Ubuntu on the Nexus 7 [LWN.net]

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 27, 2012 18:43 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670)
Parent article: Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Wouldn't the main use case of this be to dock it with a big screen and a proper (hardware) keyboard?

I can think of several times I could have used that. The price is unbeatable.

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Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 27, 2012 19:09 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (4 responses)

Not exactly how tablets are usually used is it?

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 27, 2012 19:35 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

define 'usually used' :-)

I know lots of people who have laptops that would probably not notice for weeks if their screen quit working, because they always use them with docking stations or equivalent.

Current tablets are not used with full-size screens and keyboards, but most tablets couldn't run that way, and the common tablet OSs don't support it in any case.

I think that if the OS and hardware supported it, a lot of people would use tablets that way, not all the time, but a surprising amount of the time.

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 27, 2012 20:35 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (2 responses)

> define 'usually used' :-)
The way 99.99% of their owners use them today ;-)

> I know lots of people who have laptops that would probably not notice for weeks if their screen quit working, because they always use them with docking stations or equivalent.
Agreed, but laptops are 'computers'. They do come with a real keyboard and a greedy powerful processor though... and MS Office as standard :-S

> Current tablets are not used with full-size screens and keyboards, but most tablets couldn't run that way, and the common tablet OSs don't support it in any case.
Defined 'current tablets' :-P
A few have HDMI out already some way or other (MHL, mini-HDMI, WiFi-display) but this is a tablet-to-TV connection mostly, which keeps the tablet in its usual use-case (see below.)

> I think that if the OS and hardware supported it, a lot of people would use tablets that way, not all the time, but a surprising amount of the time.
Tablets are used to play, read and show photos. These use-cases do not require a keyboard. Keyboards are more useful to type text (documents/code.)

I understand that developers may want to use a tablet to code (like you and I do, I presume), but we definitely are a minority. And from my experience, it's not easy. I tried to do that with my Galaxy Nexus (MHL to HDMI screen + bluetooth keyboard) but that just does not fly :-(

(typing this from my laptop using my Galaxy S2 as modem!)

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 29, 2012 9:29 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Well, the support is shoddy and tablets are optimized for touch, so you wouldn't expect that use case to be very common for the moment. But I imagine a chunk of laptop users who don't really want to carry around a screen and keyboard would want to carry one of these instead, and Ubuntu could cater to these users quite easily just by offering the regular desktop GUI.

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 29, 2012 11:21 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link]

What about using one's phone as a keyboard for one's tablet? Using AndroMouse/RemoteDroid etc.

Ubuntu on the Nexus 7

Posted Nov 27, 2012 19:11 UTC (Tue) by bryce (guest, #16388) [Link]

That would be an interesting use case, however the device has no hdmi or other video connector.

Theoretically it could be done via a DisplayLink adapter, but we've not sorted out how to do that using the combination of a current X stack on the antiquated kernel we're using.