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Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

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Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#31

Post by pekk »

catinsocks wrote: post #27
hollerith wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In polls here, more respondents report running OS X than report running Linux on their desktops and laptops. So, it is uncertain whether it will ever be the case that the majority of devs use Linux although I guess there's a good chance of it happening if Apple ever decides to abandon the desktop / laptop market.

That or if someone invests heavily enough into building a coherent linux desktop. There are a lot of great things about linux and some of the desktops are quite good (gnome 3.4+, kde) but they just aren't quite there with the small glitches and annoyances that come up just often enough to be off putting for end users. I think linux or another free OS needs a huge backing to make it mainstream and we may see that with…

Sounds like something Ubuntu has been castigated for trying to do.

Don't work on open source, unless you do everything each person wants (and these may be conflicting) then someone will decide it isn't open enough regardless of the actual license.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#33

Post by noahl »

voltagex_ wrote: post #24
georgemcbay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be able to hit the sub-$200 price point with one of their hardware partners, but that is hardly a differentiator these days now that the Moto G and the Lumia 520 are already there for Android and Windows Phone. I'm personally mildly excited for the idea of a "real" Linux phone, if it carries out the concept of being a phone that can be used in desktop/laptop docks (which various people have attempted with…

Don't the planned Ubuntu Touch phones (and the current Dev builds) run a modified Cyanogen kernel and a bionic-linked userland? (i.e. Android in Ubuntu-brown)? As far as I'm concerned, the next Linux phone is the Jolla.

I believe the current builds run a (standard?) kernel, with a partial Android userland in an LXC container. I assume the point of this is to access some services that are implemented in Android.

They were indeed running Android with Ubuntu in the container, until the container flip a few months ago.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#34

Post by bobbles »

I really wonder whether this is going to be a partnership with Xiaomi...

after Hugo Barra went there from Google and made this quote "“If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”"

It appears the company will be gearing up for a big smartphone release in 2014, which would also fit into the timelines here.

Xiaomi tends to be known for the high-performance low-price phones, but have always had poor software letting the devices down.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#35

Post by derefr »

pekk wrote: post #31
catinsocks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or if someone invests heavily enough into building a coherent linux desktop. There are a lot of great things about linux and some of the desktops are quite good (gnome 3.4+, kde) but they just aren't quite there with the small glitches and annoyances that come up just often enough to be off putting for end users. I think linux or another free OS needs a huge backing to make it mainstream and we may see that with…

Sounds like something Ubuntu has been castigated for trying to do. Don't work on open source, unless you do everything each person wants (and these may be conflicting) then someone will decide it isn't open enough regardless of the actual license.

I don't understand why it has to be open at all. Why isn't there a company building a closed/polished corporate desktop experience on top of Linux? (Basically, doing with Linux what Apple did with BSD.) It's not like anything in Linux has switched to GPLv3, so there's nothing stopping this from happening.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#36

Post by theg2 »

Edmond wrote: post #19
derefr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if Linux achieved a majority-share in the Desktop PC market... caused by the Desktop PC becoming completely irrelevant to consumers. (If only developers own PCs, and the majority of developers use Linux, then the majority of PCs will run Linux.)

Even developers may not need PCs for much longer...with the emergence of browser IDEs (my startup is working on one), especially for web development, PC becomes unnecessary...Even Microsoft has taken a baby step in bringing visual studio to the browser.

I can't develop on the road without internet and performance is tied to a browser? No thanks, I've got stuff to get done.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#37

Post by seferphier »

bobbles wrote: post #34

I really wonder whether this is going to be a partnership with Xiaomi... after Hugo Barra went there from Google and made this quote "“If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”" It appears the company will be gearing up for a big smartphone release in 2014, which would also fit into the timelines here. Xiaomi tends to be…

that would be awesome.

Xiaomi sells their smartphone at cost and monetizes customers through add on services. I'm not quite sure what add on services they can add on Ubuntu.

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#38

Post by mdwrigh2 »

Arelius wrote: post #29
ac29 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is based on OS X/Darwin which is in turn based on BSD.

Darwin itself uses very little BSD code. It's built on Mach. OS X does however import much of the BSD userland, but I don't even know if much of that makes it into iOS. I think it'd be a fair guess to say that iOS likely contains very little BSD Unix code.

For what it's worth, Android also uses a lot of BSD userspace code (see toolbox).

Re: Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner

#39

Post by mdwrigh2 »

noahl wrote: post #33
voltagex_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the planned Ubuntu Touch phones (and the current Dev builds) run a modified Cyanogen kernel and a bionic-linked userland? (i.e. Android in Ubuntu-brown)? As far as I'm concerned, the next Linux phone is the Jolla.

I believe the current builds run a (standard?) kernel, with a partial Android userland in an LXC container. I assume the point of this is to access some services that are implemented in Android. They were indeed running Android with Ubuntu in the container, until the container flip a few months ago.

> I believe the current builds run a (standard?) kernel, with a partial Android userland in an LXC container. I assume the point of this is to access some services that are implemented in Android.

Most mobile devices use an Android kernel since there's far more support for ARM SoCs, etc. with the Android kernel. Plus you can't really run an Android userland without running an Android kernel somewhere; they're intimately tied (see Binder).

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