Shuttleworth raves about Dell XPS13 developer edition

May 24, 2013

At the OpenStack summit last month we caught up with Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth.

Below is a quick snippet taken from our chat with Mark where he talks about the Dell XPS 13 developer edition aka Project Sputnik.  Mark dubs the system “freakin’ awesome” and the “environment of choice for anyone doing web or cloud development.”  :)

Extra-credit reading

  • Laptop Week Review: The Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition With Ubuntu – TechCrunch
  •  It just works: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition Linux Ultrabook review – Ars Technica

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Posted by Barton George

Game on! Ubuntu comes to Alienware

April 5, 2013

Ubuntu has been available on Dell business laptops for quite awhile, including the recently introduced XPS 13 developer edition.  A few weeks ago we announced that we were expanding our Ubuntu certification beyond our cloud servers to include Dell’s 12G servers.

Today we are announcing that Ubuntu is coming to another member of the Dell family, the Alienware X51 gaming desktop.

Alienware+Ubuntu

You can easily install Steam on to the X51 and although there aren’t tons of games supported yet, the list is continuing to grow and now includes classics such as Team Fortress 2 and Serious Sam.

To learn more and get a first-person account of using Ubuntu on the X51 check out the Direct2Dell blog post.

Update: corrected Ubuntu logo on above screenshot

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Sputnik 2 is here: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition goes 1080p and lands in Europe

February 18, 2013

source: greatbigcanvas.com

Sputnik 2 & Laika source: greatbigcanvas.com

When we launched the Ubuntu-based XPS 13 developer edition at the end of November we got a lot of great press.  That being said, the two complaints we heard loud and clear were 1) the resolution is too low, and 2) it needs to be available outside the US and Canada.  Since that time we have been working hard to address both.

As of today the XPS 13 developer edition comes with a Full HD (FHD) display (1920 x 1080) and has begun rolling out in Europe.

On beyond North America

ubuntu_black-orange_hexFor those in the USA and Canada Sputnik 2, the XPS 13 developer edition with the FHD display, is now available online.  Across the pond Sputnik 2 has started rolling out and will be available online next week.  I will post the links when they become available but here is the list of the countries where Sputnik 2 will be landing:

  • Available online – France, Germany, UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
  • Available from your Dell rep – Israel, Luxembourg, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UAE

With regards to the Asia Pacific region, we are currently evaluating options to introduce the XPS 13 developer edition in Australia and other countries in Asia, but don’t have details to share at this time.  That being said, if you would like to help with the introduction, share your opinion in the comments :)

XPS13-DEProduct specs

The new FHD version of the XPS 13 developer edition will replace the existing unit.  All other specs of this client-to-cloud solution will stay the same.

Here are the highlights:

  • Processor: 3rd generation Intel i7
  • Display: 13.3″ Full High Definition (1080p)
  • System memory: 8GB
  • Graphics: Intel HD graphics 4000
  • Hard drive: 256GB SSD drive
  • Standard Service: 1 year Dell ProSupport and onsite service after remote diagnostics
  • Operating system: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
  • Community projects: Cloud launcher and Profile tool

To reflect the upgrade to the improved display the new price for the solution will be $1,549.

What about the Cloud Launcher and Profile Tool?

Ever since we first announced that we were launching a project to explore the creation of an open source developer laptop, we talked about two associated community beta projects: The Cloud Launcher and the Profile Tool.

  • Profile Tool: The idea behind the profile tool is to provide access to a library of community created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains.
  • Cloud launcher: The cloud launcher enables you to create “microclouds” on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud.

With the mad rush to get Sputnik and then Sputnik 2 out the door we haven’t focused as much attention on the associated projects as we would have liked.  Now that the systems are going out the door we are looking to kick them up a notch.  We will soon be taking the Profile Tool effort off of pause.

With regards to the Cloud launcher, we have big plans for it (its what puts the “cloud” in “client-to-cloud” solution).  Today the launcher uses Juju to jettison application environments from the laptop, to the cloud.  Recently though we have been working with Opscode to create another version that leverages Chef and that will connect to the Dell Cloud on Demand.  We should have a demo and more available soon!

Links and Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Talking about Project Sputnik and the importance of Devs to Dell

January 15, 2013

At Dell World I was interviewed about Project Sputnik, the resulting XPS 13 Developer Edition we launched and the importance of developers.

Here’s the interview (notice my fashion forward blue Dell shirt ;)

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Sputnik has landed! Introducing the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition

November 29, 2012

A little over six months ago we announced a scrappy skunkworks project to pilot a developer solution based on Ubuntu 12.04LTS and our sleek XPS 13 laptop.  Thanks to the amazing feedback and support we have received from the community, today we are announcing the availability of the resulting official product – the Dell XPS 13 laptop, developer edition.

What’s exactly is it?

Here is an overview of the components of this client-to-cloud solution and some key facts:

Hardware: XPS 13 laptop, high-end config

  • I7 CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD

Software

Price: $1,549 $1,449* (includes 1 yr ProSupport)

*Updated 11/30/12: the community pointed out we had not priced consistently across our online stores, this has been fixed.  This offering was always intended to be priced less than Windows.

