Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations

Just uploaded to the Ubuntu Lucid repository for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (and we imagine it will appear shortly in Maverick too for Ubuntu 10.10) is a new package called canonical-census, which marks its initial release. Curious about what this package provides, we did some digging and found it's for tracking Ubuntu installations by sending an "I am alive" ping to Canonical on a daily basis.

The canonical-census v0.1 description is simply "canonical-census - send "I am alive" ping to Canonical." When looking at the Debian package source to this Python program, "Send an "I am alive" ping to Canonical. This is used for surveying how many original OEM installs are still existing on real machines. Note that this does not send any user specific data; it only transmits the operating system version (/var/lib/ubuntu_dist_channel), the machine product name, and a counter how many pings were sent."

When the canonical-census package is installed, the program is to be added to the daily Cron jobs to be executed so that each day it will report to Canonical over HTTP the number of times this system previously sent to Canonical (this counter is stored locally and with it running on a daily basis it's thereby indicating how many days the Ubuntu installation has been active), the Ubuntu distributor channel, the product name as acquired by the system's DMI information, and which Ubuntu release is being used. That's all that canonical-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.

The good news for those concerned about privacy is that it appears for now Canonical is just interested in tracking the users of OEM installations -- those PCs that ship with Ubuntu by default such as from ZaReason, System76, and Dell. This information will obviously be valuable to both companies to see whether customers are keeping around their Ubuntu installations or just wiping them and just how often Ubuntu is being used on these systems (judging by the number of times that system reported to Canonical's server previously). For those not wanting to participate in this anonymous data gathering process, they could always sudo apt-get remove canonical-census.

The Canonical Census package can be found on Launchpad.net for those interested.

Source: Phoronix

[Prt Scr]

<<snipped>> trolling

Edited August 21, 2010 by xendrome
Trolling/Flamebait

[amon91]

I'm absolutely fine with this and I understand Canonical may need to gather some data in order to figure out how much their product is actually being used. Wait until people start freaking out about it, but this sounds fine to me.

<<snipped>> trolling

You know, many people would think otherwise, and that's something.

[redvamp128]

<<snipped>> trolling

Ubuntu Slow?

The one in the bedroom runs 9.04 Ubuntu.

Pentium III 933mhz with 256mb of memory --Geforce 4 4000 64mb video card.

I can do everything I do on a day to day basis on it.

It boots to full usable desktop Gnome -- in 45seconds ( and 10 second wait for the wireless)-

That is gnome but when I boot to LXDE desktop from cold boot- 32 1/4 seconds. (and of course the 10seconds for the wireless to get on)

Not to mention on that install I have running in wine Office 2000-

Plus with the LXDE it is not common for me to have 8 tabs open in Firefox- With no delay or drop in performance-

Try that one with current windows or past windows with 256mb of memory--

Now tell me is that slow?

Not to mention-- if I decide to go into Puppy Linux 4.0-- 22 seconds to full internet and use....

I have also installed on that one Chrome- Flash 10.1 - Firefox 3.6.5 (have not gotten around to updating it to 3.6.8)

And that one is fully usable also have Open office on that one.

Now tell me is that slow?

My Windows 7 boots in about 50 seconds to full desktop-- and that one is a AMD 64- 1.8ghz with 4gigs memory and onboard graphics.

Personally I am just as comfortable using that one as my windows one.

Just for reference my Laptop -- Pentium M- 1gig memory 1.7ghz XPS3- boots in just under 55 seconds to a full usable desktop.

[Raa]

If I was using Ubuntu, this would be the first thing to be removed!

It 'might' not be invading my privacy, but I don't need someone else knowing what my O/S is doing either.

[farmeunit]

If I was using Ubuntu, this would be the first thing to be removed!

It 'might' not be invading my privacy, but I don't need someone else knowing what my O/S is doing either.

You act like Canonical is the only one doing this. Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft, many more. They all do error reports of course, but there are other things. You act like that's so different. How do you think people know what the most popular browser is, or most use OS, etc.?

[Growled Member]

I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, it might be a good thing for them as they gather information on systems that ship with Ubuntu.

[redvamp128]

I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, it might be a good thing for them as they gather information on systems that ship with Ubuntu.

I can see your point-- That way they can rally the efforts so to speak on drivers and testing to make sure it is quality.

I know on 8.04 there was a test my system and at the end it would ask to report the results... Though they should make it at first boot to opt in or out and also revamp it to only call back home monthly.

[Prt Scr]

Troll much? :sleep:

Its been posted about on here before that its the slowest distro around, and i remember seeing a poll elsewhere where it was clearly ranked slowest of the most common distros.

Surely i cant be the first person who youve heard say it was slow.

Ive measured it against:

SuSE

Redhat

Slackware

even Mint (which is a derivative of Ubuntu)

And they all are clearly faster and less bogged down on the same hardware.

