ZDNet.com: Best Buy to sell Ubuntu for $19.99

ZDNet.com has news about Ubuntu available at BestBuy for 20 bucks, writing:

Best Buy to sell Ubuntu

So what do you get for your twenty bucks? The retail box contains ”Ubuntu 8.04 CD, a Quick Start Guide and 60 days of support from the ValuSoft team, trained and backed by the Canonical support guys. The support covers installation and getting started using Ubuntu and is priced at $19.99.”

This is good news from a marketing standpoint; pushing Linux even more main stream.  Will they sell a lot of boxes?  Probably not.  But this is still a good move. Or at least it can be.  I’d like to see what they wrote on the box.  There is still a lot of misunderstanding about Linux and how something free can be as good (or arguably better) than a 200-300 dollar operating system.  There’s also a great deal of misconception about what software will work and won’t work on it.

Back to the article:  I agree 2 month’s of support is not worth the 20 bucks.  Download the ISO and burn a disk. Don’t know how or what I even just said?  Click here.

I do disagree with ZDNet’s question, “I wonder whether the audience that needs to have Ubuntu sold to them on a CD is actually ready for Linux.” Sure they are. Ubuntu is extremely easy to install, not like the old Red hat days of years gone by.   Get the Live CD and try it. Once you get used to a slightly different layout, you’ll love it.  I do.  And if you need help.  Just ask me here or in the always kind and helpful Ubuntu forums.