Canonical Chases Deal to Ship Ubuntu Server OS

Kurtz'sKompund writes "Canonical, the company that supports Ubuntu Linux, is trying to work out a deal with hardware vendors such as Dell to make Ubuntu available pre-installed on servers. 'Canonical, despite obviously supporting such a deal, had little to do with Dell's decision. Dell said it was merited by customer demand. Likewise, the decision of whether Ubuntu Server will ship pre-installed will be determined the same way.'"

Pre-installed OS

[totallygeek (263191)]

I wonder how many of you want pre-installed operating systems - any operating system. It seems to me that most installations have a central installation service (kickstart, jumpstart, etc) and would like boxes to be configured with certain parameters and niceties, such as partition and block sizing, configuration files, kernel versions, cfEngine keys, local accounts, etc... I really am curious, as I have never used the factory-installed operating system. Even if it came with one, the first item on the 'to do' list was to wipe the drive and start over.

Pre-installed SHOULD mean "working drivers".

[khasim (1285)]

If it comes with an install CD with all of the necessary drivers included ... awesome!

Even with imaging WinXP, you'll need the drivers. You'll have to find the drivers. Somewhere. And build your image with them.

Re:

[totallygeek (263191)]

If it comes with an install CD with all of the necessary drivers included ... awesome!

Actually something I liked from the Compaq SmartStart. You would start your installation with the Compaq CD, tell it which OS, it would create a small drivers partition and manage the installation process setting up the hardware drivers.

Re:Pre-installed SHOULD mean "working drivers".

[Zonk (troll) (1026140)]

Even with imaging WinXP, you'll need the drivers. You'll have to find the drivers. Somewhere. And build your image with them.

They're all right here [driverpacks.net].

Re:Pre-installed SHOULD mean "working drivers".

[Sillygates (967271)]

f it comes with an install CD with all of the necessary drivers included ... awesome!
Even with imaging WinXP, you'll need the drivers. You'll have to find the drivers. Somewhere. And build your image with them.

This isn't WinXP here. The type of hardware that ends up in server boxes usually has complete support in any recent kernel release.
And, companies like RedHat make sure all the kernel modules for HBA cards are compiled too.

Re:

[cstdenis (1118589)]

Pre-installed is great for end home user desktops. Not everyone are techies like us who would rather do it themselves.

But for servers it does seem kinda pointless. Servers should only be setup by just such techies. I'll take an UP TO DATE driver and OS cd, but I'll do the install myself.

Re:

[perlchild (582235)]

Larger orders for pre-installed server can get you asked you for the kickstart file, it can really save you a lot of time.

Re:Pre-installed OS

[Hercynium (237328)]

Well, while I tend to go thru the same exact process on every server I deal with, I can see *one* big advantage - Reputation.

The typical PHB has by now recognized RHEL as *the* Linux for servers. Thru good marketing, development, support, and business, RedHat has become the de-facto standard for Linux in the enterprise server market.

Case in point - Not ONE of the enterprise apps I work with is supported on anything BUT RHEL, (or in one case SuSE) HOWEVER, I've tested many of them in the lab with Debian and Ubuntu and found that all work very well... but there's a snowball's chance in hell that management would let me use Debian or Ubuntu. RedHat's reputation as Linux for serious business is entrenched in their minds, and entrenched in the market.

I have a lot of respect and appreciation for RedHat's offerings. I prefer Debian, and in the corporate world, Ubuntu is the only Debian derivitave that has a chance of becoming a contender.

Being a default offering on Dell servers is a golden opportunity to start building the reputation they need. PHBs will see the Ubuntu option on Dell's web-site and after about a thousand times they may begin to wonder if it's something worth investigating. :)

If Canonical produces a systems-management/data-center platform that can compete with offerings available for RedHat, I believe that sysadmins, enterprise software vendors, and even managers will start to take notice. If Ubuntu can garner reputation as an alternative to RHEL, we may start seeing not just hardware support but also software support.

Granted, this is all just a wild dream for me, but let me tell you - if someday Oracle announces support for Ubuntu, it could be a dream come true!

Time is money

[Chuck Chunder (21021)]

I recently had the displeasure of attempting to install Red Hat Enterprise Server 4 on an HP ML115. Apparantly it's supported but naturally the Red Hat you get from them doesn't have all the necessary drivers. There is a driver page on the HP website, though exactly which driver(s) you may need to make your particular hardware see the disks seems to be left up to guess work. So you try them all one by one and it still won't work.

