Canonical launch list of Ubuntu-compatible PC components

By , Published February 10, 2011

Building your next Ubuntu-based PC is going to be a lot easier from now on.

Canonical have today launched the largest online list of Linux-compatible PC components, featuring over 1300 certified different components from 161 different manufacturers.

canonical component catalog

Although primarily aimed at ODM’s – Original Design Manufacturers – the comprehensive database will also prove useful to home PC builders and buyers looking to ensure device compatibility out of the box on the their purchase.

Canonical Platform Services Manager Victor Palau said of the launch:-

€œThere has not been a comprehensive, up-to-date freely available catalog like this for a long time.

By making this open and easily searchable we want to speed the component selection for Ubuntu machines, and allow us and our partner manufacturers to focus on the value-added user experience.€

Canonical launched a similar database for Ubuntu-certified systems later last year.

View it now

The list is available to view online right now @ ubuntu.com/certification/catalog.

Items can be filtered through ‘make’ or ‘category’, with  specific hardware compatibility information presented as you browse.

canonical ubuntu devices

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  2. Check if your next computer is Ubuntu compatible
  3. Canonical 'contracting engineering' to Google
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  • http://twitter.com/jgderose Jason Gerard DeRose

    Totally awesome, I’ve always wanted something like this.

    And that fact that the list is aimed at ODMs… I sense bold things a’comin.

  • Anonymous

    Awesome! This was long overdue. I look forward to buying my next machine with a little orange Ubuntu sticker on it.

    • dRewsus

      fyi you can get “free” ones sent to you from system 76

      • http://www.google.com/profiles/ISantop Ian

        I’m not sure how our CEO would feel about sending out free computers… lol

      • Matt Sturgeon

        I think he meant a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed and certified, not a laptop with a cool sticker on ;-P

        • dRewsus

          I know what he meant. I was just providing information.

  • Glennz NL

    Canonical and Mr shuttleworth saved linux from staying at 1% for ever

    • https://launchpad.net/~brettcornwall Chauncellor

      It truly is amazing how each company and individual has helped initiatives grow on a grand scale. All these different people and projects that put all this quality in the hands of the free world (not just GNU)

    • Anonymous

      for desktop linux yes they are doing great things, but one has to thank many, specially google in the mobile space for believing in it and making it so popular.

      Also the line between the 2 is thinner every year, linux has no limits now

  • Anonymous

    Great news

  • http://twitter.com/pisandelli Pedro Pisandelli

    This is awesome. Someday i thought how can i be sure if a netbook will be ubuntu compatible, if i ask to remove Windows when i buy it. now i can optmize my research and buy the components i want, mount my computer and be sure it will run Ubuntu.
    Great!

    • Anonymous

      buy a jolibook.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_47JSUNELLCBT3NVNKONBIBGR5E Angel Atondo

    just perfect!! :D

  • Anonymous

    It’s down at the moment :( obviously not running on canonical certified hardware…

    • http://petercast.net Peterson Silva

      yeah.. I can’t see it either..

      • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

        It was fine but I started browsing and now it’s frozen. Clearly, my laptop has trouble processing all that text over there. ;/

        • Anonymous

          OMG! Ubuntu has 18,000 readers, which are probably all taking a heavy toll on the site.

          • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

            We have a lot more than 18, 000 ;)

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FX5ITOLLHVNOY673XBRGCKF3DI Freddi

            37400?

          • Anonymous

            1337 X 10 ? :D

            But, there is no really accurate way to find out on how many readers you have, without you telling us of course, the only public statistic is your Facebook likes.

          • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

            In the comments about the facebook competition a lot of people have said that they don’t use facebook, so right away 18,000 is wrong :) I think we should have a reader-number guessing competition! With prizes! Haha :D

    • https://launchpad.net/~brettcornwall Chauncellor

      Either that or the ~18,000 OMG readers stormed over there…. :/

      • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

        That’s what happened to Adobe when we all started bombarding the page about Creative Suite for Linux! :P

        • Anonymous

          Wait, CS for Linux!?!?! *heads off to Adobe*

        • Anonymous

          Wait, CS for Linux!?!?! *heads off to Adobe*

    • http://twitter.com/cr3bits Marc Tardif

      Thanks for your understanding about the increased traffic on the Ubuntu Component Catalog, changes have now been applied to sustain the load.

  • Anonymous

    Really great news.

  • http://twitter.com/mylesfister Myles Fister

    Seems to be working fine for me

  • Adil

    The soon to be released OpenBenchmarking.org will do a better job in determining viable Linux hardware than Canonical’s method. Nevertheless, congrats to Canonical.

