back to article Ubuntu - yes, Ubuntu - poised for mobile melee

The enterprise world may increasingly be infatuated with Red Hat, but the mobile and desktop worlds are very much in play, with Canonical's Ubuntu gaining ground in areas most Western observers will not have noticed. In short, there's never been a more exciting, disruptive time to own an operating system. This is most evident …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    "Linux on mobile has the same issues Windows on mobile has."

    Utter tosh. Any recent Windows needs multi GB of disk and even multi GB of RAM. There's plenty of consumer electronic kit out there based around Linux that has a few MB of "disk" and a few MB of RAM.

    It may not be the prettiest latest greatest Linux but it doesn't need to be. If you want modern (as in a Linux based TV or whatever), add a few more MB of memory and RAM.

    Try doing that with Windows (and not the repeated failure called Windows CE).

    There's a reason MS have had zero success in consumer electronics. It's called Linux.

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Really....

      ...I thought it was called xbox 360. Oh no, soz, that's the reason your "zero success in consumer electronics" statement is bollocks.

      1. Martin Owens

        Except

        Except the xbox is a gaming computer, not a consumer electronic device.... it's hardly a wrist watch.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    The market is just normalising, that's all

    It is NORMAL to have multiple competing manufacturers and products in the same marketplace. The Microsoft monopoly is just a perverse blip that will eventually pass.

  3. Dave Rickmers
    Linux

    Full Screen Flash Movies on Via C7D

    Running Puppy 511 (based on Ubuntu 10.10) on 1.5 GHz single core "green" low-power Everex PC. I can play *.flv if I store them first, then open with MPlayer or VLC.

    I have an XP box in the garage I use to talk to my iPod and run some DSP routines that require DirectX, free ham radio apps, etc. For web surfing and mail and audio streaming and photo editing, etc., I love Puppy Linux (now powered by Ubuntu 10.10).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "the coming extinction of the PC"

    Oh that old one again...

    Yes, most users needs can be achieved by using a laptop, some can make do with something smaller. But, for those that want greater storage, the fastest CPU, the fastest GPU etc. etc. then a desktop/tower will always offer more potential in the same generation as the best laptop.

    Hell, data centres and server farms keep getting bigger, not smaller, shouldn't the old "extinction of the PC" moniker equally apply to servers?

    Until such time that greater power doesn't mean greater heat/size and doesn't equate to greater potential then PCs are always going to be with us.

    You could develop a super fast PC the size of a matchbox that did everything the majority of people needed. You could also guarantee that some people would want to put two of them together, or make one three times the size to give three times the speed simply because the space requirements were not important.

  5. spegru

    Mint

    Fit it and forget it (well apart from making sure it's updated)

    Just works......

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I would ...

    Deffo buy an Ubuntu-based phone.

    Much potential there if they get it right (just don't allow fashion and politics to put the skids under). And I know they can. Good luck on getting it right.

  7. mhenriday
    Boffin

    Interesting article - Ubuntu on mobile devices

    does look as if it could become a top contender (even if I find Matt Asay's predictions on the death of the PC rather premature). I've been using Ubuntu on both stationary boxes and laptops for years (ever since Edgy) and find it more reliable and user-friendly than its legacy counterpart, besides making much smaller demands on the hardware. But in one respect Mr Asay's article was a disappointment ; he writes that «Because much of Canonical's client operating system business is in developing markets like China. (You know, that little country near Japan?)» but gives no figures for Ubuntu use in China and provides no links. When I check what StatCounter has to say on the matter (http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-CN-daily-20080701-20110118), Linux distros are so poorly represented that they all are lumped together in the category «Other», with a market share of less than 1 % - while Windows dominates totally, with good-old (?) XP still enjoying a market share of over 84 %. Are StatCounter's statistics invalid when it comes to China, which most of us regard as Microsoftland ? Does Matt Asay know something the rest of us don't ?...

    Henri

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    UI not for me

    In my one brief experience with Ubuntu, I was able to do what I needed (5/5), but the UI was a turnoff (to much like MacOS) so I've not looked at it again.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    drivers are the key

    every time I try to get a Linux machine working I run into the same problem.

    drivers.

    WiFi, video, touchpads, printers... I spend so much time trying to get them working reliably that I give up and go back to Win7 because it just works (and in the last decade we've never had a virus problem on our home network)

    What I've been trying to put together is a USB Key with a bootable lightweight Ubuntu that's not a "liveCD" but a real install - so I can drag it to different host machines and boot from it, update it, install the drivers I need for the machines I use ... but that's proven to be a challenge as well.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @sabroni re Xbox 360

    I'm not a gamer and consequently keep forgetting Xbox. I also forget Kinect which is apparently doing nicely for MS. I do apologise for any offence caused.

    Now, can you remind me which version of Windows runs on the Xbox? Can you remind me which other consumer electronics kit is based around the Xbox software? Can you remind me how easy it is to legitmately get non-MS-approved software on your Xbox?

    The Xbox actually makes my point very nicely, because of its glorious Windowless isolation in the MS world. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

  11. T J
    FAIL

    "the coming extinction of the PC" ?

    "the coming extinction of the PC" ? Is this like the one about "The thing that will replace Email!" ?

  12. Jeff 11
    WTF?

    "The coming extinction of the PC"

    That hoary old chestnut?

    Tablets, phones and other supplemental devices are indeed great, but take away the humble home PC supporting them all and you realise just how flexible a general purpose home computer is, and how very very crap said devices are at doing all those other tasks you forget that you do.

    As much as Google et al would like us to believe it, browsing the web is not computing.

  13. elderlybloke
    Happy

    Purple / Orange colour ?

    That reminds me, It's time to get a new Wallpaper.

    Had the present one for a few months now.

    Bye for now.

  14. Anteaus
    FAIL

    Have they ALL lost the plot?

    Right now, there seems to be a malaise creeping-through the whole OS industry - Composed of of massive bloat, silly gimmicks, and totally illogical and unergonomic interfaces.

    Microsoft have certainly been affected by this - From any sensible point of view, all releases of Windows since XP have been a downgrade in useability, coupled with a massive hike in the demands placed on the hardware, for no good reason. On the server front, Server 2008 is bloated, slow and full of compatibility issues compared to Server 2003, about its only saving grace being its better virtualization support. Meanwhile KDE3 was superb but KDE4 suffers the same blight of awkwardness and illogicality, and is unquestionably a downgrade from its predecessor. Recently had a chance to try a WM7 phone and found likewise myself cursing the thing within 30 seconds for its dumbed-down and damned-awkward interface compared to WM5/6.

    Are we just going-through a bad phase in OS design, I ask? If so, where will this eventually lead? To Apple cornering the market? Maybe, after all I picked-up an iPad in the store, and 'just used it' without any prior introduction. ' It's expensive, yes, but ergonomically it rocks.

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