Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On 07/03/12 22:26, Grant Phillips-Sewell wrote: On Mar 7, 2012 7:01 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: What I took from this exchange was that the retail goldfish bowl we all actually live in, is one of deep immersion. There is hardly anywhere we can go, or that I can think of, which does not have only retail air to breathe. There is 'no such thing as a free lunch' is mostly true in the real world, although exceptionally, not with most of GNU/Linux. There is a price, though, but for end users all they have to do is trust in the social generosity of developers and teams. But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. However, I do like the idea of more marketing. -- alan cocks Whenever I've been faced with trying to explain to people about how the whole open source/Free Software thing works, I usually end up using the St. John's Ambulance as an example of people's generosity and helping for no cost, and using footballers playing charity matches for examples of how someone doing something for no cost doesn't automatically mean that the result of their efforts is of a poorer quality than that of someone being paid for their work. People seem to understand these two analogies quite well. Grant Nice one! Thanks I will be using those. -- alan cocks -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
Not forgetting Pi day on the 14 March if you write it in the silly american format the date is 3.14 Stuart -- Stuart Ward M +44 7782325143 On 7 March 2012 21:48, paul sutton zl...@zleap.net wrote: On 07/03/12 13:49, Liam Proven wrote: On 7 March 2012 13:38, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. Broadcom bought up the rump of what was Acorn Computers. Acorn designed and developed the ARM chip. (Interestingly, after Acorn was split up and sold off, the rump renamed itself Element 14. This is now a trading name for Farnell, one of the distribution partners for Rpi.) Broadcom still employs Sophie Wilson, who (back when she was called Roger) designed the ARM chip, BBC BASIC and much of the BBC Micro. Rpi is basically a Broadcom GPU and video-decoder chip with a small, basic ARM CPU added in one corner. It's a very proprietary device and so are the Linux drivers. Something nobody is giving any attention to is that Linux is not the only OS for Rpi. It will also come with Acorn RISC OS, meaning a full networked multitasking Internet-capable GUI OS, complete with optimised BBC BASIC interpreter with ARM assembler, GUI editor and so on. Whereas it's a very low-spec system for Linux, it's a high-end one for RISC OS. For beginners, RISC OS may be a much more appealing prospect. Ohh i am sure I have a few games on 3,5 floppy that ran on an acorn risc/os machine, in fact I may have a manual for the Acorn Archimedes somewhere :) Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 14:56, Alan Bell wrote: On 07/03/12 14:43, Liam Proven wrote: https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=raspberry+pi+700+second I scaled it down 2 orders of magnitude to something I find a bit more plausible. At £25, yes, I can believe they have a million-odd preorders. yeah, I had seen the 700 a second stuff too, ridiculous! I can certainly believe they have a lot of pre-orders, certainly in the hundreds of thousands. A million is plausible taking into account international orders. What I am not seeing is a massive buzz about this in the educational sector yet. My teaching twitter friends are not really talking about it, it is a technology thing so far. Anyone else heard about the Raspberry Pi via a teacher or someone at a school who would not ordinarily be interested in geeky stuff? There was a half double page (i.e. a double page with RPi in the top half and ads in the bottom half) about it in Metro on Monday. So it's had some press outside of tech circles. I haven't heard anybody talk about it indeed but if it's made it to Metro, it's bound to make it to non-tech circles. Cheers, Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
Hi It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Regards Nige -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 10:36, Nigel Verity wrote: Hi It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Regards Nige Well there is the raspberry PI, which is an arm based system, I wonder if canonical can work with broadcom / rasp PI foundation and come up with something that way, as in build a specific tablet device for this, In fact the raspberry Pi (type motherboard) + suitable case + screen should do the trick, let MS do their secure boot thing, we don't need it, we certainly don't need the restrictions this will come with, oh specific hardware, fully closed linux can't run, its not just the secure boot we need to contend with. Offer a REAL alternative, that is designed FOR ubuntu / LInux and we should be far better off. Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
