….Or, why Canonical (or the Ubuntu Foundation) should hook up with an All-in-One PC maker like Acer-Gateway or Averatec.

Mark Shuttleworth yesterday voiced his desire to help get Desktop Linux to, or past, the same design landmark currently held by Apple’s Mac OS X. He also predicted that the same would be accomplished within the next two years.

Now one can laugh at this, and maybe even make a few jokes about how Ubuntu’s trademark brownish-beige look and feel is easily dispelled by Mac OS X’s trademark bluish/ivory look-and-feel.

I personally don’t think that a desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu should be so easily discounted as an operating system and software platform in comparison to Mac OS X. However, I contend that Ubuntu’s success as a competing operating system and software platform against Mac OS X should be judged, or at least reviewed and assessed on how well either operating system fits into and utilizes an All-in-One PC.

The reason why I place the All-in-One PC in such a higher regard in comparison to the more diverse monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower combo that is sold by most desktop PC vendors as far as comparing Ubuntu to Mac OS X is because Mac OS X, since its introduction around 2000/2001, has historically been designed around the iMac, the AIO PC that was inaugurated in 1998 as the flagship product of the “new, improved” Apple. Even as Apple had introduced other desktop and laptop computers which had less of a hardware focus around the OS X GUI (including the current Mac Pro and Mac mini), the Mac OS X user interface has almost always been designed around the iMac in all generational iterations of the computer.

For instance, if you look at the iMac page on Apple.com, you can see how the GUIs of all the applications displayed on the screens of the row of iMacs are designed to take up the entirety of the screen. In fact, since Apple had first started to sell the flat-screen iMacs (starting with the iMac G4 of 2002), the screen real estate taken up by whole applications has almost always been advertised on the iMac page of Apple.com. The current iterations of the other desktop and laptop products from Apple are not advertised in a similar fashion on their own respective front pages on the website; the GUI’s design is not “front and center” on those pages.

So I honestly think that Mac OS X’s UI is designed to fit best on an iMac, with all the other installations of OS X on the other Mac desktops and laptops being a second-best consideration for Apple until recently. This All-in-One GUI-design mentality is also carried over to the iPhone OS, as the iPhone OS is designed more for the iPhone (an “All-in-One” candybar mobile device where, again, the screen is all that matters for user interaction) than it is for the iPod touch (and, if it decides to add another mobile pocket device, maybe a clamshell, to the line-up, Apple will still preinstall the iPhone OS onto the device without any significant changes in the design of the GUI or the functionality of the OS). A sign of this is the fact that the iPod touch still has some camera functionality akin to the iPhone, even though the iPod touch doesn’t have a built-in camera.

Meanwhile, Windows on the desktop isn’t and never has been designed with such a focus on the All-in-One desktop computer form factor; instead, it has been traditionally designed around the monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower metaphor.

Desktop Linux, as well, has been historically designed around the monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower metaphor, at least because the cheaper desktop computers have followed such a hardware design for expandability and upgrading purposes. Thus, Ubuntu has followed in like manner.

However, because it isn’t created and provided by one single vendor, nor are the offered looks determined by one single vendor, it may be possible for desktop Linux distributions like Ubuntu and its own spinoffs can be designed and themed for best fit and access on an All-in-One PC’s display.

If a Linux distribution (or more specifically, dare I say, an Ubuntu spinoff) can be designed and themed to be accessed specifically on an All-in-One PC like Gateway’s One, Sony’s Vaio L or Asus’ EEE Monitor, I think that it may become the pinnacle of free software UI design for both desktop and laptop computers.

Anyone who may want to consider such an idea should at least consider the user interface of the “made-for-EEE PC” Linux distributions like Xandros and eeeXubuntu, and then try to apply the user interface with major modifications for access within an AIO PC.

So this, I believe, is what Canonical must consider if it wants to compete with Apple in the area of user interface design. It must look at and study the hardware form factor that Apple uses to design the user interface of Mac OS X (the iMac) and then apply an AIO-centric design to Ubuntu that definitely outranks and outmaneuvers the Mac OS X-on-iMac user experience.

If it can do that, then Apple will be forced to compete against desktop Linux on the desktop and laptop front, particularly to retain their high-profile image as a computer company.