Availability

  • Small office/consumer - U.S.
  • Enterprise – U.S./Canada
  • Outside the US  – early 2013

Community projects: Profile tool and Cloud Launcher

The profile tool and cloud launcher are beta open source projects that we have just kicked off on github.  These projects are quite nascent at this point and we are looking for more people to get involved and help get them going (hint, hint :) ) .

  • Profile Tool: The idea behind the profile tool is to provide access to a library of community created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains.
  • Cloud launcher: The cloud launcher enables you to create “microclouds” on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud.  Today the launcher utilizes Linux Containers to model your environment on your laptop and then uses Juju to jettison that environment to the cloud.  The launcher project on github will allow for community expansion on this concept using different technologies and approaches.

How did we get here?

As I mentioned at the beginning, project Sputnik began as a skunkworks effort.  It was made possible by internal incubation fund designed to bring wacky ideas from around the company to life in order to tap innovation that might be locked up in people’s heads. 

Just weeks after the basic concept was greenlighted by the innovation team, it was publically announced as a pilot project at the Ubuntu developer summit.  The big focus of our efforts, particularly in the beginning, has been to work with Canonical to make sure that we had the appropriate drivers for all functionality including the pesky touchpad.

From the start, the idea was to conduct project Sputnik out in the open, soliciting and leveraging direct input from developers via our Project Sputnik StormSession, comments on this blog, threads on the Sputnik tech center forum as well as the project Sputnik beta program.  In fact it was the tremendous interest in the beta program that convinced us to take Project Sputnik from pilot to product.

I would like to give a special shout out to the beta cosmonauts who signed on.  They were an intrepid lot who were patient and diligent working through issues to help make sure that when we went to production we had a product that developers would want.

Where do we go from here?

The next big thing for XPS 13 developer edition is availability outside the United States.  We are working with teams inside of Dell to make this so as quickly as we can.  The other direction we are looking at potentially expanding is offering a bigger beefier platform for developers.  The XPS 13 is perfect for those who want an ultra light and mobile system but we have heard from a bunch of devs who would also like an offering that was more workstation-like with a bigger screen and more RAM.

Today is a very proud moment for our team, putting together an official Dell offering for developers with their input and suggestions through out the process.  Stay tuned for more to come!

 Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Initial thoughts from the Project Sputnik Beta Cosmonauts

October 2, 2012

The Project Sputnik Beta program has been going for several weeks now.  We have an intrepid group of cosmonauts and there have been a bunch of blogs posted, tweets tweeted and a flurry of activity on the forum.

In general the feedback has been very positive with some folks having issues around wifi and the touch pad.

So far four of the cosmonauts have posted detailed entries around their Sputnik experiences.   Here are excerpts from the postings.

The Sputnik Out of Box Experience

For a good look at the OOBE, complete with photos, check out Theron’s “#ProjectSputnik – first impressions“.  Here’s the summary at the end:

After initial load and getting my standard working environment up and running, I’ve got to say this little beast is pretty amazing. From the tight OS integration to the feel of the laptop, it looks and feels like a solid build. I’m going to be busy working with OpenStack over the coming months and I’m excited to see how closely integrated I can get my build envionment on this laptop to the ubuntu server I’m using for testing. After watching Mark Shuttleworth talk this year at Oscon about JuJu and #ProjectSputnik, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be amazing. More blog posts to follow.

One man’s journey back to Linux

This next blog kicked off a huge discussion on hacker news around developer laptops, OS’s and the merits of their various incarnations.  Geoffrey Papillion wrote about his odyssey through time and across various OS’s which has led him to the present and Linux once again.

Here is how he concludes his post “Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it seems I can use a linux laptop now“

Two days ago I got my Dell XPS 13 as part of a Dell beta progam called project Sputnik. I got a special version of Ubuntu, with some kernel patches, and some patched packages for sleep and hibernation. After an hour of struggling with making a bootable USB drive from my Mac for my Dell(turns out it was an issue with the USB drive), I had a working computer. By 8pm I had my development enviroment setup, I had chef up and running, and even my VPN was working. I was amazed.

So, far its been good; most apps I use are web apps. I spend 70% of my time in a terminal, and 30% of my time in a web browser. Honestly its the perfect computer for me right now. So, I’m waving goodbye to the ecosystem Mr. Jobs built, and moving to the world of linux full time.

On Beyond ThinkPad

Matt Urbanski who is coming from a linux mint based Lenovo ThinkPad x220 that he has been really happy with, gives his initial thoughts in Project Sputnik Beta Day one. He concludes his post with:

I sound much like a crochety old man who dislikes change. I’m going to give this a go and see what happens. I’m now embarking on the always annoying task of getting my homedir and configurations from one machine to the other. I’ll report back after some real usage.

The Woodward Trilogy

The most prolific cosmonaut award goes to Matt Woodward who has been putting his project Sputnik laptop through its paces and written three entries about it.

Dell Sputnik: Initial impressions

Conclusion: The Dell XPS 13 is a huge winner in my book. It’s exceedingly well built, light, quiet, and has all the bells and whistles you need in an ultrabook — particularly one aimed at developers — and Dell made intelligent omissions across the board with the possible exception of the amount of RAM pre-installed.

