Are Ubuntu Server and Desktop Editions At Odds?
Ubuntu’s objective of becoming the distribution that finally brings Linux to “human beings,” i.e. non-geeks, is certainly ambitious. Its simultaneous (and thus far successful) pursuit of the server market, however, is perhaps yet more impressive.
Few Linux distributions have been able to achieve equal success on both the desktop and enterprise fronts. Red Hat’s desktop following forked off into Fedora several years ago, when it became clear that RH’s focus on the server market was not in the interests of users who wanted to run the distribution at home. SUSE has had some success on the desktop, but Novell, its parent company, remains chiefly concerned with the server market.
There’s nothing wrong with targeting servers—after all, contracts with enterprise clients generate a lot of cash that is invested back into open-source projects, which benefit the free-software community as a whole. On the other hand, focus on enterprise Linux leads some desktop users to grumble that they’re being shortchanged by developers who cater to corporate clients (for example, see this interview with Con Kolivas, who split with the kernel project amid charges that it had become “burdened with enterprise crap”).
Too Much Too Soon for Canonical?
Ubuntu’s dual commitment to the desktop and server markets might therefore seem a bit counter-intuitive, especially to those who subscribe to the worldview that it’s better to do one thing and do it well, rather than overextending a finite amount of resources on multiple projects.
Nonetheless, Ubuntu’s strategy seems to be paying off. It has long been regarded as the most popular Linux desktop distribution, but is also enjoying impressive success in the server market, where it has to compete against well-entrenched foes like Red Hat, Novell and Sun but has nonetheless managed to garner a 4% (or, depending on your perspective/agenda, -96%) market share. Not bad for a distribution that’s barely four years old (Red Hat and SUSE, remember, have been around since the mid ’90s).
It’s important to note that, rather than sowing internal divisions as they have for many other distributions, Ubuntu’s desktop and server forks seem to complement one another. The Works With U 1000 survey has found, for instance, that more than three-quarters of businesses that deploy Ubuntu on desktops are also running it on servers. Instead of concluding that Ubuntu is great on the desktop but not so good on a server, or vice-versa, businesses are using it in both environments.
This finding lends credence to the idea that, rather than conquering the enterprise market (and thereby securing a solid financial base) from the top-down, Ubuntu and its parent, Canonical, might seek to work their way into the server market via a “grassroots” approach: that is, by establishing a broad user base (8 million and counting, according to the official numbers) on the desktop that will lead them into a position of dominance in the lucrative server market as well.
So will Ubuntu be the undoing both of proprietary platforms on the desktop and its competitors in the server market as well? It’s certainly too early to say that, but it’s plausible.
WorksWithU Contributing Blogger Christopher Tozzi is a PhD student at a major U.S. university. Tozzi has extensive hands-on experience with Ubuntu Server Edition and Ubuntu Desktop Edition. WorksWithU is updated multiple times per week. Don’t miss a single post. Sign up for our RSS and Twitter feeds (available now) and newsletter (launching January 2009).
Unless Ubuntu strays from it’s philosophy, it’s destined to do good anywhere really. Easy to use, a lot of automation as possible, is extremely appealing. Even to server admins, as it turns out 🙂
I am a non-IT pro, but do mettle with our server here at work on occasion. It seems to me having a familiar format on both the server and the desktop is a desirable thing. I feel confident that’s why Windows Server is so popular it surely isn’t because it is so great. Sadly we are totally Windows (at work, but not at home :), but the ease of use of Ubuntu will surely catch on more and more.
Given their reputation on the desktop, I am a bit baffled as to why Ubuntu server edition defaults to a CLI-only interface. Not that I don’t understand the logic in running a headless server in general, but one would think Ubuntu would leverage it’s user-friendly-GUI ethos to make servers newbie-friendly as well. Suse does this, and I find it’s easier to sell the Windows admins I know on SLES than on Ubuntu for this reason.
Even putting a minimal WM like IceWM on there, along with webmin, would go a long way towards making ubuntu server easier for switchers. If you spend any amount of time in the Ubuntu server forum, you’ll find that installing a GUI and installing webmin are the two most common recommendations for people going through the CLI-newbie crisis.
@Alan – you can install the GUI of choice, but servers are not the place for GUI’s…imho. Manage it remotely using ebox – sudo apt-get install ebox-all – far more efficient and just as simple. Besides – who wants to be in a cold, dark, loud place. I’m happier managing servers from my boat!
@Admin or er, eh Christopher? – you are a smart fella arnt you? Now if you dig under the covers of this strategy I’d be willing to bet you would find that the Ubuntu Server strategy is designed to be the most efficient and expedient server OS for the enterprise. Besides the fact that it will remain a no-cost option (in other words truly free in every sense).
@JP – I know you can, and I know the conventional wisdom about GUI’s on servers. I got about 25 headless Debian boxes under my care, so I’m not out of touch there. But my point is that newbie installs Ubuntu server and doesn’t know any of this. He’s expecting the same friendly environment he got on his workstation, not a console. If ebox is so great why not put it in the default install?
And that’s my point; there are all these things that newbies get counseled to install to make it easy to use the server. Why not put them there (or make them an install option — put tasksel to work) to begin with?
It isn’t that there aren’t good arguments for leaving the GUI off, it’s that this is UBUNTU. They built their name being newbie-friendly, so why not on the server as well? It’s just out-of-sync.
I’m still waiting for Linux-based server OS where I can do most of the things without ever seeing root shell…
There’s also this way to think about it- on the desktop, Ubuntu has been trying to be the best desktop experience it can be, and as easy as possible for new users to adopt. A strong approach there, and very successful.
And rather than “the other edge of the same sword”, the server approach is instead a different weapon altogether, and perhaps defaults to CLI as a beacon that ‘we mean business’.
I do think perhaps there is a little room for filling in some gaps between the two though…
There are two types of server market. The Internet server which tends to be mission critical and security critical – the previous haunt of proprietary Unix systems, and the corporate intranet server – eg. file and print server, intranet web server etc. which are not so critical in terms of uptime or security and which tend to be served by souped up desktop OSes like Windows because of lower grade sysadmin staff’s familiarity with corresponding desktop OSes. Redhat is targeting the former while Ubuntu is targeting the latter. There is room for both.
I use Ubuntu Desktop as my main server platform.
The question is: Do I like to manage my server with a GUI, or manage it remotely. My answer: YES!
I manage my server remotely from the comfort of my desk or couch using the GUI wherever possible (NXserver works pretty well for me). So I think it would be great to have more server GUI admin tools – then we might see Linux replacing Windows, not just proprietary UNIX.
I like the non-gui install for a server, if I want a gui I can easily install it later.
Once you learn a little bit about the command line, remote server maintenance is a breeze. It’s all about getting that little toe-hold of understanding, ignoring the fear and embracing the opportunity… after that, you’ll rapidly get to the point where you wonder how anyone could hope to achieve anything with a GUI. 🙂
With the huge number of decent tutorials out there, getting started isn’t nearly as daunting as it used to be.