** paul sutton zl...@zleap.net [2012-03-07 11:29]: On 07/03/12 10:36, Nigel Verity wrote: It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Well there is the raspberry PI, which is an arm based system, I wonder if canonical can work with broadcom / rasp PI foundation and come up with something that way, as in build a specific tablet device for this, In fact the raspberry Pi (type motherboard) + suitable case + screen should do the trick, let MS do their secure boot thing, we don't need it, we certainly don't need the restrictions this will come with, oh specific hardware, fully closed linux can't run, its not just the secure boot we need to contend with. Offer a REAL alternative, that is designed FOR ubuntu / LInux and we should be far better off. ** end quote [paul sutton] Sadly Ubuntu ARM doesn't support ARMv6 which is what the Raspberry Pi uses so without some serious work Ubuntu won't be running on this particular device. iirc support was dropped after the last LTS release. I suspect the Canonical work is as much aimed at working with manufacturers directly as allowing people to install Ubuntu on existing hardware supplied with another OS. It would be great to see a selection of ARM based boards that Ubuntu, or any Linux, can be installed on though. -- Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001 == Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office: Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants, PO7 6NU -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 2012-03-07 11:33, Simon Greenwood wrote: It's slightly different to the PC platform in that the assumption, rightly or wrongly, is that customers don't generally install custom operating systems on their phones and tablets, and indeed I think there would be some reticence on behalf of the phone companies to allow that from both support and system security perspectives ... This is changing. Sony and HTC now have both committed to providing an easy way to unlock their phone devices' boot loaders. The process involves informing them of your IMEI, so you effectively sign away the warranty. I think that's a fair compromise. I prefer to be covered in case of hardware failure, which shouldn't be within the capability of software to harm. However, that is no longer true. For instance, I can turn on my phone's camera light with such intensity that it will - theoretically - heat up and destroy the LED. Of course, the hardware should have overrides preventing that. Regards, Tyler -- Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science. -- Charles Darwin -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
Well there is the raspberry PI, which is an arm based system, I wonder if canonical can work with broadcom / rasp PI foundation and come up with something that way, as in build a specific tablet device for this, In fact the raspberry Pi (type motherboard) + suitable case + screen should do the trick, let MS do their secure boot thing, we don't need it, we certainly don't need the restrictions this will come with, oh specific hardware, fully closed linux can't run, its not just the secure boot we need to contend with. Offer a REAL alternative, that is designed FOR ubuntu / LInux and we should be far better off. That's a great idea, but it's actually missing the point about what Canonical wants to do, if I understand their intentions. They are about putting Linux on desktops and commercial devices, which is potentially now where the company can make a difference and a profit. For that matter there is now a tablet that run Linux on ARM, although it's KDE and Mer, s/ -- Twitter: @sfgreenwood more of a stain than a globule -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 10:36, Nigel Verity wrote: It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? There's a big difference between Canonical talking to device manufacturers to get a 'certified' hardware platform for Ubuntu, and community people picking random tablets to put Ubuntu on. For the first instance I don't see secure boot being an issue. For the second it may or may not, but there's plenty of other issues too. It's unlikely we'd be able to spin out a one size fits all iso image which works on any ARM tablet in the same way that we do for x86/x86_64 based computers. ARM devices generally need some hardware enablement work done, so it's not as simple as Insert disk and run installer. If Canonical find a hardware partner to work with then we can do the enablement with them for those specific devices. You can see that we've done that before by noting how many different ARM ISO images we have including ac100, mx5, omap4 etc. http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.10/release/ Cheers, - -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPV0qGAAoJEMx6UFtfvV4wF2oIAIl6nBevGnkG5WTopYLhoqYZ +sQ/LtQ+gG9Ln+ylYBicH0YrTTDDpz8QUzKh0CCLvERHZEsZOU2o9twRPM/1n5jL jZUZ3H/dn5WD8A7M1m4hHs6zozJB4GsShzcIieLIGCv393TBN8ix0o4zKCq/aJJi zTZf0PTi9hYRvj5bVULAC9UYdPj36kBTS2WTizkBLSVxW7RPlm7Kpd/YjQtZ7rBN JsaoxLCmEndkmKWYXicQ+DX2duYuzazEJqz+X9qB1vjU1i1ZnCgf2ceb9poHMK4b 9C6j6hsnLDD1qTGkHW07WWguK9XKxp2O5FP6lytAB8fuoZG/0SoegdYnGV+l530= =Bqc+ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
It could well be just the thing to undermine Microsoft's ARM plans. If there are good alternatives to Windows on ARM then the device manufacturers can vote with their wallets, so to speak. I imagine it is more costly to implement Microsoft's requirements than it would be to not implement them... but if there are no real alternatives for usable tablet operating systems (Android is good but, in my opinion, not really that usable on tablets) then they would seem to have no choice but to implement Microsoft's requirements. Get a decent alternative in place and let the manufacturers sorry themselves out. Grant. On Mar 7, 2012 10:37 AM, Nigel Verity nigelver...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Regards Nige -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 11:59, Grant Phillips-Sewell wrote: It could well be just the thing to undermine Microsoft's ARM plans. If there are good alternatives to Windows on ARM then the device manufacturers can vote with their wallets, so to speak. I imagine it is more costly to implement Microsoft's requirements than it would be to not implement them... but if there are no real alternatives for usable tablet operating systems (Android is good but, in my opinion, not really that usable on tablets) then they would seem to have no choice but to implement Microsoft's requirements. Get a decent alternative in place and let the manufacturers sorry themselves out. Grant. On Mar 7, 2012 10:37 AM, Nigel Verity nigelver...