It looks like the desktop/workstation price is $25/yr, which seems pretty reasonable. For personal users, it is free for 5 concurrent machines. Unfortunately the per server price is $500/yr, which maybe competitive with some of the competition, but still seems steep to me. But then, while I run Ubuntu VMs or containers, I'm not really using it for bare metal servers any more.
For some comparisons, Proxmox is €370/yr/socket. RHEL Workstation is $196.90/yr, while server is $383.90/yr, and Oracle Linux is reportedly $1,199/socketpair/yr.
Given the free distro, subscription support model that tends to prevail, a pay once price with either no free, or on top of the free option might be a hard sell.
Paying makes sense when you actually need/use those services. Paying "because you can" feels wrong to me. If the goal is to support FOSS, there are many more ways to contribute than subscribing to a service you don't use.
Without commenting on Ubuntu Pro specifically, the whole point of a Linux distribution is that users don't need to know or care what specific services they use. I'd happily pay $50/year to use "Debian" and trust that the Debian Foundation figures out how to feed that money back to the appropriate upstream projects.
Please don't try and make me give $0.05/week to dbus maintainers or whoever.
I would happily pay for Linux if it came pre-installed on a machine it's guaranteed to work with. I mean flawlessly - I really don't want to configure a driver ever again.
Please someone create a linux laptop that:
1. Just works out of the box.
2. Has really good keychain management.
3. Comes with no bundled AI.
4. Good clipboard managment (like Handoff).
5. Excellent graphics APIs and an good UI framework.
Apple and Microsoft have lost the plot and there's a gaping wide space to fill here.
I can't speak to the default install but Thinkpads have what I would consider perfect hardware support. Absolutely everything works, fingerprint reader, tpm, nvidia card, and all.
SteamDeck, System76, Pine64, Slimbook, Tuxedo, etc there are PLENTY of Linux devices to buy in all form factors.
Source : I'm using at least 2 of these and use Linux on my desktop daily, for years. Spent maximum 15min total caring about drivers and yes I do also game.
I think for most people the apps either have equivalent web versions (because they are already electron/similar on OSX/Win) or have linux native versions (basically all software engineering tools like IDE:s, compilers).
Sure, there are professions where that is not true (adobe, xcode, etc.), but I think most people on this forum could switch to linux without problems.
Given how well windows games now run on linux through proton, it just made me think - surely, Outlook/Word etc should run easily?
That would be strange firing up Word from Steam though.
Companies seem completely dependent on the Word/Outlook ecosystem. I hope this will change in the future, and not just for some other US tech oligopoly.
Which is crazy because Outlook the actual application has got to be one of the worst email clients in existence. The only email client that I've dealt with that had more problems was the one guy who insisted on still using pine.
Great now multiply that bullet point list by 1000, because everyone wants different things and has different hardware, and you'll see that even the current state of Linux is a miracle. We're at the point where 90% of the time you can install a modern Gnome distro on a laptop and it'll work. Completely for free.
For me, the immediate question isn't "should I pay to use Linux" (I already do).
This is a nonstarter for me simply because I don't do software subscriptions, and especially not for operating systems. However, this appears to be aimed at enterprise usage rather than personal anyway.
IMO, paying is the best alternative to getting ads everywhere or losing future support because the people making updates lose interest or go out of business.
Pay for linux, possibly. Pay Canonical for Linux, absolutely not. They're on my list of enshittifiers, who by definition should never be given any money in any form.
For some comparisons, Proxmox is €370/yr/socket. RHEL Workstation is $196.90/yr, while server is $383.90/yr, and Oracle Linux is reportedly $1,199/socketpair/yr.
Given the free distro, subscription support model that tends to prevail, a pay once price with either no free, or on top of the free option might be a hard sell.
Please don't try and make me give $0.05/week to dbus maintainers or whoever.
Please someone create a linux laptop that:
1. Just works out of the box.
2. Has really good keychain management.
3. Comes with no bundled AI.
4. Good clipboard managment (like Handoff).
5. Excellent graphics APIs and an good UI framework.
Apple and Microsoft have lost the plot and there's a gaping wide space to fill here.
Source : I'm using at least 2 of these and use Linux on my desktop daily, for years. Spent maximum 15min total caring about drivers and yes I do also game.
Sure, there are professions where that is not true (adobe, xcode, etc.), but I think most people on this forum could switch to linux without problems.
There's already tons of power software for Linux (e.g. Blender) but it's not always easy to use.
I don't see why the App Store model wouldn't work on Linux too.
That would be strange firing up Word from Steam though.
Companies seem completely dependent on the Word/Outlook ecosystem. I hope this will change in the future, and not just for some other US tech oligopoly.
Did you read my post?
> Please someone create a linux laptop
That means the hardware is alreaty there. I'm talking about the macOS model for Linux.
What would be top of your 5000 bullet point list?
This is a nonstarter for me simply because I don't do software subscriptions, and especially not for operating systems. However, this appears to be aimed at enterprise usage rather than personal anyway.
Otherwise don't whine when projects die.