  • Anonymous

    this is awesome, rather than spending hours on Google trying find a blog piece to see if some one had problems with a hardware you are looking to buy
    but they need to keep it updated regularly

  • dRewsus

    haha, you know, if it werent for me this site wouldn’t be on stumbleupon. Not saying Im a hero, but almost every page I have thumbs upped has been a new addition

  • http://twitter.com/connorabruce Connor

    Be very useful if they had something similar for printers and scanners too, looking at getting a new printer.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HHS3YNBYUFBBEPUESRLV747QOM Dylan

      For printers check this out:

      http://www.openprinting.org/printers/

      Search for whatever printer you are thinking about getting before you buy. However most HP’s and Lexmarks should work since they provide plenty of drivers.

      • http://twitter.com/connorabruce Connor

        Thanks, that’s just what I was looking for, should save me quite a bit of time.

      • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

        lexmarks? you’re kidding me! I have had the most trouble with those and their Dell versions on Linux, and Windows actually, such awful printers

        • http://profiles.google.com/newsnet Phil Thompson

          My lexmark colour network laser is a fantastic piece of kit, one pass printing with no noisy carousel nonsense like low end HP colour lasers. Full linux supoprt too.

    • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

      The HP PhotoSmart C5500 is working very well all around on Ubuntu, and I only paid £50 for it! :)

      • http://twitter.com/connorabruce Connor

        Thanks, was looking at getting a HP PhotoSmart, so will take a look at it.

        • http://thealphanerd.wordpress.com/ Calvin

          Basically almost everything HP is supported. Avoid everything else.

          • http://twitter.com/mjharrisRB Hippy

            yeh , I’ve had a couple of HP printers that have both worked flawlessly. Photo smart 6300 series is my current, and hasn’t missed a beat. Just take that crazy windows junkware disc you get with it and throw it right in the bin :)……OCR would be nice though.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7GDSUK2NG6DBLX6A7HKSLGZN3Q eddy

            OCR is in ubuntu. Search for it in synaptic.

          • http://twitter.com/Magnesus Magnesus

            That is a wrong advice.
            I have an old Epson printer (11 or 12 years) and it works great on Ubuntu, has better drivers than on Windows. Brother printers probably are working very well too.

  • Anonymous

    What’s the difference between the Broadcom Corp., Broadcom Corporation and Broadcom that are listed as individual entries?

  • Anonymous

    What’s the difference between Broadcom, Broadcom Corp., and Broadcom Corporation?

  • Anonymous

    To all of those nay-sayers who complain about Canonical I have this:

    Canonical contributes more to desktop Linux than anyone else ever has, perhaps not in code, but in the one thing that nobody else could do, marketing.

    It’s thanks to Canonical (and the few other companies with similar goals) that Linux is as widely adopted as it is now and we all keep benefiting from that.

    • https://launchpad.net/~brettcornwall Chauncellor

      It’s also thanks to Red Hat, Novell, etc. that we even have the programs and functionality that Canonical can ship.

      These companies have all done tremendous work.

      • http://twitter.com/Afrodiseum N.C. Weber

        Though I seriously think Novell needs to step up its game. Their support system has really been lacking lately.

      • Anonymous

        He knows that, he is just saying that Canonical is no different, and also contributes.

        Also Canonical does contribute in code. Upstart, Bazaar.

        • https://launchpad.net/~brettcornwall Chauncellor

          I was merely pointing out that I don’t believe that Canonical has contributed more than the others. They’ve contributed a ton, but there’s years of Red Hat to account for.

          Also, their copyright assignment makes their contributions questionable. There’s a reason Fedora hasn’t embraced some of Ubuntu’s code (reasons I fully sympathize with)

          • Anonymous

            Well true, all valid points.
            However you have to account for the fact that Red Hat has 5000 employees while Canonical barely has 500. Red Hat has been around longer and during 2010 they had a NET PROFIT of around 80million, while canonical barely breaks even.

          • http://twitter.com/jspaleta Jef Spaleta

            Correction…

            Canonical does _not_ break even…not even barely. There has never been a public statement from any Canonical employee that I am aware of that has said that Canonical has ever had a break even quarter..ever.

            The last public statement I can find from Shuttleworth concerning the state of Canonical finances is from an irc log from 2010-10-14. He obliquely answers the question concerning Canonical profitability.
            http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/10/14/%23ubuntu-classroom.html
            “ssj6akshat asked: Is Canonical profitable yet, or How much time more until it is?
            sabdfl no, and some :-)”

            He goes on to give a long winded answer as to why its better to continue to lose money by dividing Canonical’s resources across many fronts in the hopes of winning on all of them…instead of focusing resources.