@hotmail.com mailto:nigelver...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Regards Nige I am also guessing here, that with the raspberry PI the exposure that Linux will get should really help drive the fact there ARE real alternatives., Especially if local user groups and the loco teams Ubuntu local teams up their game, then the support structure will be out there and people will know about it. Any product will HAVE to come with real AGGRESSIVE marketing, Local lugs have problems simply finding people in stores to talk to about alternatives to windows, let alone agreeing to agree take in cd's or other materials for display etc. . Paul -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 12:20, paul sutton wrote: I am also guessing here, that with the raspberry PI the exposure that Linux will get should really help drive the fact there ARE real alternatives., Or people will say Linux, hmm, that's the thing that runs on those really slow, cheap things that come without a case?. I'd like to hope that's not the general view and that we can use the positive characteristics to help promote Linux in general. It's a massive bummer that the RPi won't ship with Ubuntu. I'd love for some community people to get together and make that happen, but it doesn't seem to have yet. Especially if local user groups and the loco teams Ubuntu local teams up their game, then the support structure will be out there and people will know about it. We've heard this before :) When the OLPC came out Intel and Microsoft made the Classmate which ran XP (badly) which somewhat scuppered the OLPC launch. When netbooks came out we crowed about how they ran Linux better than Windows. Microsoft came along and dictated (via the terms for Windows Starter Edition) that netbooks be hobbled to a very specific hardware profile, one which suits their OS. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something unexpected to screw with the RPi. I remain optimistic though. Cheers, - -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPV1VLAAoJEMx6UFtfvV4wEBwH/iEEFasA4j52J0zweqjd4WNQ KCvby2FAA8NFxIAxHabEgi1iKk44ObXC7Fd4r3Nn/G2Zr9lwpJHA6FPN05e7nmK4 gKb4TYJdEfEr4MIj9ShZwqxU/htoS2OKXEdQbodSSrbGue50q7qzPV+PZJupstHM d8p+UA+432cEWBjggsvw1hoy/AqaczP4iW8nkCdeoA7yg37ATjZXyGSUPO6/1Q1L 6aQ1amh1M8Pa6lUF2qirHkkXCrj41AXzJJBss9GqtS6+PqKBQm3c/SxrtxOXWuRp A4poVPfrJc5vQttEFuqlD/D1A+YRjoLjTV7+GhZfZPN3BaeDuLeR/Y6Hob8dFNg= =POkr -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 12:32, Alan Pope wrote: On 07/03/12 12:20, paul sutton wrote: I am also guessing here, that with the raspberry PI the exposure that Linux will get should really help drive the fact there ARE real alternatives., Or people will say Linux, hmm, that's the thing that runs on those really slow, cheap things that come without a case?. I'd like to hope that's not the general view and that we can use the positive characteristics to help promote Linux in general. It's a massive bummer that the RPi won't ship with Ubuntu. I'd love for some community people to get together and make that happen, but it doesn't seem to have yet. Perhaps when there are a good few of these out there this may happen, however it would be easier if there were a few people in one area say where I am (Torbay) who want to do a port, that way face to face meets can be arranged to discuss / look at the issues and collaborate closely on specific issues. Especially if local user groups and the loco teams Ubuntu local teams up their game, then the support structure will be out there and people will know about it. We've heard this before :) When the OLPC came out Intel and Microsoft made the Classmate which ran XP (badly) which somewhat scuppered the OLPC launch. When netbooks came out we crowed about how they ran Linux better than Windows. Microsoft came along and dictated (via the terms for Windows Starter Edition) that netbooks be hobbled to a very specific hardware profile, one which suits their OS. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something unexpected to screw with the RPi. I remain optimistic though. Cheers, -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 11:28, paul sutton zl...@zleap.net wrote: On 07/03/12 10:36, Nigel Verity wrote: Hi It's been interesting to read about Canonical's ideas for the future of Ubuntu; in particular its use as an OS for tablets and other mobile devices. It strikes me that some of this vision is undermined by the implications of the Secure Boot functionality being specified by Microsoft on ARM processors as a pre-requisite to achieve Windows 8 Compatible status. A lot of the up-coming tablets are going to be using ARM chips, so unless the Microsoft requirement is modified, or manufacturers choose to ignore it, the Canonical vision seems to be flawed. Or am I missing something? Regards Nige Well there is the raspberry PI, which is an arm based system, I wonder if canonical can work with broadcom / rasp PI foundation and come up with something that way, as in build a specific tablet device for this, In fact the raspberry Pi (type motherboard) + suitable case + screen should do the trick, let MS do their secure boot thing, we don't need it, we certainly don't need the restrictions this will come with, oh specific hardware, fully closed linux can't run, its not just the secure boot we need to contend with. Offer a REAL alternative, that is designed FOR ubuntu / LInux and we should be far better off. Have you actually *looked* at the Rpi at all? It's a *very* low-spec £25 computer. 