Before you call me a troll, consider that ive been involved in Unix/Linux since SCO Unix first came out (thats about 21 years of experience), in the days when you had to write your own device drivers etc, and before Linux was even invented. So i do have quite some experience.

The number one reason one gets called a troll for posting anything but glowing things about Ubuntu is because outside of Apple, they have the most sheep like fanboys.

Whereas i prefer to use facts.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Linux is slow at booting, in general. It's common knowledge, but once it's on, it's perfectly fine.

[Solid Knight]

They are invading your privacy! What's next? Backdoors? I don't want to be backdoored. This is totally unacceptable.

[ichi]

Linux is slow at booting, in general. It's common knowledge, but once it's on, it's perfectly fine.

Utbuntu at least is indeed not instant-on (Moblin beats it here with a 14s cold boot from power button to full working desktop vs Ubuntu's 45s, although they are running on different machines) but as long as it stays well under the 1min mark it seems reasonable to me :unsure: Not awesome, but good enough.

[Motoko.]

Ubuntu takes 20sec to boot on my toshiba protege core duo. If I find anything slow about Ubuntu it's Firefox (which I use Chrome in its place) but I use Firefox most of the time.

I guess people have different expectations.

[Prt Scr]

No, you get called troll because unlike your second post were you explain how from your experience Ubuntu is slower than other distros, on your first post you just stated that getting Ubuntu to run is a waste of time and that it's unusable. That's plain flamebait.

So Ubuntu is slow. Ok. Slow at doing what, exactly?

Phoronix benchmarks (albeit synthetic, not conclusive and whatnot) don't show Ubuntu's performance to be far from other more optimized distros like Arch. Since you claim to prefer facts how about showing some of those, because I'm not seeing any perceived slowness, and certainly nothing enough to rate it anywhere near as "unusable".

It's certainly not the fastest distro around, but after three years using it at work I'd guess I (or my employer, or my customers) would have noticed by now if I was unable to get my work done with it.

Seems ive upset a Ubuntu fanboy, one of those blind faith types, you know like an Apple one.

So im not allowed to have an opinion, unless its positive?

You need to cut down on the Ubuntu love just a tad.

I'll be leaving the thread now, ive more useful things to do than defend an opinion and my own experiences.

[Raa]

You act like Canonical is the only one doing this. Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft, many more. They all do error reports of course, but there are other things. You act like that's so different. How do you think people know what the most popular browser is, or most use OS, etc.?

I either don't have the product, have the 'feature' disabled, removed or blocked (when it can't be removed).

Stats are usually generated from referrer ids that are sent by each browser that visits websites. All that info is listed in them, compile a log and voila!

There's a difference between public logs being used to make stats, and my personal computer being used to make them.

[bjoswald]

I'm sure there's bound to be privacy advocates screaming about this, but I think it's fine. Besides, who knows what other tidbits are sent when you query their servers for updates. Same goes with Microsoft, Apple, and just about every other OS out there.

[Knife Party]

Ubuntu is heading in the right direction thats for sure

[soldier1st]

those that are saying that this is invading your privacy need to actualy look into what this does instead of talking it down. i will agree that this would be helpful so they could do more like improving ubuntu with the info gathered, i see nothing wrong with this but i doubt canonical would invade your privacy.

[Growled Member]

Ubuntu is heading in the right direction thats for sure

Yeah, I think so too. But will it be enough to put them over the top.

[Xilo]

Ubuntu is slow because it uses Gnome.

[tiagosilva29]

Why Python? And I am serious.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Ubuntu is slow because it uses Gnome.

What do you mean?

[+BudMan MVC]

<off topic>

"ive been involved in Unix/Linux since SCO Unix first came out (thats about 21 years of experience),"

Really?? This seems odd for someone with what looks like a total of 9 posts in the linux sections.. 3 of those being in this thread -- and seems those are either jabs at ubuntu or other linux trolling - other than your question about usb hdd and grubfordos.

'Ubuntu is sooooooo slow and sooooooo overhyped its sickening to anyone who has been around unices for more than 5 minutes "

"Ubuntu is what Apple fanboys are doing in those extremely rare milliseconds when theyre not worshipping Apple crap"

Gnome 3

"Gnome is and always has been one ugly frickin interface, im either into KDE or i go the other extreme to a very minimalist manager/shell"

Fluffy distro

"8 year old girls and the pedophiles that love and chase them on the interweb."

Maybe the neowin search feature is off? But would seem to me that someone with 21 years of exp with linux/unix would be all over the linux section? With help and suggestions - not just hating on ubuntu ;)

</off topic>

As Canonical tracking -- I really don't see it as a privacy concern -- your free to grab the source if you want and verify what its doing.. Sounds like to me its sending a ping that says your OEM install is still around and on the network, and with the count of days its been sending pings. How/Why that would be a security concern to anyone I have no idea.. Not like your MS box is not phoning home every time it checks for updates.

[c3ntury]

Hardly a problem :)