LWN: Comments on "A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device"

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

kragil — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:03:05 +0000

Simple: Don't let the Intel suits decide anything. They are stupid liars.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

johntb86 — Sat, 26 May 2012 00:58:38 +0000

Well, they're not just repackaging the same upstream stuff, but choosing different technologies as well. There's Qt vs. Gtk+ vs. EFL(???) and Wayland vs. X, for example. I'm having a hard time imagining how're they're going to make this a coherent whole.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

n8willis — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:51:20 +0000

It's the difference between the cell modem not having a working driver (hardware), and the telephony stack being consciously disabled for any number of other potential reasons (ranging from they-are-waiting-for-the-oFono-port to the companies not wanting developers to run off and use the untested devices on other people's real GSM networks) (software). The point is: no one seems to know. Yet.

Nate

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

jimparis — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:06:40 +0000

You generally need a SIM to authenticate to a GSM network, although things like emergency calls are typically still allowed without one. It does sound like this device does not yet support phone calls.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

giraffedata — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:50:26 +0000

Thus far it is unclear if the SIM slot is supported in software;

What does this mean? What is "supported" and what is "software"?

It sort of sounds like it says the device cannot make phone calls, but that seems doubtful.

You need a SIM card to access a 3G network, right?

Strategic options

man_ls — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:28:00 +0000

a completely different OS (which is still Qualcomm only) like WP.

Hard to believe but absolutely true. What a myopic move. Perhaps Microsoft want to reenact their duopoly with Intel on the desktop?

Strategic options

yaap — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:57:15 +0000

> Are they phasing out their own Bada and want to keep their options open?

It seems to be the case, with some people saying that Bada will disappear in the coming year as a separate option, to be folded into Tizen (so there will be a migration path for Bada applications). At this stage it's just hearsay, will have to see.

Interestingly, there's also been rumors that HTC, Acer and Asus are also planning Tizen devices too. It looks like Android players want another option, and WP is not seen as one anymore. From a support point of view, I would guess that supporting a linux based Tizen device is much simpler when you already do Android that a completely different OS (which is still Qualcomm only) like WP.

But things change fast in mobile devices, so we'll have to see what comes out of this in the end.

Strategic options

man_ls — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:48:58 +0000

I realize that this article may not be the place, but I miss some kind of editorial from a strategic point of view. Why is Samsung, nowadays Android's most vocal proponent, supporting Tizen? Are they phasing out their own Bada and want to keep their options open?

This has implications on the devices too: the day might come when Samsung offers a choice of operating systems on the same devices. The article's most important point to me is:

the device is alleged to be the same hardware used in Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy S2

The implication might be that future models are also supported by Tizen. It might be really fun to compare operating systems; also the door to community projects would be wide open. May we ever run Debian on our terminals!

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

tajyrink — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:56:54 +0000

See above :) But I truly hope so too.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

tajyrink — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:54:55 +0000

MeeGo was mostly Moblin, even though the N9's MeeGo was mostly maemo. Moblin was mostly Fedora, although it switched to it from being mostly Ubuntu. Tizen is mostly .deb based SLP, although the Tizen IVI releases look to be .rpm based and maybe so have MeeGo (the Intel variant) background. Isn't it fun when you have all the hundreds of people working and you need something for them to do?

Of course the actual upstream software is mostly the same, but maybe it just makes you feel like running a big software operation when you're doing different packaging and patching and QA for all the packages every once in a while, maybe two packagings, tools and QA processes at the same time. With the exception that Tizen/SLP seems to use partially older software versions currently than its predecessors, like xserver 1.9.

I understand that if for example MeeGo IVI had already traction in the slow moving IVI scene, they don't want to disrupt that. I don't know, but nevertheless all these changes have been not only a pain for the community, but surely a pain inside the companies. Not that merging Debian and Fedora would be any more easy, but I guess no-one suggests that (except for the Canterbury Project - and not even that since it was only Debian, Gentoo, SUSE, Arch :).

Still, I'd value not spending huge resources re-packaging and re-QA:ing and re-process-evaluating everything all the time, because it causes friction in doing something actually new. Maybe Tizen however handles the current situation gracefully. If the base distro just happens to work (no matter how complicated its birth), the "new stuff" developers can concentrate on their work.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

drag — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:32:33 +0000

Crazy and weird.

I am glad that Samsung is helping out and efforts seem to be coalescing. I hope they remain focused and avoid the sort of schizophrenic behavior that doomed Nokia's Meego effort.

A look at Tizen 1.0 on the developer device

johntb86 — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:24:04 +0000

So this is a combination of SLP with MeeGo, which is itself a combination of Moblin and Maemo. What parts of each remain?