256MB of non-expandable RAM, no local storage or storage interface, just an SD card, a very low-powered low-end ARM core, and a proprietary GPU with proprietary drivers, even a proprietary bootloader. It /does/ run Ubuntu - v9.04. Ubuntu 10.04 dropped support for the Rpi's series of ARM cores. It is roughly equivalent to an 11 or 12 year old PC: a Pentium II 300MHz with a quarter of a gig of RAM. It is not a suitable system for running Ubuntu on, unless you want to give people a very bad impression. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:08, Liam Proven wrote: It's a *very* low-spec £25 computer. 256MB of non-expandable RAM, no local storage or storage interface, just an SD card, a very low-powered low-end ARM core, and a proprietary GPU with proprietary drivers, even a proprietary bootloader. Sounds delightful! :D It is roughly equivalent to an 11 or 12 year old PC: a Pentium II 300MHz with a quarter of a gig of RAM. It is not a suitable system for running Ubuntu on, unless you want to give people a very bad impression. You could install GNOME 2 instea.. oh wait.. - -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPV2DSAAoJEMx6UFtfvV4w5m8IAKIa1bG/hHXRG2pglbmJFjG8 nH+z9mXSvol+vayYfJ1q1FbYDJRRs0sWac7QEt7yjjOxKBwK95ldfl9fuwIW0Gcc LZt2CTgLwdYXOOUxb+Bgqu4OyWETJ++FoZSXpi+gCGLLXulZab2A3zHkoCWliFLh olvoLf1OpgFLfvRYTq0VxGPc35NuclHz/NRIwineNnZQNKm1FFhN9yTWWZnMLMQW E1ja4lxs3tkSU2m5espXrqBiF6oSM+ghLeVPYRKCyinhjuGLc6ssbPIYcBrKvGyQ x8q9yDRUXsA0qOQ4p37ifLXvuMV84+HbOyo7TtZ0FlOUPrXZudOJYKyidhQ2W+k= =KrAU -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 13:21, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:08, Liam Proven wrote: It's a *very* low-spec £25 computer. 256MB of non-expandable RAM, no local storage or storage interface, just an SD card, a very low-powered low-end ARM core, and a proprietary GPU with proprietary drivers, even a proprietary bootloader. Sounds delightful! :D Hey, it's a hella cool toy for £15 (standalone model) or £25 (with LAN). They sold out the initial production run in about 3min, at 6AM, and there have been 7 orders a second ever since. Looks like they will sell several million units. My hope is that they do really well and it results in a second version which is a bit more powerful and a bit more open. It is roughly equivalent to an 11 or 12 year old PC: a Pentium II 300MHz with a quarter of a gig of RAM. It is not a suitable system for running Ubuntu on, unless you want to give people a very bad impression. You could install GNOME 2 instea.. oh wait.. Ha! Indeed. I think someone is working on a Lubuntu version, or at least a custom LXDE port. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 13:28, Liam Proven lpro...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 March 2012 13:21, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:08, Liam Proven wrote: It's a *very* low-spec £25 computer. 256MB of non-expandable RAM, no local storage or storage interface, just an SD card, a very low-powered low-end ARM core, and a proprietary GPU with proprietary drivers, even a proprietary bootloader. Sounds delightful! :D Hey, it's a hella cool toy for £15 (standalone model) or £25 (with LAN). They sold out the initial production run in about 3min, at 6AM, and there have been 7 orders a second ever since. Looks like they will sell several million units. My hope is that they do really well and it results in a second version which is a bit more powerful and a bit more open. Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It is roughly equivalent to an 11 or 12 year old PC: a Pentium II 300MHz with a quarter of a gig of RAM. It is not a suitable system for running Ubuntu on, unless you want to give people a very bad impression. You could install GNOME 2 instea.. oh wait.. Ha! Indeed. I think someone is working on a Lubuntu version, or at least a custom LXDE port. I should think someone is working on just about anything one would possibly imagine doing with it, and probably a good number of things one would not imagine doing. Colin -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:28, Liam Proven wrote: Hey, it's a hella cool toy for £15 (standalone model) or £25 (with LAN). They sold out the initial production run in about 3min, at 6AM, and there have been 7 orders a second ever since. Looks like they will sell several million units. Indeed! I know it's had some detractors, especially in the BeagleBoard and Pandaboard communities. I can't help thinking there's a touch of sour grapes there given the alliance those devices have with Broadcom competitors. Mine is due to arrive April 16th or so. I've already been asked by the ICT guy at my kids school if I can take it in and let him have a play with it. He wants to get some for the school to expand their ICT work. My hope is that they do really well and it results in a second version which is a bit more powerful and a bit more open. Yeah. The initial one should work fine for a bit, especially for inquisitive minds. I would imagine a set of classes could easily be setup around the devices. I think someone is working on a Lubuntu version, or at least a custom LXDE port. That's good to hear. The screenshots and demos I've seen seem to be showing LXDE on (I expect) Debian. I'd be happy to run Debian on mine. Mind you that's the beauty of those SD cards, you can have lots of them each with different desktops distros etc. Looking forward to playing with it! - -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPV2Q4AAoJEMx6UFtfvV4w1ZMH/08WLp7srSDBcYPqvL1iQLAJ JhnpqdFFvpjJ9pEHAxHCwCtD8vZwx7lqsQSqWyaVmY8XKuHxn7qhnbYryRVSa1W0 p2O4MOZ06oz39cfJA6O20rZXfN+Cltk1xCvxoFSNxQWu6KRdH/vopiQRkF8hgi/q qVAFyPotG0ECN8ajT88r6ZlQd3M1CewUnf8FuM6QbSPYHyrH6E68U9+FRLsXt0EX