Hands-on with Ubuntu's rudimentary phone and tablet OS Canonical says that Ubuntu 13.10 will include "a complete entry-level smartphone experience" when it ships in October. Anyone brave enough to try out the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview, however, will quickly discover that the current incarnation of Ubuntu for phones and tablets offers considerably less than that. When it …
But
a) I became uninterested with the whole Ubuntu thing when it started to go "Unity" and I dumped it for the Xfce desktop.
b) I like normal small basic mobile phones, as I figure that smart phones are more pain than arse...
You can't type fuck all on them and the screen is really small....
c) I figure that if I want to type or do movies etc., get a REAL computer, or if I want to make phone calls, get a real mobile phone...
But
d) Mixing them into the one thing is stupid bullshit.
And
e) Putting the Unity interface on them is neither one thing or the other to me.
f) But getting a little ACER netbook, kind of fills all my needs....
Not much hard core computing brains - but it's great for MOST things.
Setting it up to make phone calls, with a head set - seems to offer some promise but this may be exceeding the capabilites of the software and hardware....
And it has a real keyboard....
Has anyone tried Plasma Active or Kubuntu Active? The only thing holding me back from getting another tablet is that I want to use as many of my desktop apps on the tablet as I can. Kubuntu is my distro of choice so running Kubuntu Active seems logical. Would love to read a few experiences.
There's an article over on PCWorld about how to make ubuntu look like Win7. Why not
* Turn an ubuntuphone in to a Windows phone
* best. wipe ubuntu, load linuxMINT.
Sheeple who fall for this Shuttleworth horseshit better hope its infinitely customizable. Thats their last hope.
Mamemo on a fully supported N80x0 type hardware. With the quality of the Nokia shells instead of the Samsung Plaste-Bomber. Ja, that would make me re-consider ARM platforms. Add a solid update-support (3-5 years / 2 years after the new hardware generation comes out) and you have a customer(1)
And then get a Java VM ported to it allowing classic JAVA / JFX2 applications as a model (Work on a JVM was on again off again IIRC). THAT could be a runner in the commercial software market since development could be done as a "also ran" while catering for the Windows market for the money. IIRC we have customer using Windows tablets because that can run SWING apps they use. They would (and could) switch to ARM based platforms but those available don't do Swing and no one pays for Android.
(1) Nokia ditched support for the original 770 quite fast. IIRC got better with the 8x0 series
I absolutely loved my N900, as imperfect and unfinished as it was. The UI flow was much more intuitive than Android, it did not suffer from unwanted apps mysteriously starting up in the background (and refusing to be killed), it did not have to be "rooted" to gain root access. If you installed the root shell on the N900, you still got the OTA updates from Nokia, unlike Android, where, if you root your phone, your manufacturer won't send you updates anymore. For the short time Nokia actually cared about it, it had tons of free apps for download, including all the top most popular ones. I could ssh to my N900 from my laptop and use it as a real computer. It had a real Xterm and a real X server. Nokia made a huge mistake IMO, when they abandoned Maemo/MeeGo, and the results are coming in. Windows Phone - not quite the box office success Elop was hoping for. Even Bill Gates himself admitted a few days ago that Windows Phone sucks.
My first reaction when I read about this Ubuntu Phone was: WTF? Who needs a cheap-looking knockoff of the Android UI, with horrible colors to boot? Then it dawned on me: Microsoft needs the Ubuntu Phone. It makes them look competent.
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Nokia basically stopped updating the screen technology. The Maemo tablets still where using resistive screens when capacitive and inductive (stylus) units where becoming more and more common (and payable). One of the many errors they made.
No clear roadmap, limited support for developers and non existing advertisement / reviews where others. Android has it's fair share of troubles in development. But the Eclipse plugin and emulator are extremly useful tools
If Ubuntu gets this to work on an Atom based penable AND support all of the hardware in/on the unit to 100 percent capability inlcuding stuff like Miracast AND keep it that way for 3-5 years they have a potential winner. Such a unit could run (most) Linux and non-platform dependent client software covering around 80-90 percent of the tablet needs.
It's very early days for this, so I think it's better to wait until they actually have some functionality in their releases. However, here's some early stuff they really should have done already:
1. Provide installation via Linuxes *other* than Ubuntu. Yes, I know they'd love you to install Ubuntu on your desktop, but I run CentOS 6 (the world's #1 commercial Linux desktop no less) and I don't see why I should switch to Ubuntu. On a similar note, provide an official installer for Windows too - a very obvious move missed there!
2. Once installed, this page is useful: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/ReleaseNotes
However, they really do make it harder by saying "the recommended way to get shell access to the device is through SSH" and then promptly *not* including openssh-server in the tablet image!
3. The biggest omission of the whole thing, though, is the lack of a bootloader to provide multiboot, so that you can retain your Android install and boot between it and Ubuntu Tablet. With the release being in chocolate fireguard mode at the moment, there's no way people will want to keep backing up and restoring Android countless times. This issue was solved quite a while ago (e.g. moboot on HP TouchPads to go between webOS and CM9 and there's a dual boot Ubuntu/Android tablet actually on sale - http://www.androidauthority.com/android-4-0-ubuntu-12-04-kite-nibbio-tablet-features-exynos-chip-costs-e309-147513/ ).
