Now you can get Ubuntu for the low low price of....wait. What?

Now you can get Ubuntu for the low low price of....wait. What?

The news on the net is that Canonical has partnered up with Valusoft to bring Ubuntu to a mass consumer level via Best Buy. I hope that through this story I can shed a tiny light on why we as free Americans, as heavily paying consumers, distracted human beings, sleepwalking workaholics, ‘yes people’, and slaves to the almighty (yet depricated) dollar are bullied, and vilified into believing a simple fact: if it’s free, it’s junk. Which is why of course, most things given out for free as promotional tools are in fact, junk. “Oh, cool, a…..pen…with your crappy logo on it? Uh, thanks Lunesta…I don’t have enough issues as it is, I need everyone to think that I’m signing checks while I’m sleepwalking. Those are friends that I DON’T want.”

The story begins with a de.lic.iou.s RSS feed I stumbled up via Slashdot that can be found here. A quick look on the BB website showed that in fact my greatest fears are coming true. They are indeed selling copies of Ubuntu Hardy Heron v8.04, the most current stable release. The price that Valusoft and Canonical have adhered to is $19.99. Not bad really when compared to a certain Redmond, VA based company’s more prominent operating system which starts at a retail (now ebay) price of $130 for (unfairly RIP XP) and upwards of hundreds of dollars for Vista Ultimate (who cares?). It’s a fair price until you know the underlying facts. Most important is support. Most computer-savvy-deficient individuals (like those that buy complete computers from stores like Best Buy in the first place rather than build their own for hundreds of dollars less, *hint hint*) want to know that when (not a matter of ‘if’ for them, but WHEN) their computer breaks down, someone will be there to help them unbreak it, so that they can, you know, continue surfing porn, forwarding chain mail and cluttering up peoples myspace pages with obnoxious bandwidth-raping, CPU-smothering apps. So far, the simplest answer I’ve gotten from a somewhat local BB store rep is that they are providing limited support simply because it’s brand new in the store and 99% of their store associates have never touched Ubuntu. He said possibly the Geeksquad Double Agents would be able to provide limited support. I’m here to inform anyone that is thinking about switching or trying out Ubuntu is that the Ubuntu official forums are excellent for anything directly involving Ubuntu-supported applications. For those of you that need live help, don’t mind waiting for email, or need a very generic beginner question answered, try the solutions found here. Either route you take will lead you to an amazingly simple solution to most problems. You don’t really need to pay Geeksquad, Best Buy, or Valusoft for iffy support when the best support is free.(although I would bet that Valusoft’s support team would be the better choice) There is also your search engine of choice. I use www.dogpile.com Hell, if you feel badly about taking so much for free, donate some money to Canonical! Why not? (No, I am not affiliated with Canonical or Ubuntu in any way, simply a strong advocate of.)

Also, I had him read the details on the box to find out what makes this version they are selling as the “Complete” version so completely special. Are you ready for this? Those of you that know Ubuntu/linux will get a laugh, those of you who aren’t versed in any flavour of linux will learn something new. The “Complete” version, that they are selling for $19.99 comes with Avast! Antivirus. That’s the ONLY extra addon besides the support. Listen up people, Ubuntu/linux is hailed as an operating system immune to virus attacks and malware. You do not need an antivirus program, that is unless the developers over at Canonical have uncovered something sinister that I don’t feel I should be out of the loop on… I’ve used linux for several years and have never once found the need for antivirus on a home user setup. That or a firewall. Yes, I know that’s subjective, but fact is, most malicious software is written to take down Windows, so even if you activated a windows-written virus in linux yourself, chances are it would do nothing.

Ubuntu IS FREE!!! Avast! IS FREE!!! And as far as we know, will be provided as such until the end of time…or is this a turning point in the free open source market place?

I understand that this is not an issue with Best Buy. I understand that someone at Canonical thought it would be good for publicity’s sake, and that this could be a smart move for Ubuntu, but honestly who does not at least know the word ‘linux’ in terms of computers? And when people talk about linux, Ubuntu is fairly prominent on the tongue these days. Why does a free OS need publicity. That’s not a question, that’s a statement. Publicity exists solely as a tool for harvesting future revenue. I’m worried. Are you? The only reason anyone promotes anything is to coax and/or manipulate people into buying their products, whether that be purchasing with actual money, listening to their radio station, or voting for a candidate come election time. They’re all just different forms of currency. And we’re all buying into it.

Ubuntu IS free, but like all open source software, donations are accepted. They give you 4 basic options:

1. Download Ubuntu, free of charge, share it with your friends, your family, and your work, with free support, forever, free of charge. Sounds like a great deal, no?

2. Request up to 2 original copies be burned and mailed to you, free of charge, share it and enjoy the same free support, forever just as above. Still pretty awesome!

3. Buy 20 disks for $40. Wait, what’s that again? Canonical, are you saying that if we buy Ubuntu directly from your website, we can get the equivilant of 10 disks for the same price that’s being charged at Best Buy for one disk? Seems like a no-brainer to me for those of us that aren’t afraid to do a little self setup and self teaching.

4. Or, what I do, is when a new, official release comes out, I will upgrade my current Ubuntu to that version via the handy Update Manager, download my own copy to burn to disk just in case something happens (Ubuntu’s livecd makes a fantastic recovery disk even for Windows), then order a copy from Canonical.

Any way you look at this situation, something mildy sinister creeps into view. Their only hope is that people take the bait and most importantly that they provide the customer service support that everyone prays for when they dial that number.

Information is the new currency. Who wants to be rich?