VNUDZIkz+YsbvvGN+mRrIG35LhBPulqaN5fHp9hLKQDSW4iFbI0coNO70Cd7//Iy ZB758RK+ektI0M8ArVxiHrVS1Sv4zXtY3/272WraJjPU4/NdhTympr47UJNEwus= =gJBD -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. Cheers, - -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPV2TKAAoJEMx6UFtfvV4wdUgIAIqjD16dbwsq/1e9kmKbbBnY MOADICQEdeJ0t0T00ZeJztzNppmsteRWvf0SSI7CRS4VbY3joz+4eg6CShKphpFc x+B4B8a1TbVf591teuac0Jg8mqgeGz8kNvwDfAbOoMW0Zge4mTft2eg1wVCPWhjd KJCo0hfPhPxg014as6MSWzKrZNULcJvoWywrItOD97ZsDasZpXoqjTZZgInVD3BK WTUOrLxXOgaLdVVipO1/6iRd+llWoGsGL0yUGh9Tvp3bRSR3c27j7WCBGBwkbbwf AEpiYj7vE4gLyR4h6KnTuQ6VqYry1YQ9WdvT9hQy3SgRMc7wMSY4OfVvTMRAhug= =VDjH -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 13:38, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. OK, I see. I don't suppose it will take long for that to be hacked. Colin -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 13:38, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. Broadcom bought up the rump of what was Acorn Computers. Acorn designed and developed the ARM chip. (Interestingly, after Acorn was split up and sold off, the rump renamed itself Element 14. This is now a trading name for Farnell, one of the distribution partners for Rpi.) Broadcom still employs Sophie Wilson, who (back when she was called Roger) designed the ARM chip, BBC BASIC and much of the BBC Micro. Rpi is basically a Broadcom GPU and video-decoder chip with a small, basic ARM CPU added in one corner. It's a very proprietary device and so are the Linux drivers. Something nobody is giving any attention to is that Linux is not the only OS for Rpi. It will also come with Acorn RISC OS, meaning a full networked multitasking Internet-capable GUI OS, complete with optimised BBC BASIC interpreter with ARM assembler, GUI editor and so on. Whereas it's a very low-spec system for Linux, it's a high-end one for RISC OS. For beginners, RISC OS may be a much more appealing prospect. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 13:49, Liam Proven lpro...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 March 2012 13:38, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. Broadcom bought up the rump of what was Acorn Computers. Acorn designed and developed the ARM chip. (Interestingly, after Acorn was split up and sold off, the rump renamed itself Element 14. This is now a trading name for Farnell, one of the distribution partners for Rpi.) Broadcom still employs Sophie Wilson, who (back when she was called Roger) designed the ARM chip, BBC BASIC and much of the BBC Micro. Rpi is basically a Broadcom GPU and video-decoder chip with a small, basic ARM CPU added in one corner. It's a very proprietary device and so are the Linux drivers. Something nobody is giving any attention to is that Linux is not the only OS for Rpi. It will also come with Acorn RISC OS, meaning a full networked multitasking Internet-capable GUI OS, complete with optimised BBC BASIC interpreter with ARM assembler, GUI editor and so on. Wow! Chuckie Egg! Best video game ever. Whereas it's a very low-spec system for Linux, it's a high-end one for RISC OS. For beginners, RISC OS may be a much more appealing prospect. Not that low for Linux, I have linux on a machine with 12MB (12 Megabytes) of RAM and an SD card, operating as a 1-wire server for my weather station. It is a Linksys WRT54G router running OpenWRT. Running top via ssh I see it is using about half the RAM, including 1.3MB for top. Colin -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 14:12, Colin Law clan...@googlemail.com wrote: Not that low for Linux, I have linux on a machine with 12MB (12 Megabytes) of RAM and an SD card, operating as a 1-wire server for my weather station. It is a Linksys WRT54G router running OpenWRT. Running top via ssh I see it is using about half the RAM, including 1.3MB for top. Well, true, but there's not much s/w development you could do in that space, and it's hardly an enticing prospect for C21 schoolkids, is it? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 13:28, Liam Proven wrote: Hey, it's a hella cool toy for £15 (standalone model) or £25 (with LAN). They sold out the initial production run in about 3min, at 6AM, and there have been 7 orders a second ever since. it is cool, and I have one on order, but I do have to pick on this 7 orders a second ever since thing. That would be 420/minute or 25,200 per hour or 604,800 per day, which just isn't happening. What is going on is someone said something like: the initial 10,000 sold out in about 25 minutes!! (which I don't believe - the sites were not able to process the orders fast enough, took all morning to recover, I very much doubt they could do 7 orders/second) which someone else calculated as about 7 a second, and then someone else reported this as a sustained ongoing order rate of 7 a second. They are taking a lot of pre-orders and the initial batch did sell out quick, but lets get the back of an envelope calculations within the bounds of possibility. Alan. -- Libertus Solutions http://libertus.co.uk -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 14:41, Alan Bell alan.b...@libertus.co.uk wrote: On 07/03/12 13:28, Liam Proven wrote: Hey, it's a hella cool toy for £15 (standalone model) or £25 (with LAN). They sold out the initial production run in about 3min, at 6AM, and there have been 7 orders a second ever since. it is cool, and I have one on order, but I do have to pick on this 7 orders a second ever since thing. That would be 420/minute or 25,200 per hour or 604,800 per day, which just isn't happening. What is going on is someone said something like: the initial 10,000 sold out in about 25 minutes!! (which I don't believe - the sites were not able to process the orders fast enough, took all morning to recover, I very much doubt they could do 7 orders/second) which someone else calculated as about 7 a second, and then someone else reported this as a sustained ongoing order rate of 7 a second. They are taking a lot of pre-orders and the initial batch did sell out quick, but lets get the back of an envelope calculations within the bounds of possibility. https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=raspberry+pi+700+second I scaled it down 2 orders of magnitude to something I find a bit more plausible. At £25, yes, I can believe they have a million-odd preorders. