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DistributionsXoom and the Android tablet experienceThe best presents are often those which are totally unexpected; thus, your editor was doubly pleased to find a box from Google on the front step with a Motorola Xoom tablet inside. The Xoom is one of the first full-size Android tablets on the market; it is also one of the few to run the elusive "Honeycomb" Android release. One of the best ways to justify playing with new toys is to find a way to call it work; thus, here is a review of the device and how Android is shaping up on tablets in general.The Xoom, at 730 grams, is surprisingly heavy; much of that weight seems to be a battery which, it is claimed, can support "up to 10 hours" of video playback time or over three days of audio playback. It features a 1200x800 screen, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 32GB of internal storage, cameras on the front and back, two speakers, and an HDMI port. The power button is cleverly hidden on the back; your editor has seen a few people struggle to find it. Two volume buttons on the side are the only other physical buttons on the device. There is a cellular interface, but it is tied to Verizon's CDMA network; happily, the device is happy to operate in a WiFi-only mode.
Android on tabletsThe Android developers have evidently been working flat-out to create a version of the distribution which is well suited to tablets. The result generally works well, but it is clearly a work in progress that will require some adjustment from people who are used to the handset version of Android. To begin, the traditional four buttons (home, back, menu, and search) found on handsets are not present on the Xoom. The lower left of the screen often (but not always) contains replacements for some of those buttons:
The home and back buttons are usually there, at least. Sometimes one will see a strange grid pattern (on the right, above) that turns out to be the menu button - except when a different menu button (more like the version seen on handsets) appears in the upper right corner instead; that is an inconsistency that is likely to create some confusion.
One other button often found in the lower left is a pair of overlapping
rectangles. That button turns out to be the way to switch between running
Many other parts of the interface have not yet caught up to the fact that there is a lot more screen space available, though. Only allowing a single application to be on the screen at a time makes great sense on a handset; there simply is not room for more. But the tablet's resolution is comparable to that of the workstations your editor used for years; there could be value in having a calculator on-screen with a mail client, or a messaging client together with a browser. MeeGo allows this kind of sharing of the screen; Android, at this point, does not. Quite a few of the applications have also not caught up to the idea that they have some room to play with; this is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more true of add-on applications from the market than the built-in applications from Google. The K9 mail client will use the full screen for the message list, or to display a single message, but it cannot do both at the same time; a quick check shows that the Gmail client is a bit smarter that way. Calculators spread themselves across the entire screen to the point that using them requires significant arm movement; perhaps this can be seen as a different type of feature bloat. One welcome change is that the browser has made room for a tab bar; the "window" concept from the handset version appears to be gone.
The on-screen keyboard has, naturally, expanded to fill the available
space; that makes it easier to deal with, but does not change the fact that
Notifications no longer appear at the top of the display; instead, they cluster in the bottom right corner. Tapping on the clock (which is also in that corner) yields a list of notifications; sadly, there is no "clear" button, so notifications must be dismissed one at a time. This corner also replaces the root-screen menu found on handsets; the system settings menus are found here, for example. It is also used to lock the screen orientation (nice when setting the device flat on a table) and the display brightness. Notifications can be disabled altogether; this feature is not available on handsets. The tablet format, as a whole, represents a new and interesting way of dealing with computers; one suspects that we have not yet begun to figure out how we can make the best use of these devices. Your editor was not sold on the format, but, it must be said, tablets make a nice way of reading online content or scanning mail from an armchair. A tablet on the dining-room table (which is where the Xoom is likely to end up) is handy for checking the news and such. For longer (book-length) reading a device with an electronic ink display (or a real book) is still preferable. Any task involving real typing needs a real keyboard. For everything else, the tablet is a nice device to have.
HackabilityOne of Android's best features is that a fair number of the devices out there allow (intentionally or otherwise) a relatively high level of user access. The list of devices supported by CyanogenMod is eye-opening. So, when a device like the Xoom wanders in the door, it is natural to wonder how open it is. The answer is that it is too soon to say, but there are some encouraging indications. To begin with, rooting the device requires nothing special. The Xoom has not been locked down by Motorola, so a simple:
fastboot oem unlock
command works with no further fuss required. One of the first things developers have done with this access is to produce a replacement kernel which allows overclocking, adds the TUN module for OpenVPN support, and, nicely, enables the SD card slot which is not usable (pending "a future software update") with the stock Xoom distribution. There do not appear to be any full replacement distributions available for the Xoom yet; in any case, proper, built-from-source replacements will not be possible until Google sees fit to release the Honeycomb source. That will, sadly, delay the availability of distributions like CyanogenMod indefinitely. This delay can only serve to reduce the level of developer excitement around Android-based tablet devices. But what alternatives are there? It's worth pointing out that MeeGo still exists, and that, someday, somebody may actually release a mainstream tablet device based on it. MeeGo could have some advantages on this format; it is more like a traditional operating system, which may make sense on a device that can behave more like a traditional computer. If somebody can get devices out there sometime soon (that seems to be a big "if" with MeeGo), they might just go somewhere. The upcoming tablet based on WebOS also bears watching for a number of the same reasons. Android for tablets is nice, but it is far from finished, and it has not, yet, taken over this segment. There is an opportunity here; it will be interesting to see who grabs it.
