Lately I saw a considerable rise in the mentioning of the name Ubuntu in PopURLs and Digg. The Linux OS seems to be too cumbersome for the average computer user. Perhaps Ubuntu will have more impact rivaling Windows. In my view the emergence of a Web OS like Google and Croquet is more important in this respect. Croquet was built to answer a simple question: if we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could we go? Further, what kinds of decisions would we make that we might have been unable to even consider 20 or 30 years ago, when the current operating systems were first created? Croquet decided that it was time for an existence proof that innovation could still continue and succeed on the personal computer and felt that the very definition of the personal computer and its role needed to be shifted from a single-user closed system to a next generation broadband communication device. Below some quotes on Ubuntu by Jeremy Wagstaff from the Wall Street Journal, one of my favorite bloggers.
"Here's the situation: Microsoft, with its Windows operating system and Office suites, dominates what we call The Desktop -- the programs that make up what you see and work with on your computer. There's Apple, of course, which carves out a significant niche and a loyal following. And then there's something called Linux, an operating system that is free, developed by passionate volunteers but too geeky to make much headway into our cubicles or homes. But some believe Linux can be an open-source alternative -- freely written, and free to tinker with. Chief among these believers is South Africa-born Mark Shuttleworth, a 33-year-old software developer who made enough money from the dot.com boom to first become a cosmonaut, and then pour more than $20 million into something called Ubuntu.
So is it good enough for prime time and for you? If you're a power user who likes to connect gadgets, install lots of different software and needs things to be just so, then no. If you just want a fully functioning desktop and don't feel like splashing out several hundred dollars on software, then yes. And while Mr. Shuttleworth hopes Ubuntu will continue to infiltrate desktops in the developed world, his eyes are mainly on the emerging one. When rumors reached the Internet café atop the Jakarta mall last year that there would be an antipiracy raid, it was a no brainer: All the customer computers were stripped of illicit Windows copies and converted to Ubuntu or one of its offshoots. Did customers complain? "A few were a little confused at first," says Minie, a member of the staff. "But after a while they didn't notice.""
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