A lot of wasted time and frustration and for the people paying me by the hou

Re:

[dwater (72834)]

> I recently had the displeasure of attempting to install Red Hat Enterprise Server 4 on an HP ML115.

I installed SME server on a similar computer (one of the older Compaq ones) and had no issues at all. It's a little known distro, but based on my experiences, I would recommend it :

http://www.smeserver.org/ [smeserver.org]

Re:

[dwater (72834)]

> I wonder how many of you want pre-installed operating systems - any operating system.

I would. It tells me that the OS works on that h/w (ie there are drivers).

These days, I buy h/w in the hope that it will all work. I try a live cd if I can, but sometimes that isn't possible and I resort to searching for comment/reports online.

Really though, why do you wipe the hard disk? Can't you just install over the top of it? Ignoring the previous contents of the hard drive is usually just a click in the installat

I disagree...

[Belial6 (794905)]

I want a live CD that has drivers for all of the hardware, and applications to test with. This way if the machine acts up, I can put the install CD in, and know immediately whether the problem is hardware or software related. Preferably the disk would have recovery applications, and the ability to connect to the manufacturer for screen sharing initiated by the user.

Of course, for installing on a hard disk, I want to make my own choices in hardware.

Re:I disagree...

[mabhatter654 (561290)]

I'm kind of surprised Dell hasn't caught on to that idea yet. If they sell Dell hardware and make sure Ubuntu has all the drives they could load up a custom live CD with all sorts of troubleshooting goodies. Then rather then asking a zillion stupid questions they could point you to the CD if you have to call with broken hardware.. no matter what OS you chose to use! Live CD can read the hard drive, connect to the internet, have 3D desktops, etc.... they're far from tech only "recovery" discs they used to be. Moves like that would go a long way to making regular users see Linux as Legit.

Re:

[Belial6 (794905)]

Sorry, I should have said that I want this supported by the hardware manufacturer. If I call them saying that hardware has failed, I don't want to have to argue about it, and I definitely don't want to have to format my drive to prove it isn't a software problem. I want to put in a CD that the manufacturer agrees will load the hardware into a usable state. If the computer fails to function, then there would be no argument about whether it is hardware or software.

Re:

[mrsteveman1 (1010381)]

I think you took the word "erasing" too literally.

But is it supported?

[dedazo (737510)]

As in *actually* supported? Otherwise I'd just get plain Debian stable or CentOS [centos.org], which is a downstream version of RHEL that works great.

I don't know if Ubuntu might ever match RHEL, but it's possible that Canonical might end up being RedHat's main competitor. Right now AFAIK that would be Novell and their server business is not doing amazingly well.

Re:

[radeex (1126305)]

I already mentioned this in response to another post, but yes, it's really really supported. http://canonical.com/support [canonical.com]

the ballmer effect

[User 956 (568564)]

Dell said it was merited by customer demand.

In other words, "No, Microsoft, we haven't been talking to other OS vendors. It was the customers' fault. honest. Put down that chair."

Worst-case-scenario for Linux as a whole

[SpiritGod21 (884402)]

It's fantastic to see such purported demand for Ubuntu, but I have trouble envisioning the conversion of our servers to their distro. The article itself reports that the server product is in its early days and that there are gaps in its functionality, and the biggest gap seems to be in support. I seriously doubt that Dell is going to pick up the bill for enterprise-level 24x7 support, and the offerings from Canonical seem to be local individuals who put their name on Ubuntu's website, so there's little guarantee regarding their expertise or availability.

I just can't help but worry that Canonical is overextending themselves (even if it is in reaction to Dell asking them to do so), and that the distro will eventually cave once bad PR builds up from a few high-profile failures at the enterprise/corporation level. Those in the FOSS community might not care about bad corporate PR, but it would certainly set Linux back quite a bit adoption-wise to have its golden front-runner made to look extremely foolish.

Re:Worst-case-scenario for Linux as a whole

[radeex (1126305)]

1. Actually, Canonical offers professional support services for servers and desktops. http://canonical.com/support [canonical.com]

2. My impression is that the "gaps" referred to in the article are mostly about certification from third parties like Oracle.