Brief items Distribution quotes of the week
Personally, I'm stunned. Everywhere you went in Fedora circles — and
that would mostly include IRC channels, Beefy Miracle was collectively on
the tips of everyone's tongues and a lot of effort went into promoting the
new "god" — but it was not to be. I truly thought that some approved
candidates were left off the final ballot — Dusty, Talladega and
others — to ensure Beefy Miracle's success. The prospect that Fedora
Activity Days at events would be called "Meat Ups" now falls by the
wayside. There is no joy in Mudville.
-- Larry
Cafiero
Theres an ongoing thread on the Debian mailing lists about making
network-manager installed by default on new Debian installations. I won't
say much about the thread. Its just a prototype example for Debian project
discussions: Discuss everything to death and if its dead discuss a little
more. And - very important - always restate the same arguments as often as
you can. Or if its not your own argument you restate, restate the arguments
of others. Ending with 100 times stated the same argument. Even if its
already disproved.
-- Patrick Schoenfeld
Announcing the release of Fedora 15 BetaThe Fedora project has announced the beta release of Fedora 15. The beta will be followed by one release candidate before the final version is released in late May. "The beta release is the last important milestone of Fedora 15. Only critical bug fixes will be pushed as updates leading to the general release of Fedora 15 in May. We invite you to join us in making Fedora 15 a solid release by downloading, testing, and providing your valuable feedback."
Mandriva 2011 beta2Mandriva has released the second beta of Mandriva 2011. "As with previous beta release, the images are provided for i586 and x86_64 architectures, and are able to work in both live mode, and can be used for the installation. For this release, most of the UI and desktop-related features should be integrated, including new login manager functionality, stack folders integration into the environment, new welcome and launcher application, new panel and overall desktop look-and-feel."
Tails 0.7: The Amnesic Incognito Live SystemThe Tails Project has announced the release of Tails 0.7, The Amnesic Incognito Live System. "Built upon many years of work and thorough review, Tails is the spiritual successor of the well-known Incognito Live System and is developed with the support of the Tor Project. With human rights workers and freedom activists in mind, Tails is a GNU/Linux operating system based on Debian Live that runs directly from CD and/or USB flash memory and provides a secure environment for work and communications."
Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Beta 2 ReleasedThe second beta of Ubuntu 11.04 is available for testing. The Ubuntu 11.04 family of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and Ubuntu Studio are also available.
Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) EOLUbuntu announced its 6.06 Server release almost 5 years ago, on June 1, 2006. "The support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server will reach end of life on Wednesday, June 1, 2011. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 6.06."
Distribution News Debian GNU/Linux Debian Project Leader Election 2011 ResultsObservers of the Debian project will be truly shocked to see that Stefano Zacchiroli has been re-elected as the Debian Project Leader. Stefano was, of course, the only candidate; getting a project like Debian to agree - without any real dissent - that he should continue to hold that office is an impressive accomplishment.
last bits from the DPLStefano "Zack" Zacchiroli wraps up his term as Debian Project Leader before he begins his new term. "I've a couple of highlights to share, since the last time you heard from me. The first one is the Debian dErivatives eXchange (DEX) initiative that has been announced a few weeks ago. I've been working to set it up together with Matt Zimmerman---who surely deserves most of the credit---on and off since DebConf10."
Ubuntu family Ubuntu reaffirms Unity plan for 11.04There has been a certain amount of controversy within the Ubuntu project over whether the Unity shell is ready for use as the default interface in the upcoming 11.04 release. Rick Spencer has now announced that plans have not changed, and Unity will be the default in this release. "The Desktop Team still feels strongly that Unity will provide the better experience for most users, is stable enough to ship, and will be more stable by the time final media is spun."
Some Ubuntu Unity usability testing resultsA set of usability testing results for the Ubuntu Unity interface - said to have been run with a group of people who are representative of the distribution's target audience - have been posted. "Every participant who was asked understood most of the launcher items. P7 and P11 thought that 'LibreOffice Calc' was a calculator, and P7 and P9 thought Ubuntu Software Center was the Recycle Bin. Nobody understood Ubuntu One."
Other distributions open-slx announces Balsam Enterpriseopen-slx GmbH has announced Balsam Enterprise, an offering to small and medium-sized businesses aimed at maintaining binary compatibility with SUSE Linux Enterprise. "The product Balsam Enteprise will be provided by open-slx both as a free download version and a market-oriented version bundled with maintenance and support services."
Newsletters and articles of interest Distribution newsletters
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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![[Barometer HD]](/images/2011/xoom/barometer-sm.png)
![[Xoom
buttons]](/images/2011/xoom/buttons.png){kind=small}
![[App switcher]](/images/2011/xoom/app-switcher-sm.png)
![[Keyboard]](/images/2011/xoom/keyboard-sm.png)