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Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

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Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#121

Post by daliusd »

spudlyo wrote: post #85
daliusd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wonder why aren't you investigating existing smartphones for that. Many of them already have HDMI connection, multi core processors and can be connected with bluetooth keyboard. The software most probably will not be problem with Android (not sure about other OSes).

In my view, none of the Operating Systems available on current phones are suitable for the kind of desktop work I do. This is an actual Linux based phone, not just a Linux kernel with a VM that runs some phone apps. As a Linux hacker I feel like I could do quite a lot with this phone.

It is not suitable for me as well as I'm developer but there are many people who need spreadsheet software, browser and that's all.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#122

Post by m_ram »

rythie wrote: post #63
bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that anybody else will have more than 4GB of RAM or 128GB of flash in 10 months. There may be some phones that match it, but I would be willing to give great odds that there won't be a mainstream phone with more.

It's a 32bit chip anyway, can they even support more than 4GB of RAM? (or even all of that - PCs couldn't, it was 3.5 - 3.7GB visible to apps)

It looks like the latest 32-bit ARM chips have this capability [1]:

40-bit Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE) addressing up to 1 TB of RAM. As per the x86 Physical Address Extension, still only 32-bit address space is available per process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A15_MPCore

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#123

Post by daliusd »

Brakenshire wrote: post #81
daliusd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wonder why aren't you investigating existing smartphones for that. Many of them already have HDMI connection, multi core processors and can be connected with bluetooth keyboard. The software most probably will not be problem with Android (not sure about other OSes).

You'd need a fully fledged desktop to make it work. Is there a project like that in existence which you could just install on a random smartphone? I haven't heard of one.

I guess there is no but my question is do we really need one?

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#124

Post by ansible »

achiang wrote: post #117
avar wrote: post #104

Is there any information on whether the drivers on the phone will be open source as well? I'm on the fence, but the main thing stopping me is that I'm not very keen on buying yet another phone powered by a bunch of proprietary binary blobs. I'd like to hack on the software, build my own, try to install Debian on it instead etc. All that is going to be much harder if I have to use whatever kernel version their binary…

We plan on an unlocked phone, with an unlocked bootloader. Unfortunately, for the planned volume, we won't have much influence with the SoC vendor, and therefore, it is highly doubtful you will see open graphics / radio firmware. Sorry, it's not our preference either.

Just for everyone's edification...

You're unlikely to see an open-source firmware for the 3G/4G cellular radio, the WiFi, or the low level Bluetooth stack (up to the HCI layer). Ever.

The reason? This stuff costs a lot to develop, and the major chip vendors don't want to give any help to their competition.

As for graphics... I had heard an announcement by one SoC vendor who was just putting in more general-purpose processor cores, and they had planned to do all the video decoding (such as for H.264) and OpenGL graphics in software (using Mesa?). This was allegedly going to be possible with a power budget not too much larger than the typical hardware implementations of these blocks. What ever happened to them?

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#125

Post by stusmall »

dan1234 wrote: post #14

At current levels they need more than 30,000 people to commit to buy an $830 dollar phone which is not expected to released for at least 10 months and with next to no marketing clout. I'm not saying it can't be done but I'd be very surprised if they meet the target.

OR some last minute corporate padding. Either by lots of in house $20 donations or if its a lot left then Shuttleworth saying "Oh we were so close... you know what, I'll write a check for the balance!"

They've got a lot to gain from meeting their goal. It will show the big phone manufacturers that there is demand for this new phone OS.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#126

Post by reidmain »

tommi wrote: post #115

"The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours." This seems quite low. With thirty days they must achieve over a million dollars per day. I would assume that the first 40 hours brings way more money than the days 3-27 but that's only double than the required average income. I hope they reach the target, but I doubt it.

They can still keep all the money they've raised if they don't hit their target. They just need to give IndieGoGo a large slice of what they have raised.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#127

Post by ethanhunt_ »

reidmain wrote: post #126
tommi wrote: post #115

"The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours." This seems quite low. With thirty days they must achieve over a million dollars per day. I would assume that the first 40 hours brings way more money than the days 3-27 but that's only double than the required average income. I hope they reach the target, but I doubt it.

They can still keep all the money they've raised if they don't hit their target. They just need to give IndieGoGo a large slice of what they have raised.

No they cannot. It's a fixed funding campaign: "This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by Wed 21 Aug 11:59PM PT."

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#128

Post by reidmain »

ethanhunt_ wrote: post #127
reidmain wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still keep all the money they've raised if they don't hit their target. They just need to give IndieGoGo a large slice of what they have raised.

No they cannot. It's a fixed funding campaign: "This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by Wed 21 Aug 11:59PM PT."

Oh I did not realize there were two different types of campaigns. Thanks for pointing that out.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#129

Post by dice »

bobsy wrote: post #40
whiskers wrote: post #36

Well that decides it - I'm in. I'm excited about the possibility of a genuinely hand held, pocket sized device that I can hook up to behave like a full desktop. It's a format that has been tried before but the power/price ratio has never been favourable - this feels like the first real chance for it to work.

Just wondering what scenarios you foresee you using the desktop feature in? If your travelling there won't be a screen available unless you lug one around. In which case you might as well carry a laptop. At home and work you probably have a computer. I think it is an interesting concept but I don't quite see the practical use. Unless it had like a stand and a projector or something.

>At home and work you probably have a computer.

I have docking stations for my Thinkpad. I also have my Nexus phone in my pocket.

What I want is a pocket-sized device which has multiple docking stations for various purposes:

0. Baseline phone for being a phone or small computing tasks. 1. Tablet for couch-surfing or communal content sharing. 2. Laptop for on the go larger computing tasks. 3. Desktop for long work sessions.

It would be great if stages 2 and 3 could also include additional computing, graphics and memory resources.

Re: Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level

#130

Post by superuser2 »

achiang wrote: post #117
avar wrote: post #104

Is there any information on whether the drivers on the phone will be open source as well? I'm on the fence, but the main thing stopping me is that I'm not very keen on buying yet another phone powered by a bunch of proprietary binary blobs. I'd like to hack on the software, build my own, try to install Debian on it instead etc. All that is going to be much harder if I have to use whatever kernel version their binary…

We plan on an unlocked phone, with an unlocked bootloader. Unfortunately, for the planned volume, we won't have much influence with the SoC vendor, and therefore, it is highly doubtful you will see open graphics / radio firmware. Sorry, it's not our preference either.

Isn't control of the radio necessary for the security and integrity of the cellular network/spectrum?
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