If like me you’ve had Dells in the past and hadn’t thought about Dell in a while, this machine may well change your mind about Dell. After only a few hours of using it it’s certainly starting to change mine, and I can already see myself gravitating to the Sputnik as my go-to machine.

Dell Sputnik: Battery life test

Results: The results are quite impressive, with a run time of about 8 hours 20 minutes in my usage

A week at a conference with Dell Sputnik

Summary: After living with the Sputnik as my only machine for a week I continue to be extremely impressed. Particularly in a developer conference situation where power isn’t available at every seat and you have to fight for the few outlets that are available, the Sputnik’s fantastic battery life let me focus on the conference instead of worrying about whether or not my laptop was going to conk out.Other than the occasional issues with the trackpad I thoroughly enjoyed using the Sputnik at DjangoCon — it makes a great conference companion!

So that’s the initial round up.  Stay tuned for more!

Extra-credit reading/Resource links

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Project Sputnik – Beta Cosmonauts chosen

August 27, 2012

First of all, I would like to thank all the applicants to the Project Sputnik beta program for their patience.  Since we announced the program last month we have been working on implementation, traveling mostly uncharted waters here at Dell.  After working through countless details and seeing what could actually be done in a timely and supportable manner, we have come up with our list of Beta cosmonauts.

The Beta Cosmonauts

We had hoped to make the beta program worldwide, but after digging in we found that the resources needed to execute on it turned out to be more than our little Dell/Canonical team could handle.  As a result we have decided to narrow our Beta effort to the United States.  From those applicants from the US, which represented close to half of the total number of applicants, we have selected 455 people.

It wasn’t easy to narrow the list but we picked people who represent a cross section of the developer population from start ups to large companies to universities.  They represent a wide variety of skills and experience and are the people who we feel will be most vocal and participatory and who best represent the Sputnik ethos.

What they get – Updated Aug 30

Tomorrow we will send out the emails to everyone in the program letting them know whether they have been selected or not.  Those selected, and who are still interested in participating, will be able to purchase the high-end XPS13 at $1,199 rather than $1,499*.   As the program continues we will continue to refine the software.  In return…

*Update Aug 30: We took the feedback re the desire for a deeper discount and went back to see if there was any more cost we could drive out the base price.  We found a couple of places and were able to lower the base price from $1,499 to $1,349.99.  Applying the 20% discount to this we are now able to offer the system to Beta cosmonauts at $1,079.99 ($120 less than before.  It’s not a huge difference but I assume every little bit counts).

What we are asking of them

  • Load the software: While we had hoped to be able to offer the beta systems with Ubuntu pre-loaded this has turned out to be a lot more difficult than we had thought and would require shifting resources from our launch in the fall.  As a result, unfortunately the systems will come with Windows pre-loaded.  All the Beta cosmonauts will need to do is follow the directions for installing Ubuntu as listed on the Canonical page.
  • Be vocal and transparent:  We want the cosmonauts to blog and tweet (hashtag #ProjectSputnik) about their experience as a beta tester, but if asked or when appropriate disclose that they received a discount from Dell.
  • Use it and contribute:  As beta testers we want the cosmonauts to use the system, try things out, file bugs and share their experience with us and each other on the project Sputnik Forum.  It would also be awesome if they could even contribute a profile or two when we make the profile tool available.
  • Support: given that this is a beta program we won’t have official support for the hardware or software.  That being said we will try our best to help out the cosmonauts via the forum and bug tracker.

Thanks again to everyone who applied to the program.  Dell and Canonical are very excited to hear what people think of the systems and learn what we can do to make them better.

Key links

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Quick Sputnik Update

August 21, 2012

I apologize for the radio silence since OSCON.   Since announcing that we would be delivering a product this fall, our little team has been working hard to get us locked and loaded on the roadmap.  We have also been focusing on the Profile tool that Canonical has been building for us.

The other big effort that has consumed a lot of our time is ironing out  the logistics for the Beta program we announced last month.   Stay tuned, we hope to have some news on this a little later this week.

Who knew?!

Turns out that taking Project Sputnik from incubation project to real product and launching a beta program at the same in a highly accelerated manner involves a lot of uncharted territory within the company.  We are learning as we go along.

Thanks everyone for your patience and stay tuned for more Sputnik news.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

OSCON: Tim O’Reilly chats with Mark Shuttleworth

August 7, 2012

Here’s the last of my posts from OSCON.

The conversation below took place right after Mark Shuttleworth’s keynote.  Tim and Mark start off by talking about Mark’s persistence of vision and what keeps driving him.  At the 2:00 minute mark they talk about Project Sputnik, the buzz around it at OSCON and where it has the advantage over Mac OS.  From there they talk about bringing the cloud right to the desktop via Juju.

Enjoy!

Extra-credit reading:

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

OSCON: Mark Shuttleworth’s keynote

July 31, 2012

On the Thursday at OSCON, Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth gave a great  keynote entitled, “Making Magic From Cloud To Client.”   He did the entire keynote and live demo on a project Sputnik laptop (a Dell XPS13 running Ubuntu 12.04LTS)!

