Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21 [LWN.net]

Canonical has announced that a preview version of its distribution for phones will be made available on February 21. "The release also marks the start of a new era for Ubuntu, with true convergence between devices. When complete, the same Ubuntu code will deliver a mobile, tablet, desktop or TV experiences depending on the device it is installed on, or where it is docked. Ubuntu 13.10 (due in October) will include a complete entry-level smartphone experience." The initial images will be for Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 handsets.

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Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 16, 2013 0:42 UTC (Sat) by xxiao (guest, #9631) [Link] (1 responses)

Really, is Cannonical stretching too thin? even company large as Redhat can't do everything from phone, netbook all the way to desktop, server and cloud.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 16, 2013 4:08 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (guest, #5198) [Link]

I think you are very much right but they are hoping that if they keep throwing stuff out there and building ecosystems that something will catch on, bring great financial success and they can organize around that product. Also it seems like Ubuntu is a personal project for Shuttleworth who may keep funding it indefinitely even if it doesn't become sustainable as long as his money doesn't run out.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 16, 2013 14:05 UTC (Sat) by justincormack (subscriber, #70439) [Link] (1 responses)

I see they recommend using it on a spare device, I wonder what state it is in, I had hoped to be able to move to it...

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 16, 2013 20:50 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

This is at best a 1.0 release, going to a wide group of users for the first time.

Nobody in their right mind would push for people to make this their primary device, there will be some bugs that slipped through all the testing (there always are), and so you initially suggest that people dip their toe in the water, not do a cannonball

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 17, 2013 17:54 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

I am interested in seeing how this works. I have an N900 running Maemo (essentially Debian) and I would love to see traditional-userspace-Linux phones take off. Android is OK, but sufficiently different from usual Linux to be unappealing to me.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 18, 2013 2:04 UTC (Mon) by leopard (guest, #66680) [Link] (1 responses)

Hopefully when they release the full SDK it includes a mobile VM like the Android SDK for those of us that don't have spare Nexuses laying around.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 21, 2013 4:09 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Hopefully it won't be built on Eclipse…

Convergence

Posted Feb 18, 2013 9:46 UTC (Mon) by janpla (guest, #11093) [Link] (7 responses)

I don't think this idea of making all devices have just one interface is a good idea. The argument I always hear is that it will be 'recognisable' - but I suspect is that it will be recognised as a major pain. "One size fits all" simply is stupid - computerised gadgets are tools, and a good tool has always been one that does one thing well. A phone should just be a phone, and so on.

Convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 0:40 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (6 responses)

It is ironic that the two most successful mobile platforms today don't want to know anything about this convergence stuff: Apple keeps its iOS and Mac OS X platforms completely separated (at least in the interface department), and Google even have their own desktop OS (Chrome OS) which shares nothing with Android apart from the Linux kernel.

It is only some of the challengers that are trying to converge their platforms; Windows (with their ill-fated Windows 8) because they want to use their desktop dominance as leverage, and the rest (Ubuntu, GNOME, KDE) because they have little to lose, I imagine that they think. In fact they have a lot to lose such as their current user base, but hey, if Microsoft can risk it why can't they!

Convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 3:07 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (guest, #5198) [Link] (2 responses)

I don't think what you say about Mac OS or the others is really true, except for ChromeOS and Android which were developed by very different teams, iOS and OSX share much of their infrastructure and plenty of UI elements have been migrated to OSX from iOS in recent releases because the mobile OS is where the current development is. Having ChromeOS and Android totally separate is probably a strategic error on Google's part, even if they have very different UIs there is no benefit in separately developing all the underlying plumbing, instead of converging as every other OS does.

Interface convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 7:36 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

What you say is true about the infrastructure, but not true about the user interface (which was my point really). Having one kernel for different operating systems is great, but what works for small devices is not necessarily going to work on large screens.

Note the "necessarily". Apple has indeed copied elements from iOS to Mac OS X, e.g. some iPhone/iPad gestures work on the trackpad. But the bulk of the design is kept separately, unlike with Windows 8 where convergence is what is supposed to guide design. Or for the other platforms mentioned. Madness.

Interface convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 17:24 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

What you say is true about the infrastructure, but not true about the user interface (which was my point really).

It's true for user interface, too. Small, piecemeal changes (similar controls, changes in scroll direction in Mac OS X Lion, etc), but they are there. They sure as hell do shot for the convergence, but they know it's few years away and they know they should not rush. Google does the same: it started with port of Chrome to Android, but now it slowly harmonizes look and feel, too.

Having one kernel for different operating systems is great, but what works for small devices is not necessarily going to work on large screens.

Sure, but why do you distinguish between "small devices" and "large screens"? These things can be combined (think Google Glass or even padfone). It makes no sense to rush and try to create interface which is basically unusable with today's hardware (big Micorosoft's mistake) but convergence is happening - it's just goes slow.

Convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 13:03 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link] (2 responses)

You mischaracterise KDE - they are running the same platform, but they are very much not trying to converge user interface at all, which seems to be your main complaint.

If anything, I think KDE's approach looks like the best I've seen.

Convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 13:21 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

Sorry, I don't know KDE Plasma Active too well; I thought that the point of KDE Plasma was to unify all environments. If not so, I apologize.

Anyway I am not complaining, I am just amused that so many people think that convergence is the future, when successful platforms do just the opposite.

Convergence

Posted Feb 20, 2013 22:38 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

unify on a technical level, sure. But the goal of Plasma since day one (and that is well over 4 years ago) has always been to be able to build completely optimized ui's for each formfactor, despite sharing most of the heavy lifting. It is very modular and the team claims that despite the completely different way of working, desktop, tablet and phone share 90+% code.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 18, 2013 14:00 UTC (Mon) by granquet (guest, #60931) [Link] (2 responses)

Ok ... it boots ubuntu ... but nothing says it will actually be able to place a phone call ... and that's what I'm interested to see ...

I'd be interested to see how they develop the whole telephony stack on closed modem hardware that often uses proprietary APIs and even non standard link layer drivers!

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 18, 2013 16:30 UTC (Mon) by bradfitz (subscriber, #4378) [Link] (1 responses)

I thought they were building on top of the Android HAL.

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 26, 2013 4:51 UTC (Tue) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

Indeed.

At SCALE this weekend there was a talk about libhybris, which helps normal Linux apps run with Android drivers. The presenter mentioned Mer, Open WebOS, and Ubuntu Phone as contributing projects

https://github.com/stskeeps/libhybris/network

Ubuntu for phone to be previewed February 21

Posted Feb 20, 2013 7:06 UTC (Wed) by jimmyj (guest, #89388) [Link]

Good news for Ubuntu. Looks like Ubuntu has finally deleted the broken Gnome/Microsoft crowd. I'm sure the Gnome/Microsoft people are ready to reverse the mouse-left and mouse-right buttons? The Gnome/Microsoft people will have a meeting about this? How can we move the buttons around again?