Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubuntu on tablets

ubuntu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 266 posts

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#251

Post by tga »

barrkel wrote: post #213
networked wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 L…

> The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked.

I think this is touching on a good point, I would much enjoy seeing one desktop environment being kept stable in terms of UI and slowly polished to perfection, instead of continuously starting from scratch and inevitably coming up with something half-baked. And this is not specific to Linux, just look at the Windows 8 mess.

Apple comes closest, at least they keep the rough lines constant, but they have the bad habit of needlessly replacing parts of the UI and losing features along the way.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#252

Post by andmarios »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #166
andmarios wrote: post #51

I am a bit tired of how much Ubuntu gets promoted compared to other Linux based solutions. Here is a video of KDE's Plasma Active running on a Nexus 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7isMAmwW0 It is a real use video, there aren't any fancy photos, there isn't any CG in the video in contrast with Canonical's page. Plasma Active is being actively developed for about 2 years now and KDE 4 was developed from the ground…

> Here is a video of KDE's KDE commited suicide with 4.0. After that, whatever they produced was basically irrelevant, because nobody could take them seriously any more. Nobody is going to bet anything on KDE because of the fear that they could pull another "lets throw away a perfectly working 3.5 and rewrite everything from scratch" again. The same applies to Gnome also. Gnome could have avoided the fate by learning…

It is obvious that you haven't used KDE for many years. What is funny though, is that Ubuntu did the same thing (throw GNOME, bring Unity), yet you are perfectly ok with this.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#253

Post by andmarios »

vacri wrote: post #189
andmarios wrote: post #51

I am a bit tired of how much Ubuntu gets promoted compared to other Linux based solutions. Here is a video of KDE's Plasma Active running on a Nexus 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7isMAmwW0 It is a real use video, there aren't any fancy photos, there isn't any CG in the video in contrast with Canonical's page. Plasma Active is being actively developed for about 2 years now and KDE 4 was developed from the ground…

KDE is a DE. Ubuntu is a platform. They are not the same thing.

No. KDE is a platform upon succesfull software is built. You got the DE obviously, but you get also applications like kdenlive, calligra (and krita), amarok, digikam. The developers of these applications would have a more difficult time if KDE didn't provide them with its robust libraries. Even webkit comes from a KDE library.

Further more the Plasma Active team designed their own tablet and will soon announce it officially.

Ubuntu on the other hand is a Linux based distribution with their own DE.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#254

Post by psionski »

barrkel wrote: post #213
networked wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 L…

You might want to re-think the part about the fantastic command-line experience. You can't auto-complete command arguments, even if you get it working for some commands, it won't work with all of them (i.e. 3rd party tools). Of course, you can try to remember the single-letter shortcuts, but they are often illogical because the letter is already taken by some other option.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#255

Post by hereonbusiness »

The good: You get a full linux distro on a mobile device. This is the best thing that happened to modern mobile devices since ... well ever. Modern mobile devices being smartphones and tablets.

The bad: Like every other "mobile OS" out there it is strongly biased toward native apps. But in this case it's at least understandable as there is an actual linux distribution under the hood. Also i have a feeling that they'll probably lack behind in the mobile department for years when compared to Android especially if they can't get some big OEM partners on board as has already been said in some comments.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#256

Post by tekromancr »

I would really like to see Canonical take the initiative and produce versions of Ubuntu Tablet that can be flashed onto popular devices. I was kind of disappointed to see them put out another one of those "Hey, does anyone want to build hardware for us?" requests. They seem to have a business model that involves getting Ubuntu running on anything and everything, but they don't have a clear path to mass market hardware.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#257

Post by Shorel »

rpgmaker wrote: post #231
vibrunazo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually I would agree. But as long as it's open source and you can install it yourself on any nexus device. Then you can solve that yourself.

That is no excuse. Using that logic why don't you modify android to behave like ubuntu phone does and be done with it? After all android is open source too.

In my case, because I don't enjoy programing in Java.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#258

Post by Shorel »

hereonbusiness wrote: post #255

The good: You get a full linux distro on a mobile device. This is the best thing that happened to modern mobile devices since ... well ever. Modern mobile devices being smartphones and tablets. The bad: Like every other "mobile OS" out there it is strongly biased toward native apps. But in this case it's at least understandable as there is an actual linux distribution under the hood. Also i have a feeling that they'l…

Android does not have native apps. They all run in the Dalvik JVM.

iOS has native apps. They let the Apple devices do the same stuff with a slower processor, and have longer battery life, and providing a more fluid and smoother operation.

What do you want? An OS full of JavaScript apps that burns its battery in 6 hours?

I for one, welcome Ubuntu and its upcoming native and open applications as the best thing to happen in the mobile space.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#259

Post by Shorel »

dharma1 wrote: post #215

proud to say I worked on the design for this :) Hope the community will embrace it and help us make it better

Thanks!

I went back to Linux just because Unity feels refreshing and different and runs faster than Win7 in my hardware.

Re: Ubuntu on tablets

#260

Post by yareally »

claystu wrote: post #228
yareally wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since porting Android to iOS is pretty much dead since the iphone 3g[1], I would assume not. [1] http://0xdeadfa11.net/blog/2012/07/11/the-idroid-project-whe...

That's too bad. I love the Ipad hardware, but I'm just not a fan of the Apple interface. Being locked out of my own computer drives me nuts--especially whenever I try to watch something in Flash.

Yeah, that's unfortunately the big hangup that keeps me from adopting Apple (mobile) stuff past app development reasons. It's too limited really for hacking and modding. Sure, there's some groups out there that mod with jailbreaking to add features, but if you want to add an entire OS, you're just kind of out of luck. There's a small part of me that likes seeing how I can get around all that without source, but after a while, I rather stop fighting it and just use a platform for modding/hacking that makes it easier. Even custom ROMs for Android are usually a bit quirky and full of bugs if they're running on anything other than Nexus devices, due to a mismatch in driver versions and the OS version much of the time.

If you want something to just hack around on and mod stuff, I recommend getting a Nexus 7 for that and use your ipad for your normal usage. They're cheap, battery life is good (as far as Android goes, it's 7-8 hours for me normally). Ubuntu for tablets is to be supported for it and there's an unofficial webos port for it out as well. That plus the entire AOSP android source and plenty of ROMs out there to take features from.

Unlocking + rooting Nexus devices is dead simple. Basically plug into USB, run a few terminal commands and you're done. Granted it makes taking updates a bit harder (if you mod past this), but if you're rooted and unlocked, you usually do it yourself anyways versus taking a direct update.

Post reply on HN