Dell’s ‘Sputnik’ Ubuntu Linux ultrabook: First in a new line? - randlejehing

Linux fans may recall the excitement that greeted the plunge of Dell's "Project Sputnik" earlier this year.

Made possible through an internal skunkworks effort, the project aimed to create an Ubuntu-preloaded laptop targeting developers, in particular, with what Dell has titled a "client to mist" resolution.

Away summer solstice, Dell said the associated beta program was exceeding expectations, and today the resulting ultrabook officially launched in the U.S. and Canada.

I spoke earlier this week with Barton George, director of the Web vertical at Dell, along with Michael Cote, its director of cloud scheme, about Dingle's strategy and goals for the recently liberation.

Deploying to the cloud

Opening, some eyeglasses: Dubbed the XPS 13, Developer Edition, the new device sports an i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB memory. Pricing is $1,449, which includes a year of professional support. International availability volition be extended early next class, Dell says.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" is the operating system, of course, and connected the software side it's accompanied away a base set of drivers, tools, and utilities along with the obnubilate launcher and profile tool that hold been a colossal part of the project's focus right along.

"The idea derriere the visibility tool is to bring home the bacon access to a library of community-created profiles on GitHub, such as Blood-red and Humanoid, to quick set ahead your development environments and tool chains," George explained. The cloud launcher, meanwhile, lets developers make up "microclouds" happening their laptop computer, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud.

Some tools were as wel recently launched on GitHub. The video under provides a legal brief introduction to the recently machine.

'As open as possible'

Since the launch of the Sputnik protrude, Dingle's goals have stayed essentially the selfsame, though a few tactic have changed, George told Pine Tree State.

During the testing process, for case, "at least incomplete the people hot Thomas More RAM," he noted, resulting in the full 8GB in the product launching today. 4GB is the inferior criterional in the XPS 13 line.

Some other thing Dingle learned through and through feedback is that "it's critical for developers that the overall packaging works unfashionable of the box," Cote pointed knocked out. "We'Ra trying to make everything as open as possible and provide a good Ubuntu experience for developers."

'Something we're looking at'

Past, too, there's the "larger pent-up trust for this outside the U.S.," George said. "We're impermanent on how to do that."

Interim, developers with "beefier work" to do frequently requested a "big brother version" of the device launching today, he added. "That's something we're definitely look at."

Given that the new machine is marketed toward developers, I asked if Dell would be making any exertion to ensure that only developers get to bribe information technology. In fact, Dell has set it divided slightly from the residue of the XPS telephone line along its site "sol masses don't get confused," George same, and will be promoting IT primarily through and through developer-oriented publications.

'We have stricken a nerve'

At least in theory, however, anyone–regardless of their skills–could purchase one.

In fact, "if this inspires use cases that are different, that's one of the things we're hoping for," George concluded. "We have struck a nerve and found something people are very interested in and concupiscent about."