A first look at Dell's “Sputnik” Ubuntu Linux developer laptop
Dell will be shipping a high-powered laptop for developers this fall, and here's what it's going to look like.
Portland, OR: Sputnik started, Barton George, Dell's project Sputnik lead and director of web vertical marketing. told me at OSCon as a six-month exploratory pilot to create an Ubuntu Linux-based developer laptop, It's not just an idea now. Dell is taking Project Sputnik from pilot to product this fall.
This official developer laptop is based on the Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu 12.04 Long Term Support (LTS)
This PC will offer developers a complete client-to-cloud solution. The
Sputnik will allow developers to create “microclouds” on their laptops,
simulating a proper, at-scale environment, and then deploy that
environment seamlessly to the cloud. George explained it would use LXC
virtual environments containers for the microclouds. These cloud
applications can then be deployed to Ubuntu instances running on the
Amazon, OpenStack, bare-metal with Management as a Service (MAAS), and,
eventually, Microsoft Azure clouds.
A first look at Ubuntu 12.04 (Gallery)
The
Sputnik won't be just for cloud developers. George said that their has
been an incredible amount of interest in the project. “When I first put
the word out I thought it would be a success if I got 4,000 hits on the
proposal. It's now over 50,000 hits.” Since then developers have been
telling Dell in great detail what they want from a developer's laptop
and Dell has been listening.
In addition to supporting cloud
developers, the Sputnik will come with profiles that contains all the
core programmer tools a developer might need for a particular language
or environment. “Three developer profiles to begin with: JavaScript,
Ruby on Rails, and Android. There will be others depending on
programmers' demands, and we're toying with the idea of 'customized'
profiles.” So, for example, you could download the Tim Bray, one of
Google's Android's leaders, Android developer profile.
Canonical, Ubuntu's
parent company, has been working with Dell on the program from the
start. Indeed, the project really got going, said George, after
Shuttleworth visited Dell's office and gave the notion his blessings...
and his own ideas on what he'd like to see in a best-of-breed developer
laptop.
The Sputnik, which according to George may eventually be
named the XPS 13 Developer Edition or open-source Edition, will be
based on Dell's high-end XPS 13 laptop. The Sputnik will have a 13.3
inch screen with edge to edge glass with 1366x768 resolution, i7 2GHz
Intel Core2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD, all in a 0.88 x
12.56 x 9.3 inch frame and weights in at 2.99 lbs.
In the
engineering sample I saw the system was, as you might expect, extremely
fast. The keyboard, while a chiclet style, had a good response and the
touch-pad worked well. The matte screen was quite usable even in a very
bright environment. Personally, I would have been happy to walk away
with and start work.
George couldn't give me an exact price but
said it would be in the ballpark of the current top-of-the-line Dell XPS
13, about $1,500.
The Ubuntu team is excited about it. Jono
Bacon, Ubuntu's community manager told me, “I am delighted to see
Project Sputnik going to production. We have had a long and positive
relationship with Dell, and in Ubuntu we are increasingly focusing on
developers and their needs, so Project Sputnik forms an ideal
partnership. What excites me about Project Sputnik is that it brings
elegance in software and hardware together and empowers developers to do
great work on not only a powerful platform, but one underlined with
this sleek and enjoyable software and hardware experience.”
Source of this information:
http://www.zdnet.com/a-first-look-at-dells-sputnik-ubuntu-linux-developer-laptop-7000001166/
Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
