A Simple Feature of Ubuntu 8.04 That Could Be So Important
Imagine trying to expose a large number of people (people you might not know personally) to Ubuntu all at once. The logical thing to do is, of course, give them a CD. So what are they going to do with that CD? Well, almost no matter what you say or do, many of them will put the CD in the drive on their Windows computer and see what happens. When they put the CD for the current Ubuntu in, a screen will come up with an Ubuntu logo, a screenshot, and a sentence of text that says to reboot your computer to try it out without changing anything. So what next? One of two things happens. Some people will just close the window and throw out the CD and others will try rebooting. Those people that do reboot will experience Ubuntu, but it will be a slow Ubuntu where you can’t save anything to your hard drive. In other words, if you sent a current Ubuntu CD to 100 random people, you would be lucky to end up with one of them installing it.
With the upcoming release of Ubuntu, 8.04, all that (or some of it) will change. Starting with Alpha 5, this is what you will see when you put the CD in your Windows PC. “Install inside Windows” is a much friendlier option than restart your computer to try it out and installing a program is something that most Windows users can do without help. (FYI this feature makes use of Wubi, a program that lets you install Ubuntu automatically from Windows without partitioning.) While you will never get 100 out of 100 people to install it, with Ubuntu 8.04 it will certainly be a lot more likely for you to get, say, 10 or 20 out of 100.
This seemingly small feature of Ubuntu 8.04 could, in fact, make a surprising difference in how fast Ubuntu spreads.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Great idea. There was something like this years ago, but I can’t remember which distro offered it. With more recent computers, this should be much easier to do in a practical way.
I hope Canonical will be very thorough as far as safeguards are concerned. Last thing we need is to have Windows installs break because of a partial install or some glitch that corrupts something.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:39 am
It’s an interesting feature, but as far as i know, its slower than a proper Ubuntu install and less safe, especially if something happens to mess up windows.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
CMD – True, but it is no where near as slow as a live CD I am sure. Also, it would not be a permanent install, but just a more familiar way for people to try it out.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:23 am
John Bailey
I think BeOS is the distro you are thinking of. It installed in a file, like VMWare and was very simple.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I always wondered why linux users are always trying to convert microsoft users. Whats the deal with that? Who cares what other people use. I use linux and i’m happy with it. If my friends dont want to use it then no sweat of my back. Who cares?
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
KillaGeorge: because MS using friends keep asking for help…. I don’t want to / can’t help them if they are use Windoze.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Also because the more widely used an operating system is, the greater the support of the OS is, and that includes useful tools, programs, and more. It’s like how there is a huge supply of Windows applications all over the place and less Mac and Linux apps (but of course there are still plenty).
May 28th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Yep, I was certainly tempted to try it with the new installation option. I have to say I’m extremely happy with the operating system, and whilst I am not getting rid of Vista. I have set Ubuntu as the default operating system and use it most of the time.