"1. Provide installation via Linuxes *other* than Ubuntu. Yes, I know they'd love you to install Ubuntu on your desktop, but I run CentOS 6 (the world's #1 commercial Linux desktop no less) and I don't see why I should switch to Ubuntu. On a similar note, provide an official installer for Windows too - a very obvious move missed there!"
I haven't looked at the instructions to see if they really are all that Ubuntu-specific. But I do doubt it. If it is, it should absolutely be fixed! As for Windows installs... well, you should see the unholy terror it takes to make Windows talk to one of these phones! No kidding, I mean, flashing a ROM on my Samsung with heimdall and Linux, it's like "1. Put all the ROM-related files in one directory." "2. Reboot the phone, hold down these keys (power and volume down on mine.)" "3. Run heimdall with these flags". (4. If it doesn't work, try the older Heimdall version. I had to do that.) In Windows? *OVER* a dozen steps screwing around with drivers and such.... Linux step 1 was like step 15 for Windows! And post after post of people that do follow those instructions and mysteriously have the phone never detect. In short, I would not wish the "installer for Windows" project on my worst enemy.
The reason I mentioned a Windows installer for Ubuntu Tablet was several-fold. Firstly, there's probably just as many Windows users curious about Ubuntu Tablet than there are Ubuntu desktop users. Secondly, Ubuntu desktop already has an installer that can be run from Windows, so why on earth isn't there one for installing Ubuntu Tablet from Windows? Thirdly, a relatively idiot-proof Windows installer for Ubuntu Tablet would knock out almost all of those multi-step bits you mentioned.
I know it's very early days, but if you want to bring in as many testers as possible, you really do need a Windows installer for Ubuntu Tablet, IMHO. Plus the multiboot stuff I mentioned, since *everyone* is going back to Android after trying the current preview release. Without those two, Canonical won't get many "free" testers for their pre-releases, but it appears they've not even thought about either issue yet :-(
@Robert A Harvey.... *shrug*. This being a 13.10 preview means they are aiming for a release in October. I don't think they'll write all their apps from scratch (at least I hope not...), but simply have a proof-of-concept UI mockup without worrying about putting each app in it's place yet.
Anyway, I'm interested at least. Android is fine with me, but I do like Ubuntu and would be interested in trying this on a tablet when it's more complete.
Hah hah hah. Bet Microsoft are loosing loads of sleep over this non functional abomination. Looks like 2013 ain't gonna be the year of Linux on the phone.
And before idiots like Eaton jump in to the fray, Android is not Linux. It is a commercial product designed specifically to line the pockets of Google. It may use certain bits of Linux (using other peoples work saves Google time and makes them more money) but it aint Linux
That is all
Linux is great, but the last thing the world needs is an open source phone.
The day i try and call someone who does not get my call or cannot call me due to some issue with their homebrew phone, is the day they are fired!!
Running linux on a laptop as i did for many years was a case of always fixing something before i could just get on with the job in hand... eg. 1 day i use an overhead projector at a meeting, wanna plug in my laptop, oh wait go an install this and that and set up that driver... yawn.
This is not a dig a linux, this is my personal experience with linux outside the data centre and it was wasting my life almost as much IE did in the old days. Down vote if you like, but its my opinion.
And the day someone cannot call you due to a battery life problem with an iOS update, as happened just a week or so ago? They get fired?
If that is your attitude then you should be supplying locked down company phones that make very reliable phone calls and have good battery life, not expecting people to BYOD. I expect BlackBerry will be quite pleased to get a new Enterprise account.
Just a thought.
Linuxes have update managers. I'd guess there should be many incremental updates on this provided Umbuntu are on the case of course. This is clearly a long way from being fully cooked.
As for this "Google is Linux" line that was forked off some time ago.
"Is it, in fact, actually a phone?"
It's claimed to be an OS for "smartphones" but as people have said of the iPhone it's not very good for making calls.
I don't want a lifestyle. I just want to be able to punch a number and get connected to the person I'm calling.
Anywhere above ground (and preferably some way below) in my service providers alleged coverage area.
A v 0.1 UI is not necessarily a problem for an apps developer. But a 0.1 API is hence my comment about the frequent updates needed to get this into shape.
but, i can't imagine there is anyone that would be thinking of putting an Ubuntu or similar linux-y OS on a smartphone that isn't a fully paid up penguin-fiddler and so already dreams in command line scripts rather than a visual medium.
Even typing text into the browser was awkward, because Ubuntu's onscreen keyboard is pretty shoddy. Its layout is cramped, despite lots of wasted space around the keys, and the keys are always rendered in uppercase, even when pressing one will yield a lowercase letter.
That's almost exactly how iOS's abortion of a keyboard works (it only ever shows lowercase) and the fanboiz think it's the Only Possible Way.
I was looking forward to seeing a new flavour of ubuntu this year, hoping feedback to Ubuntu would remove unity as no one I know likes it and I would like a tick box to get rid and use KDE or gnome instead. (I don't have time to recompile kernals to get rid of it) But that screenshot has Unity on the phone, please tell me that it isn't unity on the phone.
Instant fail, which is a crying shame.
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