I picked this up off Slashdot this morning where SirLurksAlot writes that US retailer, Best Buy, is now selling Ubuntu, both through its Web site and in its brick-and-mortar locations. It appears to have quietly been made available since May 6th of this year and is apparently the latest Long Term Support version, Hardy Heron (v8.04 if you prefer).
No mention is made of support facilities over and above those available through the various Ubuntu forums. However, Best Buy does note that the product is published by ValuSoft so presumably that’s where the support can be found. Alas, no. A trip to the technical support web site and a search for the term Ubuntu returns this response: “No products were found to match Ubuntu.”
Nice. So I can buy a nicely packaged copy of Ubuntu from Best Buy for the low, low price of $19.99 or I can download exact the same product, free, grattis and for nothing from the Ubuntu website. Hmmm, tough one.
Steve George said
Hi,
So I wrote up a little bit about why we’re putting Ubuntu into retailers like Best Buy on the Canonical blog: http://blog.canonical.com/?p=18
Essentially, it’s to try and reach out to users who may not know about downloading Ubuntu, or don’t have the bandwidth to do so. Additionally, you do get 60 days of support to help you get up and running. Probably doesn’t apply to you personally, but it’s a big help to less technical users who are worried about installing a new operating system.
brian said
Thanks for the info. The 60 days of support for newbies would definitely make the $20 a worthwhile investment. But where would users go for that? Is it explicit on the packaging? Presumably that’s Canonical and not ValuSoft?