Here it is in its entirety:

Some of the ground Mark covers:

  • A fantastic demo on Juju and writing Juju charms showing how you can design a complex topology, deploy that in memory on your laptop and then map the whole shebang to the cloud.
  • How JuJu charms allow for “encapsulation and reuse”
  • The idea of crowdsourcing ops
  • A demo showing how, in realtime, you can map actual running infrastructure from one cloud to the next (in his demo he mapped it from EC2 to an HP cloud)
  • The idea behind Unity and the principle of having one UI that works across phones, tablets, desktops and even TVs.
  • The HUD
  • Project Sputnik going from pilot to product this fall where you will be able to purchase an XPS13 from Dell with Ubuntu preinstalled.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

OSCON: Project Sputnik Explained + Coverage recap

July 30, 2012

The week before last I had a fantastic time at OSCON, seeing old friends and making new ones.  As always, the hallway track was the one I found most enlightening.

On the second day we announced that project Sputnik would be going from project to product in the fall and got a fantastic response (see some of the articles written about it at the end).  On the day of the announce Mike Hendrickson, O’Reilly’s VP of content strategy, interviewed me about the project (check out Mike’s project Sputnik review).  That video is the first one below.

I also did a “cliffs notes” version with Janet Bartleson which clocked in at one minute and 47 seconds so if you’re short on time you can check out the second one.

Extra-credit reading

  • Slideshow: Linux, Open Source & Ubuntu: OSCON 2012: The Open-Source Creative Engine Drives the Economy – eWeek
  • Dell announces Ubuntu developer laptop – ITWeb
  • Dell Launching Ubuntu Linux Developer Laptop After Successful Pilot Program Dubbed ‘Project Sputnik’ – International Digital Times
  • Dell set to launch their Ubuntu developer laptop, Sputnik, later this year – TweakTown
  • Dell’s Sputnik project is a go – Technoholik
  • Dell expands open source initiatives – ITWeb
  • Linux fans rejoice: Dell XPS 13 will come with Ubuntu – BetaNews
  • Dell Takes Another Crack at Linux Boxes with Project Sputnik, Launching This Fall – HotHardware
  • Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook For Developers Will Launch In 2012 – The Droid Guy
  • Dell launching Sputnik, the Ubuntu developer laptop, this year – Ars Technica
  • Dell to launch Ubuntu-based XPS 13 laptop this fall – Hardware.Info (UK)
  • Open-Source Goes Ultraportable With Dell Pre-Installed Ubuntu XPS 13 Offering – Mobile Magazine
  • Dell to ship XPS 13 with Ubuntu Linux in some areas, Precise Pangolin goes ultraportable – Engadget
  • Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Ubuntu Linux Installed Launches This Fall – Geeky Gadgets
  • Linux comes to ultrabooks: Dell to preload OS on XPS 13 – CNET
  • Dell to launch Linux ultrabook in Fall – Fierce CIO
  • 4 Ways Dell Is Becoming An Open Source Company – TechCrunch
  • Shuttleworth talks up Ubuntu 12.10, growing acceptance of Linux on desktop and Ubuntu Unity – ZDNET
  • Dell’s Developer Laptop – i-Programmer
  • Dell announces expansion of three open source initiatives – eChannelLine
  • Dell’s Development Computer, Project Sputnik, Coming this Fall – LAPTOP Magazine
  • Dell Opens Up To Open Source Again – RedOrbit
  • As Windows 8 looms, Dell readies Ubuntu laptop for fall release – ExtremeTech
  • Dell adds to OpenStack and creates cloud notebook – DatacenterDynamics
  • Dell’s Project Sputnik is go for launch – Bit-tech.net
  • Dell Solidifies Commitment to Open Source, Developers at OSCON – eWeek
  • Dell Linux-Based Laptop Goes On Sale This Fall – The Inquisitr
  • Dell Expands OpenStack Cloud Efforts, and Other Open Source Programs – OStatic
  • The Ultrabooks Dell Ubuntu developers arrive later this year – Xataka (Spain)
  • Dell ready to sell laptops with Ubuntu – hwjournal.net (Italy)
  • Dell puts Linux ultrabook – PuntoInformatico (Italy)
  • Dell brings XPS 13 laptop from Ubuntu – Hardware.info (Dutch)
  • Dell’s New Ubuntu Linux Laptop Is Coming This Fall – PC World
  • A first look at Dell’s “Sputnik” Ubuntu Linux developer laptop – ZDNet
  • A first look at Ubuntu 12.04 (Photo Gallery) – ZDNet
  • Dell Gives Linux Laptops Another Chance – TechCrunch
  • Dell launching Project Sputnik developer laptops in fall – Ubergizmo
  • Dell to release Project Sputnik developer laptop this fall – The Verge
  • Dell to launch Project Sputnik developer laptops this fall – SlashGear
  • Pentaho, Datameer Join Dell’s Project Sputnik – The VAR Guy
  • Dell to offer Ubuntu XPS 13 laptops this Autumn – Inquirer
  • Dell introduced based on OpenStack cloud solutions – Servers.PCOnline (China)
  • Dell’s to sell Ubuntu ultrabooks this fall, Project Sputnik graduates from beta – Liliputing
  • New Ubuntu Laptop, from Dell, to Head for Developers – OStatic
  • Dell confirms Linux laptop and expands OpenStack cloud solutions – V3.co.uk
  • Dell’s Ubuntu Ultrabook arrives this autumn – PC Pro
  • Dell readies Linux Ultrabook for autumn release – Reg Hardware
  • Coming: Dell Ultrabook with Ubuntu 12.04 for Developers – The H
  • Dell Ubuntu Linux Developer Laptop Launches this Fall: Project Sputnik FTW – Mobile & Apps
  • Project Sputnik Versus Microsoft – PC Magazine
  • Dell’s Ubuntu Laptop Program Enters Beta, ‘Blows Away’ Expectations – PC World
  • Dell’s Project Sputnik Set To Build The Ultimate Developer Laptop – Crazy Engineers
  • Dell release a Linux laptop in autumn‎ – TICbeat (Spain)
  • Project Sputnik: The Ubuntu laptop from Dell in approach – Blogeee.net, CNET (France)
  • Project Sputnik: the laptop to cloud developers – Tom’s Hardware (France)
  • Dell puts a foot in the Linux market – Mac Generation (France)
  • Soon an XPS 13 from Dell with Ubuntu 4.12 – Revioo.com (France)
  • Sputnik is concretely: Dell Ultra with Ubuntu Book 12:04 in Autumn – Pro-Linux (Germany)
  • Officially launched the project “Sputnik” notebook PC development to developers only with Dell, the Ubuntu – SourceForge.JP Magazine (Japan)
  • Dell XPS 13 starts this autumn sale with Ubuntu – Tweakers.net (Netherlands)
  • New Linux PC from Dell – Computerworld (Norway)
  • Dell materializes its Linux project – Silicon News (Spain)
  • Dell is preparing a new laptop with GNU / Linux – Somos Libres (Peru)
  • Dell will begin selling computers with Linux preinstalled at the factory – FayerWayer (Spanish)
  • Laptop Dell Launches Special Project Developer Sputnik This September – Chip Online Portal (Indonesia)
  • Dell returns to the market for Linux-Laptop– CyberSecurity (Russia)
  • Dell offers Linux-laptops a second chance – DailyComm (Russia)
  • Dell revives project for Linux laptops – Tech News (Bulgaria)
  • Dell Returned to the Market for Linux Laptops – siteua.org (Russia)
  • 4 Intriguing Desktop Linux Options Coming Soon to Retail Stores – Linux.com