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 12:32, Alan Pope wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 07/03/12 12:20, paul sutton wrote: I am also guessing here, that with the raspberry PI the exposure that Linux will get should really help drive the fact there ARE real alternatives., Or people will say Linux, hmm, that's the thing that runs on those really slow, cheap things that come without a case?. I'd like to hope that's not the general view and that we can use the positive characteristics to help promote Linux in general. It's a massive bummer that the RPi won't ship with Ubuntu. I'd love for some community people to get together and make that happen, but it doesn't seem to have yet. Well nobody has the hardware yet, I could have applied to get a dev board, but I am not a developer that low down the stack, and the Ubuntu ARM people I spoke to told me there was no possibility of Ubuntu building for ARM6 any more. What I did do was talk to Eben and Liz and explain why I didn't want them shipping it with an unsupported and EOL Ubuntu 9.04 and causing lots of people to come to the LoCo community looking for support with an elderly Ubuntu that can't be upgraded. I would rather people have a good experience on something else than a bad experience on Ubuntu. I think the ARM6 problem is going to be a bit of a showstopper for having Ubuntu all the way down on the Raspberry Pi. It will however run Debian, and it will run python and it will run various Ubuntu bits of GUI goodness if they are compiled for it. I can see it being possible to have a Raspberry Pi running Unity2d (sadly I doubt compiz will work) on Debian plumbing, so it will could look rather a lot like Ubuntu. Alan. -- Libertus Solutions http://libertus.co.uk -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 14:43, Liam Proven wrote: https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=raspberry+pi+700+second I scaled it down 2 orders of magnitude to something I find a bit more plausible. At £25, yes, I can believe they have a million-odd preorders. yeah, I had seen the 700 a second stuff too, ridiculous! I can certainly believe they have a lot of pre-orders, certainly in the hundreds of thousands. A million is plausible taking into account international orders. What I am not seeing is a massive buzz about this in the educational sector yet. My teaching twitter friends are not really talking about it, it is a technology thing so far. Anyone else heard about the Raspberry Pi via a teacher or someone at a school who would not ordinarily be interested in geeky stuff? Alan. -- Libertus Solutions http://libertus.co.uk -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 14:56, Alan Bell alan.b...@libertus.co.uk wrote: On 07/03/12 14:43, Liam Proven wrote: https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=raspberry+pi+700+second I scaled it down 2 orders of magnitude to something I find a bit more plausible. At £25, yes, I can believe they have a million-odd preorders. yeah, I had seen the 700 a second stuff too, ridiculous! I can certainly believe they have a lot of pre-orders, certainly in the hundreds of thousands. A million is plausible taking into account international orders. What I am not seeing is a massive buzz about this in the educational sector yet. My teaching twitter friends are not really talking about it, it is a technology thing so far. Anyone else heard about the Raspberry Pi via a teacher or someone at a school who would not ordinarily be interested in geeky stuff? Some. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/06/raspberry-pi-hits-the-playground But I think the point is that this is not aimed at *schools*, it is aimed at *schoolkids*. The concept is that ICT teaching now amounts to just classes in how to use a Windows PC some majority (monopoly?) apps. Rpi is aimed at being affordable to kids, or to parents to buy for their kids, for kids who want to play around and learn. Getting it into classrooms would mean a total revamp of ICT teaching, which is too ambitious a project at this stage. I think it's a great idea. Not sure it will work, but hey, major kudos to David Braben Co for *trying.* -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 7 March 2012 15:12, Liam Proven lpro...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 March 2012 14:56, Alan Bell alan.b...@libertus.co.uk wrote: On 07/03/12 14:43, Liam Proven wrote: https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=raspberry+pi+700+second I scaled it down 2 orders of magnitude to something I find a bit more plausible. At £25, yes, I can believe they have a million-odd preorders. yeah, I had seen the 700 a second stuff too, ridiculous! I can certainly believe they have a lot of pre-orders, certainly in the hundreds of thousands. A million is plausible taking into account international orders. What I am not seeing is a massive buzz about this in the educational sector yet. My teaching twitter friends are not really talking about it, it is a technology thing so far. Anyone else heard about the Raspberry Pi via a teacher or someone at a school who would not ordinarily be interested in geeky stuff? Some. