS, but neither is Ubuntu without Linux. Instead of trying to educate people, maybe we just need to alter their perception.

How many people buy a new computer simply because their old one 'seems' to be slower. Almost as if they believe it's 'wearing out', or it 'can't cope' any more. Both of which are usually erroneous, and usually solved by re-installing the OS. But THAT is a bizarre thing to do, as well. People have become so completely dependant on Windows, there is little chance they will even think about using something else, and will want everything else to behave like Windows.

It is pointless trying to explain the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit. If they have to ask the question, then it is likely they will not understand the answer. The answer to this particular question would be more easily solved by simply installing the correct version as per the CPU requirements. But, oh, hang on! Doesn't the 64 bit version of Windows have bugs? Which is why the 32 bit version of Windows is supplied even if the CPU supports 64 bit? Things like that are not helping anyone, including developers.

Consumers need to be sold computers as per their requirements without having to give technical specification. And that is also how Linux based OS's need to be sold. Chucking Ubuntu on a laptop so it's 'out there' or because it's the cheapest solution is not going to gain it any popularity. The WebBook should have Ubuntu as an alternative OS, for those that want it.

Linux based OS's CAN become main-stream, but only when people want it. Linux is about choice.

But I would like to know what everyone is going to do if MS go ahead with their Midori project and drop Windows. Now, that IS off-topic.