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Ubuntu on tablets

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Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#31

Post by orofino »

This looks really promising and I think I'll give it a try, once there is something to buy...

The multitasking looks really good, it is an interesting way to solve this problem. If their implementation is as good as it is presented, we'll see Apple and Google copying this on their platforms.

It seems to me that this offers many of the benefits that I see with OS X, an interface that lets me just do what I want without a bunch of pain, but if I need more power I can drop down to the shell and really get at what I need. Additionally, if using MS Office on the device is possible in a non-shitty way, it will be amazing. They talked very little about this, so I'm skeptical, but it would be absolutely killer if this worked well. US business lives in MS office and a way to easily use it is REQUIRED before tablets can begin supplanting desktops in the enterprise.

The rip off of Apple's styling for the promo video is distracting and unnecessary. Come up with your own styling for this, the offering looks appealing, you've got capabilities that other competitors lack, there isn't a reason for you to copy someone else's presentation style.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#32

Post by yareally »

tinkmasterflash wrote: post #4

I don't even use Ubuntu for the desktop or the laptop, what motivation do I have to use it on a phone or tablet? How about making Unity less than an unholy mess before branching out into other form-factors?

You're commenting (and just created an account) on a site called hacker news and you cannot think of something to do with it?

- build apps or port apps to work better on it. I can also do this without having to resort to Java like Android if I want to do things the recommended and supported way. I am also guessing that running su/sudo on it will not feel like an ugly hack to do like it is on Android[1] since it should be built in.

- run scripts (you can do that on Android with the Android Scripting layer and the terminal emulator, but it still has its quirks).

- easier access to things that are harder to deal with on Android or iOS (development tools) via apt. Perhaps even something like Blender or Gimp will run decent on it.

There are lots of possibilities. Perhaps not if all you want to do is browse the web and check email. However, I consider it another way to hack around and build things.

[1] http://www.chainfire.eu/articles/125/_How-To_SU_published/

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#33

Post by donniezazen »

rufugee wrote: post #21

As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm now using Cinnamon as a desktop environment. I really, really wanted Unity to work, but I've had continued performance problems which make it ultimately unusable for me. I understand Ubuntu's need to turn a profit, but I really wish they'd focus on making Unity stable and performant before chasing down these other opportunities... Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probab…

Any mobile development will help laptop and desktop users. They recently cut down 200MBs of RAM usage in Unity. All apps from phone and tablet will be portable to desktop. I sincerely hope Ubuntu pursue's it to the end.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#34

Post by ZeroGravitas »

When they mentioned "sharing" I was hoping for something like Android's share which would take whatever I'm looking at and give it to another app. Instead it's just social networks. Better than Apple's lame lock-in to Twitter and Facebook but sharing between apps in Android's a killer-app.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#35

Post by levesque »

rufugee wrote: post #21

As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm now using Cinnamon as a desktop environment. I really, really wanted Unity to work, but I've had continued performance problems which make it ultimately unusable for me. I understand Ubuntu's need to turn a profit, but I really wish they'd focus on making Unity stable and performant before chasing down these other opportunities... Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probab…

I find that Unity feels sluggish and inelegant, performance wise. There is always a slight delay when I open the dash, and I generally dislike it's behavior. However, I stay with it because I dislike the alternatives, so no point switching for me.

I think this is good news for Unity on the desktop because it means they will be tweaking the hell out of it for performance. I read that it's already better in 13.04, and we can probably expect it to get better over the releases.

Other than that, I wouldn't use Ubuntu on tablets right now. I'm not enough of an early adopter to switch to this OS which is - let's face it - probably not ready for prime time and still pretty buggy. The first versions of Android sucked, I don't see why this would be an exception. Nailing it on the first try is very hard.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#37

Post by jcastro »

rufugee wrote: post #21

As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm now using Cinnamon as a desktop environment. I really, really wanted Unity to work, but I've had continued performance problems which make it ultimately unusable for me. I understand Ubuntu's need to turn a profit, but I really wish they'd focus on making Unity stable and performant before chasing down these other opportunities... Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probab…

There's been a ton of performance improvements made to Unity for the past 6 months (mostly due to needing to work on things like Tablets).

Here's an example of the work from Feb:

- https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-February...

- https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-r-redu...

For me the Dash is now finally fast/almost instant as opposed to 12.10. All these improvements will be in 13.04 (and the select safe ones will be backported to 12.04 over time).

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#40

Post by apawloski »

Ironically, it might be the walled-garden ecosystem of tablets that ultimately leads to mass end-user adoption of Linux. The desktop introduces too many complications -- there is a much larger set of use cases, and thus a larger set of situations where a Windows-convert can get confused, discouraged, or frustrated. Tablets, on the other hand, with their relatively fewer ubiquitous uses, can be fine-tuned in way that requires little-to-no end-user servicing. If Canonical can employ the Apple/Android software store model with enough flexibility that power users can still make meaningful modifications, then this could be the biggest thing to happen for end-user Linux in a long time.
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