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/06/raspberry-pi-hits-the-playground But I think the point is that this is not aimed at *schools*, it is aimed at *schoolkids*. The concept is that ICT teaching now amounts to just classes in how to use a Windows PC some majority (monopoly?) apps. Rpi is aimed at being affordable to kids, or to parents to buy for their kids, for kids who want to play around and learn. Getting it into classrooms would mean a total revamp of ICT teaching, which is too ambitious a project at this stage. I think it's a great idea. Not sure it will work, but hey, major kudos to David Braben Co for *trying.* It's certainly got my wife's school's ICT staff excited although I'm not sure what direction it would take learning in. Last night I was having a conversation with an old acquaintance who has done stuff with ARM systems for years and is currently looking at bridges between the RaspberryPi and Arduino boards, which is another area altogether and one that could potentially create little computers that are aware of their surroundings and can respond to them. We also agreed that secondary market around the RaspberryPi is probably going to be bigger than the actual market for the machines, which again makes them interesting because they are more of a blank slate than a cheap laptop. s/ -- Twitter: @sfgreenwood more of a stain than a globule -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 15:51, Alan Pope wrote: The 'official' Fedora spin was made by a bunch of guys at a University in Canada, not as I understand it Red Hat. Their video explains that they went out and bought a bunch of ARM6 devices (not Pis) and did the builds on the bare metal. This could just as easily be done for Ubuntu. You've got me thinking of Pi farms now... Just think - the smell of all those pies... Ahhh wrong pie/pi oh blast! It is British Pie week this week after all: http://www.britishpieweek.co.uk/ Al -- Libertus Solutions http://www.libertus.co.uk -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On 07/03/12 12:20, paul sutton wrote: Any product will HAVE to come with real AGGRESSIVE marketing, Local lugs have problems simply finding people in stores to talk to about alternatives to windows, let alone agreeing to agree take in cd's or other materials for display etc. . A couple of years ago I asked to see the duty manager in PC World in Reading. Affable person. I asked if I could maybe hand out leaflets (on Ubuntu) and maybe set a small table by the door one Saturday, demo ubuntu? He simply asked Can I sell it? I said Err, well no, it is free software He instantly said, (pleasantly though), Not interested He rushed of like he was busy with stuff to sell :-) What I took from this exchange was that the retail goldfish bowl we all actually live in, is one of deep immersion. There is hardly anywhere we can go, or that I can think of, which does not have only retail air to breathe. There is 'no such thing as a free lunch' is mostly true in the real world, although exceptionally, not with most of GNU/Linux. There is a price, though, but for end users all they have to do is trust in the social generosity of developers and teams. But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. A 'conventional' marketing presence would be very useful in normalising some of this. However, many non tech people take it for granted that once they have decided, then Ubuntu can be installed also while keeping their Windows (just in case), and they do not have reinstall images or have lost the CDs etc. The consequence for me as a volunteer installer helper is some serious disc image creation, and maybe careful partition work. I find a high chance of disc utility showing failing discs too. All in all, when most of Ubuntu UK Team are of working age and hopefully in work, then it is hard to see how the aftermath of a good marketing splat could be handled. But maybe if it was high profile marketing and it had a retail technician team offshoot, who knows? Wubi seems to dislike some grub updates so I do not recommend it if I am going to turn my back for long. However, I do like the idea of more marketing. -- alan cocks -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On 07/03/12 19:00, alan c wrote: But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. Correction trust in strangers only comes easily if people have paid a lot of money for a retail box! -- alan cocks -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On Mar 7, 2012 7:07 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: On 07/03/12 19:00, alan c wrote: But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. Correction trust in strangers only comes easily if people have paid a lot of money for a retail box! -- PC World have sold both RedHat and SUSE in the past, probably not for a good 10 years though. s/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On 7 March 2012 20:05, Simon Greenwood sfgreenw...@gmail.com wrote: On Mar 7, 2012 7:07 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: On 07/03/12 19:00, alan c wrote: But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. Correction trust in strangers only comes easily if people have paid a lot of money for a retail box! -- PC World have sold both RedHat and SUSE in the past, probably not for a good 10 years though. s/ And in early days of netbooks, they had some with Linpus (a chinese version of Linux) on them. -- Regards, Andy -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On 07/03/12 20:05, Simon Greenwood wrote: On Mar 7, 2012 7:07 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: On 07/03/12 19:00, alan c wrote: But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. Correction trust in strangers only comes easily if people have paid a lot of money for a retail box! -- PC World have sold both RedHat and SUSE in the past, probably not for a good 10 years though. I remember that yes. My first non Windows diy adventure was to actually purchase a retail suse box (9.0 I think) for 60 pounds, it contained a lot of merch, and seemed good value. Included some support too. Interesting that at the time, as a Windows user, to me, a retail box felt 'right' -- alan cocks -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 14:37, Liam Proven wrote: On 7 March 2012 14:12, Colin Law clan...