Devices all over [LWN.net]

Devices all over

Posted Nov 25, 2012 13:21 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Devices all over by simlo
Parent article: Jolla offer a first look at their Sailfish smartphone OS (The Verge)

It is a good question from the outside, but for actual mobile users it is quite clear. I don't use the same set of applications on my desktop and on my mobile: I would never want to do development on my phone and I don't have any use for apps on my desktop. The only common use is web browsing, but for syncing data our friendly websites (such as LWN.net) do the hard work. As for data, pics go into external storage anyway and I don't listen to music (it eats into battery life). I could easily synchronize using a cloud service if needed.

I can clearly be wrong, but this time we are headed to a constellation of devices that are going to need synchronizing anyway. On my desktop I currently have three general-purpose computers (desktop proper, mobile and SheevaPlug) plus two special purpose (printer and router). I expect that pervasive computing be the new paradigm, and that this number grows with time and encompasses the whole house. Then we will need storage hubs and/or cloud services for all computers, so it will not make any difference to have one more device; only convenience will matter.

We are seeing a lot of effort thrown at convergence these days: Windows 8, GNOME 3, Ubuntu for Android. IMHO free software should instead focus on divergence and federation; that is where our best bets lie.

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Devices all over

Posted Nov 25, 2012 18:54 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Different people have different needs. My linux chroot on my android tablet (for which I bought a keyboard case) lets me do programming (mainly python), latex, and even libreoffice, apart from the usual mail and web browsing. And that tablet is a nearly two year old model -- lots of phones today are much more powerful. There are advantages to a powerful desktop, and also advantages to a device you can whip out whenever you have some spare time and start working on, without looking for a power outlet (battery lasts all day) or a wifi hotspot (it has a 3G sim inside it). And, when I need to run something from that desktop, I can access it from wherever I am.

A phone with a laptop-dock would work great. In fact I thought Ubuntu for Android was for precisely such uses -- I wonder what became of that.