Linux on Dex • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux on Dex

#111

Post by vetinari » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

philippeback wrote: post #72

vetinari wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet that i5 will be way faster than whatever ARM is in Galaxy. It will also have much faster SSD than the eMMC in phones, and will be paired with faster RAM to boot. All these things take way more energy, so your laptop will also have much bigger battery.

The phone with 4G will not be subjected to stupid corporate firewall rules preventing access to, say, StackOverflow.

Unless your phone was issued by your employer, is managed by MDM and runs all the traffic through your employers firewall anyway.

On the other hand, there are laptops, that have cellular radios. My old Thinkpad surely does.

Re: Linux on Dex

#112

Post by danans » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:24 PM UTC

bubblethink wrote: post #67

I find the terminology used by all these similar projects (linux on chromeos too) amusing. Both, Android and ChromeOS run the linux kernel. So it's like that Yo Dawg meme. On the other hand, MS is even more creative. What could be a legitimate use of "linux on windows" is called windows subsystem for linux. Marketing these days.

You might find the whole business of VMs and containers amusing also, as they are often running aLinux kernel and up (VMs) or a Linux app in a sandboxed Linux environment (containers) on top of ... Linux. So the names are pretty much true.

Re: Linux on Dex

#113

Post by qwerty456127 » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

Looks cool essentially but...

> Linux on DeX currently supports one customized Ubuntu image (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS version provided by Canonical) which only operates on selected Samsung devices. (Note9 and Tab S4).

What a waste. Hardware vendors can never produce a really good piece of software. If something as humble as RaspberryPi can run fully up-to-date unmodified Arch I'm pretty sure my Note3 has all the hardware power to run it too yet they require a super-duper-recent device produced exclusively by themselves and would only let us run an almost 3-yr-old distro they have modified.

Re: Linux on Dex

#114

Post by petecox » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:26 PM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #69

tinyvm wrote: post #18

This is really cool. I've been looking for such thing for a long time now. If you have a corporate Job like consulting or something equivalent it's very likely you are packing an awful laptop with you everywhere you go, a DELL or a Lenovo or something like that. DEX opens a door for next generation Mobile Desktop , where you SmartPhone is also your Desktop Computer. I really hope Apple does something similar in this…

> DEX opens a door for next generation Mobile Desktop , where you SmartPhone is also your Desktop Computer. Remember, Microsoft tried this with Continuum for Windows 8/10 and Windows Mobile, it failed. No-one actually wanted the core of their desktop inside their phones. People have partitioned off different use-cases for their PC and smartphones, and the overlap is smaller than designers think.

The Lumia 950/XL were the last hurrah for the platform, so one can hardly blame Continuum for the demise of Windows on phones.

Re: Linux on Dex

#115

Post by raihansaputra » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:29 PM UTC

Honestly, if this works well I might migrate to this. I've always thought the laptop is an ergonomical nightmare; moving the central processing bit to the phone always makes sense yet not always possible. There has been mentions of Project Linda here, but I'd be far more interested in having a portable, ergonomic, computing solution. I have not found it. The closest one is having a laptop on a roost stand (which still needs an extra mouse and keyboard). I think modern smartphones are powerful enough, what they need is a sensible display.

Re: Linux on Dex

#116

Post by raihansaputra » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

i_phish_cats wrote: post #34

For those of us who don't have a supported device, there's an android app called [Termux]( https://termux.com/ ) which provides a surprisingly linux-y experience. I sometimes code on my 10" tablet with a small (60%) keyboard.

I really envy this from the iOS side: the 2018 iPad is amazing with pencil but there is no way to get something like Termux without having to ssh.

Re: Linux on Dex

#117

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:32 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #93

Owning the Note 1, 2 and 4, I ultimately left because Samsung is very poor at updating phones regularly with current patch levels. I was forced to get a Pixel 2 which, minus the stylus I've been happy with. It still wouldn't hold a candle to a Note with bare Android. If Samsung could adopt native android installation, like some LG devices are, this is an exciting possibility.

Why not just put bare Android on a Note then?

Re: Linux on Dex

#118

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:49 PM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #69

tinyvm wrote: post #18

This is really cool. I've been looking for such thing for a long time now. If you have a corporate Job like consulting or something equivalent it's very likely you are packing an awful laptop with you everywhere you go, a DELL or a Lenovo or something like that. DEX opens a door for next generation Mobile Desktop , where you SmartPhone is also your Desktop Computer. I really hope Apple does something similar in this…

> DEX opens a door for next generation Mobile Desktop , where you SmartPhone is also your Desktop Computer. Remember, Microsoft tried this with Continuum for Windows 8/10 and Windows Mobile, it failed. No-one actually wanted the core of their desktop inside their phones. People have partitioned off different use-cases for their PC and smartphones, and the overlap is smaller than designers think.

"Microsoft tried this with Continuum for Windows 8/10 and Windows Mobile, it failed."

There are plenty of reasons for that, chief among them being the staggeringly-uphill battle of Windows regaining any significant marketshare in the mobile space and (presumably) the lack of software compatible with Windows on ARM.

Meanwhile, Android (and Samsung's phones in particular) are quite popular, and the vast majority (to my knowledge) of Linux desktop programs work on ARM just as well as they do on x86(-64).

Re: Linux on Dex

#119

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #95

52-6F-62 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very cool as a concept. I'd like to see Apple get all over something like this as well. Is it just me or would something like that sell like wild?

I very much doubt it. It doesn't run Windows stuff, so it's more of a competitor to Chromebooks, and those haven't sold like wild (less than 5% of new sales in 2016). Coupled with the fact that it restricts you in the choice of phone, and I think it's basically DOA.

"less than 5% of new sales in 2016"

Given how saturated the laptop market is, that's actually not terrible.

Re: Linux on Dex

#120

Post by maelito » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 11:52 PM UTC

SeriousM wrote: post #11

UserLAnd is doing the same as open source and on any device. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.ula

It's a very cool project, unfortunately for now running sudo apt install inkscape on a S8 takes forever.