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Ubuntu on tablets

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Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#211

Post by varjag »

phireph0x wrote: post #162

I've used Ubuntu on the desktop since 2004 so this is an exciting development. From the video and screenshots the design is really polished and the UI/UX well-thought-out. I really want to see this succeed but have doubts. The mobile market is already crowded with competition from Apple and Android, not to mention second-tier players (Microsoft, Blackberry) gunning for a larger slice of the pie. Even if Ubuntu achiev…

Without Android API the skills of existing Android developers (well, the platform-specific part) are irrelevant.

Java otherwise is a lackluster language with VM that still has 64K bytecode segments in 21st century, owned by a particular corporation seemingly intent on driving it into the ground. There is no reason using it with a clean start.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#212

Post by capex »

Completely amazing in every sense. But the way he said "its the cleanest, freshest, most beautiful tablet experience around" sounded like a borrowed sentence.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#213

Post by barrkel »

networked wrote: post #198
barrkel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to use Ubuntu at work, and Unity took a lot of customization to be workable. Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating. The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window loc…

>Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new…

I already disabled the overlay scrollbar, it's trivial to fix with a Google search. None of this is hard for me, just enormously time consuming for all the broken things I need to fix or work around. I'm no neophyte; I've been using Linux since 1996, a copy of Red Hat 3.0.3 ("picasso", Wikipedia tells me) from a magazine cover CD.

The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#214

Post by wcchandler »

Why stop here? Why not make the application switching fully ubiquitous between multiple devices via app "off-loading" to the cloud?

There's many different ways they can approach this: a hobbyist hosting an ubuntu server running whatever's necessary to facilitate this; a hosted solution -- possibly by Canonical (ala Ubuntu One or competitors); and a corporate solution (your IT staff managing Ubuntu servers and environment).

I feel like this might be the next step, especially with app/desktop virtualization becoming more popular.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#216

Post by marssaxman »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #177
marssaxman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web apps just aren't as nice as real apps, and all the existing platforms already support them too. If there's nothing your new platform can do that the existing ones can't, and your message is "just deal with the 80% solution that is the web app world", why would anyone use your new system?

Apps that exist are better than apps that don't exist. Ask WebOS users, the few that still are out there. The only way to make web apps as nice is to put the engineering effort into making them as nice (something only Mozilla is seriously doing at this time). Another proprietary mobile ecosystem isn't going to be adopted.

I don't understand your argument. A new platform has to offer something the existing platforms don't have. Web apps cannot be the differentiator for a new phone OS because the big two already have standards-compliant web browsers. The browser is table stakes; of course any new phone OS must offer one, because you can't be taken seriously without it, but the browser in itself is not a reason to use the platform.

Or are you suggesting that new phone OSes ought to add proprietary non-standard browser extensions in place of a native apps API? Given the ugly history of proprietary browser features it is difficult to imagine anyone taking such a strategy seriously.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#217

Post by moistgorilla »

bitsoda wrote: post #42

I still don't understand the tablet form factor. I concluded that it's not for me some time ago, but am waiting for the general population to come around to one glaring flaw: you have to hold it. For me, it doesn't matter how light a tablet is. A five pound laptop will always feel lighter since it will effectively weigh nothing because it's always on some kind of platform during use, either my lap or a flat desk/tabl…

I use it as my newspaper/video player/planner.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#218

Post by woah »

vacri wrote: post #181
pekk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are fully entitled to use whatever you want and enjoy it. However, the interface design of Windows 98 is 15 years away from being "modern." The best way you can sell this kind of design is to call it timeless, or say that one shouldn't fix what isn't broken.

There is absolutely nothing of content in your comment, it's all empty hand-waving. Why not specify something as the parent comment asked? I mean, the GP said that cinnamon was too simple and immature, and when asked why, your response is that this design is, essentially, overly mature.

Not to be pedantic, but it looks to me like they are both talking about the same thing. The GP sounds like he is missing things in Cinnamon that are taken for granted in modern DE's, that it is simple and at the level that modern DE's were when they were less mature.

One might say that Windows 98 is "less mature" than today's OS's, and if Cinnamon has features comparable to Windows 98, one might think of it being less mature as well.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#219

Post by achiang »

georgemcbay wrote: post #201

As a developer, having read through all of their site I can't tell if this thing actually supports native development. If it did, that would be great, my main issue with Android is the way so much of the OS is tied to Java with the NDK and such as barely supported afterthoughts. Google doesn't seem to have any particularly good plan (at least not in public) for dealing with the Java anchor, even after the Oracle laws…

App developers will be able to use C++ if they like.

/ac, speaking on behalf of self, not employer

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#220

Post by shurcooL »

pekk wrote: post #155
tosseraccount wrote: post #67

This is a winner for me if 1) It actually runs on hardware, it's not just a concept 2) I can attach a keyboard 3) I can run a bash shell and the unix utilities.

If you want an OS which runs on hardware and allows you to drive bash with a keyboard, you could get a laptop and run any flavor of Linux on it.

But then you lose the touch interface that lets you use it comfortably WITHOUT keyboard and mouse. Like when you're sitting on a couch or lying in bed or walking around.
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