Cheap ‘n’ cheerful, and easy to use. Those are the three characteristics that define Ubuntu for the desktop, the Debian-derived Linux operating system which has proved hugely popular with open source enthusiasts. It’s free (as in beer and as in speech), each version has a daft name like Hardy Heron or Gutsy Gibbon, and it has an attractive GUI which makes Windows users feel right at home, making it an attractive choice for companies or individuals considering ditching a Microsoft operating system.
But Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, also offers a server version of the software, and this raises an obvious question: Do you really want to be running cheap and cheerful server software at the heart of your enterprise? Red Hat and Novell offer serious Linux server software, with serious names like “Red Hat Enterprise Linux” or “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,” and if you want them you have to pay serious money for subscriptions. That’s the way that serious business is done.
Canonical begs to differ: it believes that plenty of organizations do want to run cheap and cheerful server software. Not for running mission critical systems, perhaps, but certainly for more mundane tasks.
