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Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

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Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#131

Post by fierarul »

naner wrote: post #104

It is beyond time for Ubuntu to quit pussyfooting around and partner with ASUS or some other competent hardware manufacturer* and sell Ubuntu-branded laptops on the Ubuntu website. The Linux desktop (in various incarnations) has been in "testing" for over 15 years. Shuttleworth created Canonical and hired designers and developers to put together a 1st-class desktop system. Time to double down. Try and get some real c…

I would buy this. Even if Acer would come with Ubuntu instead of their Linpus thing, it would be a huge win. Knowing I get a 100% Ubuntu certified laptop would make me ignore the brand.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#132

Post by jonathanyc »

bkerensa wrote: post #107

The Slashdot article is pretty much just FUD please see my response http://benjaminkerensa.com/2012/09/22/lots-of-hype-over-shop...

How is it FUD? Every search query I make on my computer will be sent to some remote Amazon server by default. This is what's called "spyware".

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#133

Post by woe »

fromhet wrote: post #112

Is this in any way different than having Google as default search engine, taking a share of music sold via the music library or taking a share of what software is sold via the in-os-app-store? Nothing shitty, I bet many (not you guys who read HN, but non-power users) will like this feature. I don't think I'll disable it. And that: it's possible to disable, that is nice.

Don't be absurd. Of course it's different than having Google as default search engine.

The provision of a default search engine is an absolute requirement for providing "search the Internet" functionality. If a default engine has to be provided, it's not so offensive for Canonical to score some cash by providing the option that practically all of their users would choose anyway.

The provision of a default shopping engine is not a requirement for providing "search my computer" functionality. They're taking one thing - a tool for managing my own data, on my own computer - and turning it into something else: a way for a multinational retail behemoth to constantly exhort me to buy things.

Weariness with endless commercial bombardment is a significant reason why I showed Apple the door and started using Ubuntu in the first place. Apparently, I didn't run far enough.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#134

Post by rogerbinns »

icebraining wrote: post #127
rogerbinns wrote: post #64

What Canonical/Ubuntu should do is some text like this: "When you use Ubuntu we receive affiliate revenue based on your usage. How would you would like the money distributed?" Then have some sliders like the Humble Bundle to proportion it to the program authors, GNU/fdo etc, EFF and Canonical. Everybody wins that way - folks who don't like Canonical can set their share to zero percent. And just by using the system yo…

Drawback: that requires them to track the clicks of everyone, in order to know how much is their share.

It isn't an unsurmountable problem, and they would know what user wishes were and where the revenue came from. Would it be accurate to the nearest cent? Nope, but it would be close enough.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#135

Post by jackowayed »

Inufu wrote: post #124
naner wrote: post #104

It is beyond time for Ubuntu to quit pussyfooting around and partner with ASUS or some other competent hardware manufacturer* and sell Ubuntu-branded laptops on the Ubuntu website. The Linux desktop (in various incarnations) has been in "testing" for over 15 years. Shuttleworth created Canonical and hired designers and developers to put together a 1st-class desktop system. Time to double down. Try and get some real c…

Better partner with Lenovo, Linux runs really almost perfectly on Thinkpads.

It's still not perfect. I had a ThinkPad T520 this summer for work with 11.04. This is one of the highest quality ThinkPads.

To make Unity and the DisplayPort port (as opposed to just VGA) work, I had to go into the BIOS and change a graphics setting to make it not automatically switch between the integrated and better graphics card. This made unity work, but it also made something terrible happen when I actually plugged in a monitor with DisplayPort. I believe that both the laptop screen and monitor went to 1024x768 and couldn't be coerced out.

The next step, to get full resolution on our 30" monitors, was to install some different video drivers. That was going to be harder to reverse, so I just gave up and dealt with nonoptimal resolution via VGA.

I also had a terrible time disconnecting monitors. Half the time when I unplugged the VGA it would just give me a blank screen.

Also, a few times when listening to music, the entire machine froze and it played the last ~2 seconds of audio repeatedly, with no sign of escape besides restarting.

We've come a long way from when several hours of work to make wifi work was a given, but I still don't think I've ever owned a Linux laptop where all hardware worked perfectly.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#136

Post by rogerbinns »

Inufu wrote: post #124
naner wrote: post #104

It is beyond time for Ubuntu to quit pussyfooting around and partner with ASUS or some other competent hardware manufacturer* and sell Ubuntu-branded laptops on the Ubuntu website. The Linux desktop (in various incarnations) has been in "testing" for over 15 years. Shuttleworth created Canonical and hired designers and developers to put together a 1st-class desktop system. Time to double down. Try and get some real c…

Better partner with Lenovo, Linux runs really almost perfectly on Thinkpads.

I'm part of the Thinkpad faithful and recently updated to a new model. From dmesg:

[Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#140

Post by astine »

rbanffy wrote: post #137

Am I the only one here who thinks this is not disturbing at all? If you don't like it, it's not very difficult to turn off. If you find it too difficult to turn off, maybe Ubuntu is not the right operating system for you.

If this becomes an important money maker for Canonical, you just know that they will find a way to make it hard to turn off. This seems like the first step where they are willfully making the user experience worse rather than better, to fulfill a shortterm end. If this is the only way for Canonical to break even on Ubuntu, that says a lot about the future of desktop Linux in general.
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