With the release of Dell’s Ubuntu computer line only two days away (less than two days, depending on where you live), there’s still a lot of speculation about what this might mean for Linux on the desktop.
Many are optimistic. Some believe this will mean more open drivers and better hardware support. Others think this will help bring legitimacy to Linux as not being an obscure geeky OS (or kernel, I guess) now that a major OEM is supporting a distro for consumer systems.
Then there’s the pessimistic camp full of conspiracy theories about Michael Dell collaborating with Steve Ballmer to set up desktop Linux to fail by offering Ubuntu computers and then noting how they won’t sell.
I don’t think it’s going to have much of an effect at all. I’m excited about preinstalled Ubuntu computers from a major OEM. I truly am. But this is not going to be a May 24 revolution on Thursday. For almost everyone in the world, technologically speaking, May 24 will be the same as May 23 and May 22. It’ll be as if nothing ever happened. There won’t be hoards of self-proclaimed non-tech-savvy users in the United States and Canada rushing to buy Ubuntu-preloaded desktops and laptops. At the same time, the sales won’t be a failure. They’ll sell. People will buy them. Current Linux users who want guaranteed hardware support will buy them. Current Linux users who believe supporting the effort will show Dell the effort was worth it will buy them. That’s about it, especially since I haven’t heard of any plans by Dell to actually market the Ubuntu systems or put them as links off the Dell website homepage. The Ubuntu systems will end up like the current N-series desktops and laptops—available to those who know about them, tucked somewhere in the back.
And that’s when the conspiracy theorists will come out of the woodwork again: “See? Dell was just setting them up to fail.” The optimists will also chime in, “It could have been big; it could have been a revolution! Too bad Dell didn’t market the Ubuntu computers properly.” I’m a little bit conspiracy theorist and a little bit optimist. I think Dell honestly wanted to please its Dell Idea Storm users but also kept an eye on the bottom line (i.e., money and profit), and the Ubuntu systems not heavily advertised or supported or souped up (with multimedia codecs, for example) was the best way to do that. Idealist though I can be sometimes, when I really think about it, I wouldn’t do things any differently if I were Michael Dell.
When you’ve kept track of Linux headlines long enough, you realize “the revolution will not be televised.” It’s not going to happen overnight. There won’t be a “year of the Linux desktop.” But every little thing is a bit of progress in that direction toward fixing Bug #1. OLPC, Goobuntu, Portland Project, LSB, Dell Ubuntu, various governments and schools implementing Linux workstations and desktops. May 24 will come and go, but the percentage of desktop Linux users will keep slowly increasing, and eventually we will have to be recognized… or end up the biggest secret society after the Masons!