@googlemail.com wrote: Not that low for Linux, I have linux on a machine with 12MB (12 Megabytes) of RAM and an SD card, operating as a 1-wire server for my weather station. It is a Linksys WRT54G router running OpenWRT. Running top via ssh I see it is using about half the RAM, including 1.3MB for top. Well, true, but there's not much s/w development you could do in that space, and it's hardly an enticing prospect for C21 schoolkids, is it? I had an early slackware and i think slackware 3.4 running on a 486 sx with 8 mb ram, even had x working that was back in the early 90's I dual booted with DOS / Win3.1. Not that I am suggesting we go back to the 2.0 - tree of course. Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans
On 07/03/12 13:49, Liam Proven wrote: On 7 March 2012 13:38, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote: On 07/03/12 13:33, Colin Law wrote: Out of interest, in what way is it not open? It needs a binary blob for the GPU and to boot apparently. They also only licensed the h.264 and one other codec bundle from broadcom for that blob. So only certain video files will play back accelerated. So it wouldn't do for a FreeView set top box, but would be good for playing back pre-recorded/downloaded h.264 encoded video. Broadcom bought up the rump of what was Acorn Computers. Acorn designed and developed the ARM chip. (Interestingly, after Acorn was split up and sold off, the rump renamed itself Element 14. This is now a trading name for Farnell, one of the distribution partners for Rpi.) Broadcom still employs Sophie Wilson, who (back when she was called Roger) designed the ARM chip, BBC BASIC and much of the BBC Micro. Rpi is basically a Broadcom GPU and video-decoder chip with a small, basic ARM CPU added in one corner. It's a very proprietary device and so are the Linux drivers. Something nobody is giving any attention to is that Linux is not the only OS for Rpi. It will also come with Acorn RISC OS, meaning a full networked multitasking Internet-capable GUI OS, complete with optimised BBC BASIC interpreter with ARM assembler, GUI editor and so on. Whereas it's a very low-spec system for Linux, it's a high-end one for RISC OS. For beginners, RISC OS may be a much more appealing prospect. Ohh i am sure I have a few games on 3,5 floppy that ran on an acorn risc/os machine, in fact I may have a manual for the Acorn Archimedes somewhere :) Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
On Mar 7, 2012 7:01 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: What I took from this exchange was that the retail goldfish bowl we all actually live in, is one of deep immersion. There is hardly anywhere we can go, or that I can think of, which does not have only retail air to breathe. There is 'no such thing as a free lunch' is mostly true in the real world, although exceptionally, not with most of GNU/Linux. There is a price, though, but for end users all they have to do is trust in the social generosity of developers and teams. But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. However, I do like the idea of more marketing. -- alan cocks Whenever I've been faced with trying to explain to people about how the whole open source/Free Software thing works, I usually end up using the St. John's Ambulance as an example of people's generosity and helping for no cost, and using footballers playing charity matches for examples of how someone doing something for no cost doesn't automatically mean that the result of their efforts is of a poorer quality than that of someone being paid for their work. People seem to understand these two analogies quite well. Grant -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Plans (marketing)
** Simon Greenwood sfgreenw...@gmail.com [2012-03-07 20:06]: On Mar 7, 2012 7:07 PM, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: On 07/03/12 19:00, alan c wrote: But trust in strangers is not something that comes easy in a world full of scams. Correction trust in strangers only comes easily if people have paid a lot of money for a retail box! -- PC World have sold both RedHat and SUSE in the past, probably not for a good 10 years though. ** end quote [Simon Greenwood] Yes, my first purchased copy of Linux was Caldera Open Linux 1.1 purchased from PC World. Little did I know where they would end up! Still it got me going once I finally had spare hardware without Windows NT or OS/2 running on it for work to get hooked on Linux (I think I already was, I'd been reading about it on the IBM 'forums' for a while already having found one on getting Linux running on my IBM L40sx laptop). I shouldn't grumble too much though, OS/2 saved me from too much reliance on Windows and made Intel hardware bearable. Being and Amiga user Windows was such a major step down I couldn't understand how anyone could consider it any more than a toy! -- Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001 == Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office: Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants, PO7 6NU -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