            It’s one thing to cheerlead and to be enthusiastic and hopeful…but don’t make statements concerning a company’s financial status unless you can cite authoritative statements from company executives to the table.

            -jef

          • http://snkiz.blogspot.com/ Corey B
          • Anonymous

            I think he meant purely in terms of marketing for Desktop (which he said). We all know Red Hat has contributed loads and loads of code, plus they completely own the server market. However, in terms of making Desktop Linux a more “in” thing, Canonical definitely deserves major props there. And yes, to you Debian people, even if you consider Ubuntu as just a pre-loaded Debian configuration, they’ve done one helluva job offering that.

            I have my own things to pick on Shuttleworth and Canonical about, but just like the other companies that are given recognition, they deserve the pats on the back they get from making Desktop Linux more popular and easier to use (according to market numbers).

            Red Hat can have the props for code contribution, Gnome/KDE can have it for the actual Desktop experience (and many others, but those are the largest), but let’s just let Ubuntu get it for Desktop distribution and marketing that.

      • Anonymous

        I agree they most certainly have…however I do get tired of Canonical’s
        role getting downplayed. They’re all valuable parts to the equation.

  • Anonymous

    kool :-)

  • http://twitter.com/alfbar1 alfonso barrera

    It is something that have to be done, one point more to Ubuntu

  • Anonymous

    Is 3 entries for Broadcom really necessary?
    Broadcom, Broadcom Corp., and Broadcom Corporation.

    • http://twitter.com/cr3bits Marc Tardif

      That is a side effect of Broadcom having multiple PCI identifiers for the same vendor: 1166, 14e4, 166d, 182f and feda.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HU2CRXNTBHAHKAVVSEB7MGSLMA jennifer celino

    there is a call for collaboration from phoronix here http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=search&q=Iveland
    i it is a win for all linux users if canonical can work with phoronix, they all have been working hard to help us

  • Anonymous

    >Broadcom Corporation
    >Broadcom
    >Broadcom Corp.
    …

    • http://www.vwd.co.za Francois Botha

      Read the previous comments about this.

  • http://twitter.com/avin_tokade Avin Tokade

    Really Good News..

    I must say that Marketing is very necessary these days….and Canonical people are doing very well.

    I like to see tux logo on all keyboard In future.

    • http://tutopod.com tutopod

      yeah, rather than windows logo outside but linux inside… it is strange isn’t it?

    • https://launchpad.net/~mike-htwins Fuchsiania

      Personally, I’d prefer that keyboards be neutral. Why have a keyboard that visually only works with Linux, when you can have a keyboard that works with all?

      Also, I find Tux to be rather unsightly from a design perspective.

  • Anonymous

    oh my god, it will be getting easier to see the hardware support to ubuntu…

  • http://techid.myopenid.com/ Chet

    Ah ! Wonderful . Now all we need is a replacement for MSDN. :D

    • http://twitter.com/toxicbits toxicbits

      Canonical are working on it:

      developer.ubuntu.com

  • Anonymous

    I take it that Mr. Palau means that there hasn’t been a neatly organized and graphically designed online catalog like this in years. This information is all stored in the kernel, and can be viewed by anyone with the knowledge (if you can build your own pc, you can run make menuconfig, right?). Things like this are what the detractors of Canonical point to: While the list is certainly useful, it nonetheless solves a problem that didn’t really exist. There are probably several people reading this right now who could have put this list together.

    Oh, and I read the press release: what’s with this “Ubuntu OR Linux” crap? I guess they just know where their priorities lie…

  • Anonymous

    The Nvidia MCP77 ethernet is listed as certified, but it still does not work out of the box in 10.10. So right off the bat, this list they compiled is not trustworthy and can’t therefore be used before buying hardware.

  • http://twitter.com/di0nysys Andrew Smith

    Proxy Error

    The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
    The proxy server could not handle the request GET /certification/catalog.

    Reason: Error reading from remote server

    • http://twitter.com/victorpalau victor palau

      thanks! we fix that one too. Try again

  • http://twitter.com/maniat1k Marcelo

    Great news!… Ubuntu +1!

  • Brian Rahardi

    Such publication may hopefully push manufacturers to release driver for their device under linux to stay popular, since such list will guide user to play safe as the device will support both windows and linux.

 
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