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Posted by Barton George

Project Sputnik to go from Pilot to Product

July 18, 2012

A couple of weeks ago we announced a Beta program for the four-month old Project Sputnik — an effort to investigate creating a developer focused laptop based on Ubuntu and Dell’s XPS13 laptop.

Since the beta announcement we have received thousands of applications from around the world.  This tremendous response, on top of fantastic amount of input we have received on the Project Sputnik storm session, has convinced us to take this project from pilot to product.

This fall we will be offering an Ubuntu 12.04LTS-based laptop pre-loaded on Dell’s XPS13 laptop.

Going from skunk works to mainstream

Back in the Spring, project Sputnik was the first effort green-lighted by an internal incubation program at Dell.  Thanks to the incubation program we got a little bit of funding and some executive advisers.  This incubation program notwithstanding, project Sputnik  has been a pretty scrappy skunk works effort to date.

The idea behind the incubation program is to harness that scrappiness and inventiveness to explore & validate new ideas & products outside mainstream Dell processes. Thanks to the tremendous amount of support both outside (you, the community!) and inside Dell,  with today’s announcement, we will begin making our transition to an official, “mainstream” Dell product.

  I should also mention, if its not obvious, that we have not been doing the work alone. Canonical  has been “scrappin” right besides us, helping to drive the project and doing a ton of engineering on the software side.

Beta program

As I mentioned at the start we have been completely blown away by the number of applications we have received.  We’re currently working through logistics of how to handle the tons of applications, we’ll notify all applicants soon, and intend to keep that process and the future product aligned with the spirit of the program.

To make sure that we are listening to your ideas, please continue to post any thoughts about what you would like to see in a developer laptop on our Storm session.   If you have an XPS13 running Ubuntu and want to share your experience or report a bug or issue, see our forum on Dell Tech center.

For more information on the program see the Project Sputnik FAQ

Thanks everyone for all the interest and passion, stay tuned as we push forward!

Reference: current solution details

Hardware

The solution is based on the high-end configuration of the Dell XPS13 laptop.

Software

Available now

  • drivers/patches for Hardware enablement
  • basic offering of key tools and utilities

Coming soon

  • Profile tool: a software management tool to go out to a github repository to pull down various developer profiles e.g. javascript, ruby, android.
  • Cloud tool: will allow developers to create “microclouds” on their laptops, simulating a proper, at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud.

