Dell launches Sputnik Linux Ultrabook
Beefy open-source machines on the way
Apple landed an important punch against Microsoft some years back by becoming a popular platform among devs building new applications.
The resource-vampire Windows Vista, Microsoft’s effective hiatus on new releases, the power of MacBooks and rise of the web as a runtime saw Microsoft lose its grip on an influential and demanding segment of the IT community.
Now Dell’s making a play for the demographic that was lured by Apple, but it’s not pushing Windows 8 or even Windows 7 on its hardware – it’s promoting Ubuntu.
Dell today released Project Sputnik, a Dell XPS 13 tuned to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS that had been unveiled as a Skunkworks project in May.
Sputnik features an Intel i7 CPU, 8GB RAM and 256GB memory, a basic set of drivers, tools and utilities and is priced $1,549 with a year of support. The machine is only on sale in the US and Canada, but will go international next year.
Standard price for the regular machine from Dell is $1,499; you can compare processor, memory and CPU with the relevant MacBooks from Apple here. As ever, Dell undercuts Cupertino on the price, so the question is do you want to splash out a little more for a PC running Ubuntu instead of Windows for dev?
Barton George, Dell’s web vertical sector director, who initiated Sputnik, said the company is looking at expanding with a “beefier” platform option for devs. “The XPS 13 is perfect for those who want an ultra light and mobile system but we have heard from quite a few who would also like an offering that was more workstation-like with a bigger screen and more RAM,” he said in a statement.
Sputnik is part product and part experiment, with Dell reversing the standard OEM cookie-cutter approach to knocking out PCs by talking to devs and crafting software.
Attention was paid to making sure the XPS 13 drivers worked with Linux out of the box, with efforts to lock down Wi-Fi, screen brightness and touchpad and multi-touch support. As software packages go, Sputnik has a basic install image here.
Dell has departed from the norm by working with devs to build a profile tool and cloud launcher, which lets users build and install their own custom, web-centric development environment. In the past, IDE tools have tried to force devs into their own version of some kind of a fully equipped programming cockpit.
The profile tools and cloud launcher are open-source projects on github.
The profile tools give developers access to profiles for things like Ruby and Android, letting you craft your own development environment and chains of tools. The Cloud launcher lets you build simulate cloud environments on the laptop and then upload them using Ubuntu’s JuJu. Ubuntu supports OpenStack for cloud dev and run time, and the cloud platform is also supported by Dell.
George said the idea was to conduct Project Sputnik out in the open, soliciting and leveraging direct input from developers via the Project Sputnik StormSession, blog comments, and threads on the Sputnik tech centre forum for the Sputnik beta program. “It was the tremendous interest in the beta program that convinced us to take Project Sputnik from pilot to product,” George said.
George has a history of trying to make hardware companies more attractive to devs – he was on the community side at Sun Microsystems before it was swallowed by Oracle. Dell has worked with Ubuntu shop Canonical to iron out the driver-Ubuntu wrinkles on Sputnik.
Sun got open-source and Linux love following a torturous battle with its Solaris soul and a recognition its server business was in decline. Web and developers offered a hope, but it was a hope that never materialised financially for Sun’s server sales.
There’s no hint of an expectation that Sputnik will help Dell’s server sales, nor is this being pushed as the equivalent of the year of the Linux desktop. Dell is not going big on Ubuntu on Ultrabooks, continuing its caution of the past, where it has offered Linux on just a tiny number of relatively low-specced laptops subject to demand.
This was a skunkworks project whose life George had to lobby for inside Dell.
Dell, it seems, is trying to identify the right machine for the right market. Whether that will lead to easing out Apple as the dev's choice, changing the way it builds PCs into something more collaborative or even circuitously floating more OpenStack clouds running on Dell hardware is a work in progress. ®
COMMENTS
and glossy too. ffs. Earth calling ultrabook manufacturers, anyone listening?
Re: They are giving the middle finger to microsoft at last!
Except that as the article mentions, this is priced higher than the same spec Windows box....
How do they justify charging more for removing a paid-for OS and installing a free one instead? Looks more like their previous Linux offerings where it was a twisty maze of passages all the same to find the one product with Linux and then you paid a premium for the privilige.
I got the feeling last time this was more to 'prove' a lack of demand than anything else, nothing seems to have changed.
Re: They are giving the middle finger to microsoft at last!
I guess I never consider support beyond hardware failures, which should be the same, because as a competent software developer I support myself.
If they're going to start offering linux to consumers I can see it, but this is aimed at developers.
I'd still rather be able to buy one with no OS and no support contract.
Does not compute?
So you pay an extra $50 to have a OS on the machine that you can download for nothing, as opposed to one which you pay M$ an in-built license fee for? Even the tailored image set up for the machine is available via the link in the article.
Aside from the note about the screen, why would you pay extra for Ubuntu rather than buy the standard machine, blank it and then put the image on yourself? Yes it saves a little work (and it's nice to have the option) but it's hardly worth a $50 surcharge for the privilege.