Why would there be failures?

[khasim (1285)]

Let's look at the possible scenarios that lead to "failure".

#1. Hardware dies. Only an idiot would blame this on Canonical/Ubuntu. If it's under warranty, Dell should be able to replace it.

#2. Software corruption. This would be Canonical's/Ubuntu's fault. But I've run their stuff for years without any problems. Why would there be problems now?

#3. Driver problem. Well, this is why you have these "partnerships" so the software vendor can work with the hardware vendor to solve these problems BEFORE you purchase their products.

#4. Stupid admin problem. Yeah, like there's anything Canonical or Dell can do to prevent that.

So, the only real potential problem looks like the exact thing that such a partnership would be designed to resolve. I'm not seeing the problem here.

Re:Why would there be failures?

[Qzukk (229616)]

#4. Stupid admin problem. Yeah, like there's anything Canonical or Dell can do to prevent that.

That seems to be what the GP is talking about in terms of support. On the desktop you'll get questions like "I bought this computer with this newfangled leenooks thingy, how do I play my card game?"

On the server, you get questions that have nothing at all to do with the stupidity of the admin. Like "When the database has written 1 GB of data to the drive, the system stops responding and has to be powercycled causing a lot of data corruption, what's going on?" (true story, the answer is "plug in a PS/2 mouse [64.233.169.104]") Multiply that by however many Dell sells, and the grandparent has a point: can they handle it?

Re:

[ericrost (1049312)]

Good straw man, I actually read the link and that still has nothing to do with Canonical vs RedHat. That would be AMD's fault for sending stupid APIC messages.

Re:

[dwater (72834)]

> That would be AMD's fault for sending stupid APIC messages.

So it would be the same for any OS? ...or have other OSes worked around the problem?

Re:

[grommit (97148)]

Report to Re-education camp mister! Everybody knows that Canonical can do no wrong. So, obviously, this is the correct thing for them to be doing. Besides, there's nothing to worry about because Ubuntu will never break because it's the best operating system ever made. Well, at least that's what I'm beaten over the head with every time I mention another distribution..

Re:

[suv4x4 (956391)]

I just can't help but worry that Canonical is overextending themselves (even if it is in reaction to Dell asking them to do so), and that the distro will eventually cave once bad PR builds up from a few high-profile failures at the enterprise/corporation level. Those in the FOSS community might not care about bad corporate PR, but it would certainly set Linux back quite a bit adoption-wise to have its golden front-runner made to look extremely foolish.

The big money is with support for servers, not desktops.

Why Ubuntu?

[rduke15 (721841)]

I'm currently running Debian stable on all my servers. Why would I want to get the next with Ubuntu? Would it be just as stable?

The install with netinst is very fast. What takes a long time is all the configuration of the needed services, and customization (backup scripts, various checks and email alerts, etc. In short everything one adds to /etc/cron*). So I wouldn't really gain any time.

Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware. I had to use backports a few times, and that was a hassle. Any other advantage I'm overlooking?

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[whoever57 (658626)]

Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware.

I think you answered your own question. How many hours are spent researching Linux compatibility before purchasing new computers? Buying a system with Ubuntu pre-installed gives one a guarantee that the hardware as a basic level of support in that distro.

Also, perhaps the PHBs who are used to buying computers with Windows pre-installed will feel more comfortable about buying (or rather, approving the purchase of) a server if the OS is pre-installed.

Re:

[Zantetsuken (935350)]

I'm much the same. I really prefer plain Debian compared to Ubuntu so far, and also use netinst. I've recently tried Ubuntu Desktop (7.04) on my laptops, and it seems to be good for them (due to having restricted drivers). For a server though, what would be the benefit? Does it have utilities that work better than other distro's in the way that Ubuntu Desktop tends to have Xorg configurators that are different and sometimes better than other distro's?

I haven't got a clue what I'm doing wrong, but every t

Re:

[Aladrin (926209)]

I'm gonna get modded down to hell, but I'm going to say this anyhow:

Ubuntu Server is for novice system admins that just have to have all the newest bells and whistles. I'm in the group as far as my personal projects go. I would not consider installing it at work, though, even an LTS. (We -are- thinking about Gentoo, but that's headed by someone who uses it a lot already. We currently have RedHat.)