Extra-credit reading

  • Press release: Dell Demonstrates Commitment to Open Source Software, Developer Communities
  • Dell Tech Center: Sputnik wiki
  • PC World — Dell’s ‪Ubuntu‬ Laptop Program Enters Beta, ‘Blows Away’ Expectations
  • Initial thoughts on Project Sputnik from O’Reilly’s Mike Hendrickson
  • Transcript from last week’s Sputnik chat on Tech Center

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Announcing project Sputnik Beta program

July 2, 2012

Last week project Sputnik got an official presence on dell.com.  While the project is still a skunk works effort rather than a product, we are rapidly gaining traction within the company.

If you’re not familiar with project Sputnik, its a laptop pilot targeted at developers and based on Dell’s XPS13 ultrabook and Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

The new page points you to where you can buy an XPS13 (unfortunately still pre-loaded with Windows at this time), where you can get the image to load, where you can offer suggestions, read about people’s experiences and where you can sign up for a beta unit.

Be a Beta Cosmonaut

If you are interested in getting your hands on a project Sputnik beta unit we are now recruiting volunteers for the Sputnik Beta Cosmonaut program (and yes we know the original Sputnik was unmanned, we’re taking artistic license here).  A limited number of applicants will be selected to receive a discounted, beta version solution (Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Ubuntu 12.04LTS pre-loaded).

If selected, all we ask is that you use the system regularly and give us your honest feedback on the project Sputnik forum.  It will be interesting to see if we get five people applying to be cosmonauts or 5,000.  Stay tuned…

To apply, please fill out this form.

Project Sputnik forum and wiki

Along with a landing page on dell.com, we recently launched a project Sputnik presence on Dell TechCenter.  On TechCenter, you can find a Sputnik wiki as well as the forum I mentioned above to share experiences with Sputnik and file bugs.

BTW both Dell and Canonical will be at OSCON and one of the things we’ll be talking up is project Sputnik.  Stop by and say hi if you’re there.

Key links

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Sputnik update: Touchpad driver now available!!!

June 20, 2012

If you’ve been following project Sputnik — a developer laptop pilot based on Dell’s XPS13 ultrabook and Ubuntu 12.04LTS — you’ll know that the biggest draw back in these initial weeks has been the lack of multi-touch support in the touchpad.  For some this has been annoying, for others this has been such a pain that they have put their system aside until the driver becomes available.  I’m happy to say that as of a few hours ago, a fully open source driver is now publicly available.

Here are the details from Canonical’s Kamal :

The Sputnik ISO image is pre-configured to use the PPA for updates so all systems which were previously installed with that ISO will automatically be offered the PPA update and their touchpads will just start working.  Furthermore, even systems which are installed now (or later) using that ISO will still automatically be offered the updated PPA kernel when they do their first software update.

There is also a link on the Sputnik PPA page to the Cypress driver patch (and also to the whole DellXPS patch set), so folks building their own kernels from source can get it from there.

Shout outs to…

A big thanks to Kamal from Canonical, Mario on the Dell side for driving this, and the vendor Cypress for doing the work!

Extra credit reading

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Posted by Barton George

Sputnik update: Profile tool and touchpad

June 18, 2012

I’ve meant to blog more frequently around Sputnik but it’s been crazy busy marshalling resources within Dell for our little skunk works project.

We have captured a lot attention within the company and are trying to leverage that attention to help beef up our core team.  One of the areas outside the company we have gotten a great deal of support from is Canonical, the commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu.

Here are a couple of the areas we’ve been working on with Canonical:

The Touchpad

Probably the area we’ve gotten the most amount of inquiries into is the status of the driver being written for the touchpad to allow multi-touch support.  Last week Dell and Canonical received two code drops from the vendor and they are looking very good.  Its only a matter of time now before we have driver in the XPS enablement PPA.  Stay tuned.

Update June 21: the driver for the touchpad is now available!

The Profile tool

Over the last couple of weeks we had a series of calls with folks from Canonical to scope out the effort around the profile tool.

The basic idea around the tool is that instead of stuffing the system with every possible tool or app a developer could possibly want, we are keeping  the actual “stuff” on the install image  pretty basic.

Instead we are working with Canonical to put together a tool that can go out to a github repository and pull down various developer profiles e.g. Android, Ruby, Javascript…

After our conversations we decided to break the effort into two phases:

Phase I – “System Configuration”:

  • The first phase will focus on installing bundles of packages with a YAML-driven approach. This will allow developers to get installable components of the toolchains they need

Phase II – “User Configuration”:

  • The second phase is focused on automating the configuration of the developer’s toolchain and environment, using a model-driven automation tool like Chef, Puppet etc.
  • The idea would be to create an open community where developers can share these profiles, extend them, etc.
  • We are still figuring out the feasibility of this phase and gauging interest.

We’d be interested in any comments or thoughts you have around the profile tool, or anything else having to do with Sputnik.

I’m hoping to start providing more updates (keep you fingers crossed)

Extra-Credit reading:

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Posted by Barton George

Sputnik…Wow!!

May 29, 2012

Courtesy of nasaimages.org

We knew that project Sputnik, the idea of creating a developer laptop based on Dell’s XPS13 ultrabook and Ubuntu 12.04LTS, would have appeal but we never could have anticipated the response we’ve gotten.

