RemixOS – Android for the desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#41

Post by mtgx » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 11:49 PM UTC

Google could - and certainly has (even with the latest Pixel C) - do much worse than RemixOS for the desktop. If they can't come up with any other way to make Android look good on the desktop, it should at least acquire RemixOS and go from there.

I'm not a fan of the whole "Android apps inside Chrome OS" idea - it seems like a very roundabout and complex way to achieve what Android already can by itself - run over a million Android apps. However, if it does make an Android Wear-like Android for PCs, I do think Google should retain all control, so it can update Android for PCs just as easily as it can do with ChromeOS (or as Microsoft can do with Windows). Google should in no way repeat the update failure of Android on smartphones.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#42

Post by wmf » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 11:51 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #23

nextos wrote: post #15

As a hardcore Linux user, I'm really torn about Android. On the one hand, it has created a nice software ecosystem by pushing a consistent set of APIs. Linux desktop applications were never remarkable except for a few ones. I think fragmentation into a myriad of frameworks led to this. The only 2 X11 applications I use are firefox and zathura. On the other hand, too much stuff has been redone in Android. It's too for…

> I would prefer less app-ification, more package management. I would argue for the opposite: One problem with linux is that you can't run untrusted software without it getting the same access as the user. That's exactly what the appification is. I see package managers as a source of some problems of linux: Package maintainers are a unneeded middleman between the writers of the software and you, package managers inte…

xdg-app is solving those problems, although I don't know if it will be adopted, especially by KDE.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#43

Post by recrof » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 11:52 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #26

nextos wrote: post #15

As a hardcore Linux user, I'm really torn about Android. On the one hand, it has created a nice software ecosystem by pushing a consistent set of APIs. Linux desktop applications were never remarkable except for a few ones. I think fragmentation into a myriad of frameworks led to this. The only 2 X11 applications I use are firefox and zathura. On the other hand, too much stuff has been redone in Android. It's too for…

Would be nice to be able to run Android apps in normal Linux distros

you kinda can, via chrome android runtime.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#44

Post by wmf » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 11:54 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #19

I want regular Linux on my phone, not Java Linux on my desktop.

I have an N800 sitting around somewhere; make me an offer. True multitasking, full desktop Firefox with Flash Player, and 30 minute battery life.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#45

Post by michaelmior » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 11:55 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

rubyn00bie wrote: post #3

Awesome. This sort of thing is what makes me hopeful for a Linux desktop one day-- that I actually enjoy using. I'm really excited to give this a try. Does anyone know where to download or when it'll be available? Doesn't seem to be available yet?

It looks like it's available to flash on some Nexus devices, and their own tablet is shipping within the next month or so: http://www.jide.com/en/remixos/devices

While I'm skeptical about using RemiXOS on a desktop machine, the tablet looks really nice.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#46

Post by carussell » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 12:05 AM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #30

rhodin wrote: post #14

Will it run on a phone so that I can connect a monitor to the phone and use it as a desktop OS, and then disconnect and use it as a phone OS?

this will - https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/10/20/ubuntus-path-to-conve...

The problem with Canonical is that it looks like they started working from the wrong end of the stick. So long as you make it to your pre-defined convergence point, what does it matter if you start with Ubuntu and try to evolve it towards mobile, or start with Android and work the other way? The difference is that if they'd taken the latter approach, they could've probably already reached it by now. Instead, they set themselves up to fight an uphill battle, alone, and get bogged down with a bunch of diversions wrt to Unity and Mir and systemd, which, in the grand scheme of things, should have only appeared as pit stops along the way. It's silly.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#47

Post by sowbug » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 12:08 AM UTC

daveloyall wrote: post #22

The licensing seems to make this a non-starter. But let's suppose they must fix that. (This is pretty clearly a derived product...?) We'll need a proper ARM desktop... How about one based on AMD's A1100? :)

By "derived product" do you mean an obligation to open-source? If yes, there isn't any: Android is licensed Apache 2.0. https://source.android.com/source/licenses.html

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#48

Post by davidcollantes » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 12:08 AM UTC

Fastidious wrote: post #34

This is very nice, and priced just right. Could easily replace the desktop of just about everyone in my family.

Indeed. The device covers the needs of half of the faculty at my college. Their version of Android looks very polished.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#49

Post by RivieraKid » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 12:11 AM UTC

Well I'm sceptical you can make a good desktop OS by modifying Android. Major desktop OSs (including their ecosystems!) have been developed for decades, there's a lot of depth in their functionality, flexibility, different use cases. Two of the main issues are that apps designed for Android touch devices suck on desktop and that the Android SDK is very limited compared to what deskop OSs offer. Don't get me wrong, I also think that current desktop OSs suck - it's just that Android-as-a-desktop is not the solution.

Re: RemixOS – Android for the desktop

#50

Post by currysausage » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 12:14 AM UTC

xearl wrote: post #12

iokanuon wrote: post #5

Will it be open source? "Free for licensing" isn't quite clear. Will anyone by able to license access to the source code for free? If yes, what about forking? EDIT: Okay, this isn't what I've hoped for: >Disclaimer: Remix OS is only licensed to authorized business partners and pre-loaded on specific product models of those partners;it's not intended for personal use.

It seems that "Remix OS for PC" will be at least "free to use": > "With that in mind, Remix OS for PC is free to download, free to install, and free to use." No idea about open source, though.

> free to download, free to install, and free to use

Remix OS is based on Android and Android includes, among other things, the Linux Kernel, which is GPL, which is Copyleft, which would mean that the Remix OS creators would need to provide the source code to users, wouldn't it?