I can't count the number of times at work I've said 'Man, if we had Ubuntu server, upgrading that would be S

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

If you're investigating server software, don't forget to check out the BSDs.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Shados (741919)]

I don't disagree with you, but one has to realise that servers are not all the big mission critical machines in datacenters we tend to picture them as. There are probably as many "non-mission-critical" servers as there are the others, and for those, a "Server for Dummy" install probably is cost effective in the long run.

Case in point: the company I work for offers a relatively advanced web solution. The software doesn't actually deal with mission critical data, it is used for projections and on the fly analytic operations, on a user per user basis. So each user has a copy of the data and basically mess with it the way they bloody want until they get an acceptable result, print a report, then go to their primary system (which isn't by us, and is totally independant in every ways, shape and form) and perform mission critical operations THERE.

For our servers, we can toss the app on anything, passwords can be in plain text (well, could if users didn't reuse passwords all over, which isn't the case so I guess they can't!), the machine can be tossed and kicked around, it doesn't really matter if the system's down for a day, or a week, as long as it comes back and it "works".

This is actually an incredibly common scenario, and more and more as a lot of software is moved to simple web apps (because of the Web 2.0 overhype) and other such things, especially since hardware is so cheap (I've seen servers running cache engines made with less than 300 lines of code, including comments, in a farm... hardly mission critical either), so there's IS a pretty high demand for "dumb-friendly" servers that don't even require the sysadmin intervention when they screw up.

In such cases, something like Ubuntu Server probably fits the bill amazingly nicely. If the machine screws up BAD, you call the sysadmin...but the rest of the time, let said professional handle the important stuff, and have the junior manage the non-critical, novice friendly environments. Saves time and money for everyone.

Re:

[petermgreen (876956)]

any major version upgrade carries some risk.

one option is to use vm's, that way you can isolate troublesome apps in thier own vms running whatever old OS they are happiest on without worrying about hardware compatibility or other stuff on the system.

Re:

[Lesrahpem (687242)]

If you forget your password of get locked out somehow or another just check milw0rm and they'll have an exploit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H solution. Seriously though. I have seen several hosting companies use Ubuntu as a server, and I have yet to see a single one that didn't have some glaringly obvious hole it in. Ubuntu is probably the least secure of all the major distro's.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[oatworm (969674)]

Just installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server on a box. Let's see what's running...

Netstat -an shows no open ports.
The root account is disabled.
Ps -ef shows some kernel modules, some gtty instances, and that's it.
Oh, did I mention I don't have an X console or anything?

Am I missing something? Last I tried CentOS (an older version, mind you), root was not only enabled, it was what you logged in as initially. When I installed Debian Sarge a few years ago for a class I was taking, the first thing we had to do after the initial install was shut down a couple of services so only SSH was running (FTP was one of them, if I remember correctly) - with Ubuntu Server, I'm going to have to turn SSH on, along with anything else I want on. That said, Ubuntu Server does make some interesting choices - for example, single user mode has network support. That's a little strange. Other than that, though, no complaints. Granted, SELinux isn't on, but that's fine by me - I didn't turn it on, and maybe I'd like to use something else. At least Ubuntu isn't trying to make that decision for me. Seeing as there's no way for anyone to access my box remotely at the moment anyways, I can make that decision on my own time.

Anybody care to elaborate on this?

Re:

[aztektum (170569)]

What takes a long time is all the configuration of the needed services, and customization

One word: puppet ... It's working wonders for us, though we're not exactly a mega sophisticated operation.

Also, I don't see Dell offering pre-installed Debian systems. If you're running Debian, that means you're wiping and installing anyway. There would have to be a bit of satisfaction in knowing you didn't pay the MS tax on a server, if you're just going to wipe it for Debian. Although now that I think of it, don't they have a "No OS" option for servers?

Canonical is hitting above its weight

[by Anonymous Coward]

The wiki article on Canonical says that it has 90+ employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_Ltd [wikipedia.org] Mark Shuttleworth himself is rich but not remarkably so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth [wikipedia.org]

Given that other Linux distros have more employees backing them, it is pretty impressive that Ubuntu has made the progress it has. Given all of the above, I am led to the conclusion that Mark Shuttleworth is indeed a very smart guy. In that light, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the servers ship and sell well.