To put it into perspective, the most cumulative views I’ve had of a blog entry before Sputnik was 2,700.   My post introducing Sputnik, as of tonight, has had over 42,000 views!  And the news has been carried by a boatload of   pubs and blogs around the world (see a partial list below).

Silent but not sleeping

In case you’re wondering, the radio silence for the last couple of weeks  hasn’t been intentional our little team has just been crazy busy.   Not only have we gotten attention outside of Dell but our profile has raised quite a bit inside as well.  Our skunk works team has been scrambling to leverage that attention to see what we can do to put this on a faster track.  We have also had a bunch of meetings with Canonical to talk about the best way forward given the intense interest.

Whole lot of feedback

We have been deluged with comments and suggestions both on my blog and the Sputnik Storm session and while there were plenty of people who said they would  buy it now if it was available, we also received some clear direction on where people would like to see this offering go.   Some of the key areas for improving the offering are:

  • Multi gesture support for the touch pad  (more on that in a second)
  • Screen resolution
  • More memory (8GB+)
  • Matte screen
  • Pricing: don’t make it more expensive than Windows

We are making note of these suggestions as we plot our way through this six month pilot.

The track pad

Its no surprise that the number one complaint has been the lack of multi gesture support in the touchpad.  Canonical and Dell have reached out to the vendor and last week they began working on an open source driver.  The vendor is sending both Dell and Canonical intermediary versions which will allow us to iterate on them as they’re developing and provide feedback about what’s working and what isn’t with the way things are assembled.  Fingers crossed, we hope to see the completed driver by the end of June.

Update June 21: the driver for the touchpad is now available!

Thanks everyone for their amazing interest Sputnik and look for a bunch more info soon.

Extra-credit reading — some Sputnik coverage

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Posted by Barton George

Redmonk on Developers and Project Sputnik

May 8, 2012

Today at the Ubuntu Cloud Summit here in Oakland I grabbed sometime with Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady.  It was Stephen who originally brought up the idea of creating a Dell laptop running Ubuntu targeted at developers.

I talked to Stephen about how he would characterize today’s world of developers and what he feels project Sputnik needs to deliver on to be successful.

Updated March 22

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Talking about Project Sputnik

May 8, 2012

Last Friday Cote and I took a break from the mad rush getting ready for today’s Sputnik announce and grabbed a conference room to record a short video.  Below we discuss the project, how it came about, what its goals are and where it could go from here.

-> Weigh in on Dell IdeaStorm: Project Sputnik

Extra-credit reading

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Posted by Barton George

Introducing Project Sputnik: Developer laptop

May 7, 2012

-> Update 2/18/2013: Sputnik 2 is here: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition goes 1080p and lands in Europe

-> Update 11/29/2012: Sputnik has landed! Introducing the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition

Today I am very excited, I finally get to talk about project Sputnik!  In a nutshell, drumroll please, here it is:

Made possible by an internal innovation fund, project Sputnik is a 6 month effort to explore the possibility of creating an open source laptop targeted directly at developers.  It is based on Ubuntu 12.04 and Dell’s XPS13 laptop.

To put it in context, Sputnik is part of an effort by Dell to better understand and serve the needs of developers in Web companies.  We want to finds ways to make the developer experience as powerful and simple as possible.  And what better way to do that than beginning with a laptop that is both highly mobile and extremely stylish, running the 12.04 LTS release of Ubuntu Linux.

Why a developer laptop

When we first started setting up the web vertical to focus on companies who use the internet as their platform, we brought in Stephen O’Grady of Redmonk to learn as much as we could about the needs of developers.  One of the ideas that Stephen tossed out was a Dell laptop running Ubuntu, targeting developers.  We thought the idea was pretty cool and filed it away.

As we continued talking to customers and developers the topic of Ubuntu kept coming up and we came across a fair number of devs who were asking for a Dell laptop specifically based on it.  To my knowledge, no other OEM has yet made a system specifically targeted at devs and figured it was time to see what that might mean.  When the XPS13 launched we realized that we found the perfect platform to start with and when Dell’s incubation program was announced we knew I had the vehicle to get the effort kick started.

I should also add that Ubuntu was a natural choice not only because of its popularity in the Web world but Dell has quite a bit of experience with it.  In fact Dell has enabled and pre-installed out-of-the-factory Ubuntu on more computer models than any other OEM.

What’s Sputnik actually running?

The install image available for Sputnik contains

  1. drivers/patches for Hardware enablement
  2. a basic offering of key tools and utilities (see the complete list at the end of this entry)
  3. coming soon, a software management tool to go out to a github repository to pull down various developer profiles.

Hardware enablement

In putting together the project, the area that we focused on first was hardware enablement.  As Linux users are all too painfully aware, Linux drivers are not always available for various platforms.  We have been working hand in hand with Canonical, the commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu and identified three main areas on the XPS13:

  1. An issue with brightness
  2. The Wifi hotkey
  3. The touchpad and multi touch support

The first two have been resolved but the last one re the touchpad is still at large.  The issue is a bit of a pain particularly the lack of palm rejection support which can cause your cursor to jump by mistake.  We have contacted the vendor who makes the touchpad and they are sizing the effort to fix this and at the same time we are working with Canonical to find an interim solution.

