I think the biggest increase in popularity for ubuntu (or any linux) installs would come from providing images that include all the necessary drivers and config settings to work with specific notebook models. (Notebooks is where it's at for consumer markets at least). That way I could just download/burn/install, and it just works - no lost productivity due to fiddling.
Hardware vendors won't sell it preinstalled (Dell's offerings are weak, esp. outside of the US), and not even Lenovo is offering a linux preinstalled option. It seems that Microsoft still has tremendous leverage in the hardware markets.
Providing (official) images that are basically guaranteed to work with a range of popular notebook models would greatly increase people's willingness to switch. I really want to switch to Ubuntu/Linux, but I don't want to spend two days configuring X and getting my webcam to work.
Hardware vendors won't sell it preinstalled (Dell's offerings are weak, esp. outside of the US), and not even Lenovo is offering a linux preinstalled option. It seems that Microsoft still has tremendous leverage in the hardware markets.
Providing (official) images that are basically guaranteed to work with a range of popular notebook models would greatly increase people's willingness to switch. I really want to switch to Ubuntu/Linux, but I don't want to spend two days configuring X and getting my webcam to work.