You guys will have to seriously take it up a notch

[outZider (165286)]

As a user of Ubuntu Server on a 60+ machine deployment for $work, Canonical is seriously going to have to take the server distro up a notch before this could possibly work. The server distro, in stark contrast to Desktop, is a horribly hacked together mess that gives off the impression that it isn't really studied much at all. While Desktop shows the best and brightest of Linux integration, the server distro is just as barebones as the alternative distro, and manages to screw things up in terms of out of box experience.

Am I looking for a UI? No. I want a few basic things.

1: A proper, usable deployment system. debian-installer is good for the basics, but it's a pain in the behind to set up, and doesn't support scripting a RAID/mdadm install, or LVM. This "sucks". Take a look at Redhat or CentOS for a little inspiration.
2: A boot screen that doesn't look like vomited output. Why does the login prompt appear before services have finished loading? I support being able to use the machine before services have stopped. I do not need "Starting PostgreSQL" appearing as I'm entering my login credentials locally.
3: A server kernel that always installs. Why does the installer give me the generic kernel when I'm installing the server distro? Why do I have to manually install the server kernel on boot up, and then remove the generic kernel?
4: Easily add services. You get 'LAMP server' or 'DNS server' or nothing. I had to create a custom installer just to have openssh-server install by default on first load, without apache or MySQL, or other crap floating around in there as well.

It sounds whiny, I know, but we really like the debian-style package management system with the modern services Ubuntu provides. It's great for that purpose. As a real server distro, though, long way to go yet.

I hope this lights that fire under Canonical to pay some attention to Server.

Re:You guys will have to seriously take it up a no

[s4ltyd0g (452701)]

Every time I install a Red Hat box I have to spend a lot of time turning off useless services. I like Ubuntu Server because it comes with nothing. Much easier to set up and maintain only the few services you really need.

Re:

[outZider (165286)]

It is easy to work with, and it doesn't stop me from using it. As I said, we have a few tens of servers, and they're all running Ubuntu Server Edgy or Feisty. But, if you compare what Ubuntu Server provides, compared to FreeBSD, CentOS, or Windows Server, it comes up very short. If you're using it on 2-3 machines, it's no big deal.

Certification?

[HangingChad (677530)]

I'd definitely consider getting certified but Canonical's certification program doesn't seem well developed. Unless there's another one I don't know about, your only options are Toronto and Seattle.

I'm definitely up for supporting Dell Ubuntu servers.

!ElLobo?

[xtracto (837672)]

Sorry for asking this here, I hope I do not get modded offtopic as, it in fact is related to this story (see tags).

I have seen in some slashdot stories this !Ellobo , but I have absolutely no idea of what does it mean. Does anyone knows the reference?

Thank you in advance

Re:

[Trogre (513942)]

and while we're at it can someone explain the linuxnotlinuzzzshithead tag? Who ever used the term linuzzz?

Re:

[pembo13 (770295)]

http://it.slashdot.org/tags/linuzzz [slashdot.org]

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Look out for a user named 'ellobo'. He likes trolling Linux related stories, he calls Linux 'Linuzzz'. Do an in-page search for 'linuzzz' and you'll see him. :)

Re:

[Shados (741919)]

The cost would be passed to the customer. If the customers kept paying, then you wouldn't see any decrease in dell sales of Windows. So yes, its all customer demand (-especially- on servers).

Re:

[ericrost (1049312)]

Why? I use Ubuntu 6.06 for public facing home servers. Haven't had any troubles. Is this just FUD, or do you have a valid reason?

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[Markspark (969445)]

baha, they develop in paint.net ? come on, this is just trolling, there are no open services installed by default, so the box should be reasonably safe, as long as you aren't a complete moron. But yeah, i also use debian stable for work, but for the stability, not for security.. it's not windows 98 you know. So yeah, i'd say that they are amateurs speaking out of their asses.

Re:

[LingNoi (1066278)]

These people arent amatuers either, they develop PHP/MySQL/Linux solutions for a living.

As someone who has worked in PHP/MySQL/Linux solution companies all I can say is these people know nothing about Linux.

Linux is the thing they ftp into to upload the php files. Most development is done on their local windows box running apache.

I really don't understand why you think people who can do a bit of web scripting are somehow Linux professionals..

Re:

[ls -la (937805)]

This, perhaps

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/serveredition [ubuntu.com]

Haven't tried it myself, anyone know how it compares?