Update June 21: the driver for the touchpad is now available!

Developer profile management

Hardware enablement is table stakes but where Sputnik starts to get interesting is when we talk about profiles.  No two developers are alike so instead of stuffing the system with every possible tool or app a developer could possibly want, we are trying a different approach.  As mentioned above, the actual “stuff” on the install image is pretty basic, instead we are working with a few developers to put together a tool that can go out to a github repository and pull down various developer profiles.  The first profiles we are targeting are Android, Ruby and JavaScript.

As a one of our alpha cosmonauts, Charles Lowell, explained (we have been working with three local developers in Austin, Charles, Mike Pav and Dustin Kirkland to put together our initial offering together.   And yes I know Sputnik was unmanned but its our project and we wanted to call the testers “cosmonauts.” )

What I’d like to see is not only a gold-standard configuration, but also a meta-system to manage your developer configuration… The devops revolution is about configuration as code. How cool would it be if my laptop configuration were code that I could store in a source repo somewhere?

After we build the management tool and some basic profiles to get the effort started, we are hoping that the community will take over and began creating profiles of their own.

Getting Feedback and UDS activities

The idea is to conduct project Sputnik out in the open.  There is a Storm Session that went live this morning on Dell Idea Storm for people to discuss the project and submit feedback, comments and ideas.  Later today here at the Ubuntu Developer Summit, Dustin, Mario Limonciello of Dell and I will be hosting a UDS session to discuss Sputnik.  Additionally at UDS there is a coding contest that has been kicked off.  The three people who write the best Juju charms will each get an XPS13.

The Vision: a Launchpad to the cloud

As mentioned at the start, Sputnik is currently a 6month project to investigate an Ubuntu laptop.  If successful, we have big plans for the effort. :)

When we initially pitched Sputnik to Ubuntu’s founder Mark Shuttleworth a couple months ago he really liked the idea.  In his eyes however, he saw something bigger.  Where it got really interesting for him was when this laptop was optimized for DevOps.  In this scenario we would have a common set of tools from client, to test, to production, thereby tying Sputnik via a common tool chain to a cloud backend powered by OpenStack.  Developers could create “micro clouds” locally and then push them to the cloud writ large.

We see a lot of potential in Sputnik to provide developers with a simple and powerful tool.  Only time will tell however so stay tuned to this blog, check out the Sputnik Storm session and weigh in on the project, what you’d like to see and how you think it can be made better.

Pau for now…

Extra-credit reading

Links and notes

Basic Install

== standard meta packages ==

ubuntu-desktop^

standard^

== scm ==

git

git-core

bzr

bzr-gtk

bzr-git

python-launchpadlib

== utilities ==

screen

byobu

tmux

meld

juju

charm-tools

charm-helper-sh

euca2ools

puppet

chef (available post install)

== editors ==

emacs

vim

vim-gnome

== browsers ==

chromium-browser

firefox

== common build tools/utilities & dependencies ==

fakeroot

build-essential

crash

kexec-tools

kvm

makedumpfile

kernel-wedge

fwts

devscripts

libncurses5

libncurses5-dev

libelf-dev

asciidoc

binutils-dev

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Posted by Barton George

On beyond North America — Dell’s OpenStack solution now available in Europe and Asia

March 21, 2012

Last summer at OSCON Dell announced the availability of our OpenStack solution in the US and Canada.  Today at World Hosting Days in Rust Germany we are now announcing that our OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution is available in Europe and Asia.

If you’re not familiar with it, OpenStack is an open source cloud project built on a foundation of code initially donated by NASA and Rackspace.  The project kicked off a little over a year and a half ago here in Austin and it has gained amazing traction since then.

Dell’s offering

Dell’s OpenStack cloud offering is an open source, on premise cloud solution based on the OpenStack platform running on Ubuntu.  Its composed of:

  • The OpenStack cloud operating system
  • PowerEdgeC servers: C6100, C6105, C2100 and, coming soon, Dell’s new C6220 and R720
  • The Crowbar deployment and management software framework – developed and coded by Dell :)
  • Dell’s OpenStack reference architecture
  • Dell Services

Crowbar software framework

To give a little more  background on the Crowbar software framework, its an open source project developed initially at Dell and you can grab it off github.  The framework, which is under the Apache 2.0 license,  manages the OpenStack deployment from the initial server boot to the configuration of the primary OpenStack components, allowing users to complete bare metal deployment of multi-node OpenStack clouds in hours, as opposed to days.

Once the initial deployment is complete, you can use Crowbar to maintain, expand, and architect the complete solution, including BIOS configuration, network discovery, status monitoring, performance data gathering, and alerting.   Beyond Dell, companies like VMware, Dreamhost and Zenoss have built “barclamps”  that allow them to utilize Crowbar’s modular design.  Additionally, customers who buy the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution get training, deployment, and support on Crowbar.

So as of today, customers in the UK, Germany and China can purchase the Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution.  As customer demand grows in other regions we will be adding more countries so stay tuned.  If the first 18 mos of the project are any indication of whats the pace is like to come, we are all going to be in for a lot more excitement.

For more info, email: OpenStack@Dell.com

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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