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Linux Desktop lost its chance. It's easier to appear an Android PC for the desk than Linux take its place. Oops, already did: http://www.jide.com/mini (I just quickly googled something, this was the first result). No matter how nice, beautiful and functional, people do not want Linux Desktop in their desk. It's a great OS, I worked and played a lot with it, and also with Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and so on, but Linux won't be in people desks at homes.

I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. Unfortunately I have no interest in "snap" nor *buntu. And having it in a container isn't really "running android apps natively on linux" although it might be close, depending on the container system used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Other Android-under-Linux setups never seem to be free, open, stable, reliable, and compatible (especially when dealing with a touchscreen and trying to deal with screen rotation). At least not that I have tried.... and none were "native".

http://www.shashlik.io/
https://www.genymotion.com/
http://www.android-x86.org/
http://www.jide.com/remixos

Tablets are niche, tablets are useless, bladiblah ... lots of diminishing talk about tablets here.

Let me offer a different perspective:
I happen to be an accidental tablet user turned convinced tablet user. I got the HTC Flyer back when it's price was coming down. For programming and fiddling. I ended up carrying it with me every day pretty quickly. 1,5 years ago I replaced it with a 10" Yoga 2. Awesome device. 18hrs battery time and aside from programming and typing the best computer-stuff consumption device ever.

However, for tablets to gain attention and usage again, they need upgrades:

1.) Pen input. The HTC Flyer was sort of feasible with its pen, but not quite there yet. iPad Pro shows how it needs to be done, but those are way to expensive - an MB Air is cheaper. ... This will take another generation or two, but when we have affordable feasible pen input with that necessary maximum 20 millisecond delay, we can really start ditching paper finally and for real.

2.) Storage. The amount of storage on these devices is a joke. A tablet is also a prime media consumption device and as such should have the appropriate storage. 256 or 500GB minimum IMHO. I'm still waiting for that to happen. My trusty yoga falls short in this dept. just as much as any other old tablet for 99 euros.

3.) Battery time. The Yoga is the only tablet that is truly mobile in that regard and way ahead of anything else on the market. Way over 15hrs of uptime off the grid. Very nice and - IMHO - an absolute minimum must. Any tablet running under 15hrs should be ashamed of itself.

4.) Ruggedness. A tablet has to survive everyday use. Again, the Yoga is one of those rare exceptions, although even it could do better with an all aluminium back for sturdiness and heat dispersion. The flimsy thin apple devices aren't really setting a good example. Given, you do get a bazillion cases for the apple stuff, because Apple, but that bumps the already steep price of those by another 100 - 150 Euros. Meh.

5.) Zero-fuss file handling and transfer. Here's where all tablets, including the recent android ones, fail miserably. They all force you to go through a silly amount of hoops, half of which don't really work that well and reliably, to transfer data and files to and from them. Unacceptable. How am I supposed to accept a tablet as a serious device if this doesn't work??

6.) Repairablility. A tablet device even more than a smartphone lends itself to the idea of being opened for battery or screen replacement or storage upgrade. This needs to come before people use them for really serious stuff, no matter how powerful they are. Sturdy cases with screws and solid repairablity is what's needed.

7.) RAM. 2 gigs of RAM is silly, and that's a lot by tablet standards. 4-8gigs are minimum for a tablet in regular use and with reliable pen processing. This should be a no-brainer aswell, but tablet vendors have yet to deliver (and no, that MS tablet notebook surface thingie for north of 2000 euros doesn't really count as a tablet as an everyday everywhere universal handheld consumption and computing device)

8.) Convergence. Last but not least, tablets need to be fully ready for convergence by the next generation - that's just about a no-brainer. Apple is preparing that already in their slogans and, for once, Ubuntu & Aquaris/BQ and Remix/Jide have actually gone ahead and shown how it's done. This has to be a regular thing, also if mobile OSes are involved. I expect tablets to be way more positioned to lead the convergence revolution than smartphones. I'm sure that's going to happen within the next 3 years.

Bottom line: I love myself a good tablet (as outlined above) and I love the fact that they are basically the upgrade to books, magazines, notebooks and portable TVs/VCRs all wrapped into one. I think they shoudln't go away and have yet to reach their actual potential.

My 2 eurocents.

Jide publishes Remix OS, a distribution of Android/Linux (as opposed to GNU/Linux) customized for use on desktop and traditional laptop computers.

Android devices don't have hard disks, don't have virtual memory, don't have much RAM, don't have have very powerful CPU or GPUs, don't have sophisticated support for input devices or controllers.

Did you miss the part where the article said CodeWeavers got Steam running on Remix OS, a version of Android that can run on regular PCs, which, if you so desire can be cnfigured with hard disks, gigabytes of RAM, top-of-the-line i7 CPUs, GPUs, real keyboards, mice, etc?

Windows applications & games also have dependencies on runtimes like DirectX, .NET, COM / ActiveX controls, proprietary fonts (even Arial is proprietary) etc. so it's not enough to fool the game but also satisfy these dependencies. And many games would use copy protection libraries that require drivers or background processes to function.

Wine provides DirectX, .NET, COM, ActiveX and event lets you install the freely downloadable Arial fonts. In fact CrossOver, which is based on Wine, already runs many of the games you say it cannot run.

But then again, what's to stop Valve just throwing streaming onto their existing Steam app for Android?

The goal of Remix OS is to replace Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on regular PCs by providing users with the Android GUI they are already used to on their smartphone. They cannot do that if buying a second PC with Windows and streaming is their only answer to providing compatibility with legacy applications.

that's what I was thinking...running a launcher is a lot different then running one of the games.

Steam is actually quite a pain to get running, quite often more so than the games it then starts. So getting the Steam GUI to work is an achievement that should not be underestimated. It will also likely be the most practical way of getting games on the platform.

I imagine the vast majority of them won't play, and even if they did, would probably crush a mobile processor (though it sounds like it requires x86 Android, which would mean Atom chips...though those aren't exactly renowned for their gaming performance either).

RemixOS can run on regular PCs so you can also run it on top-of-the-line i7 CPUs and I imagine they either already support NVIDIA and AMD cards or will do so soon.

True, Steam offers a broad selection of genres and titles, but I really can't see surviving past the loading screen in an intense FPS or MMO.

Cute anime panda games, maybe.

Steam is actually quite a pain to get running, quite often more so than the games it then starts. So getting the Steam GUI to work is an achievement that should not be underestimated.

I mean, really, Company of Heroes 2 on a damn telephone?

CodeWeavers got Steam running on RemixOS, a version of Android targeted at Intel PCs, which means it's meant to be run with a real keyboard, mouse, screen, etc. so there is none of the GUI issues presented by smartphones. Obviously since it has not been released yet it's not clear how much market share it will get. As their site says "This is just the beginning". But being able to run Windows applications could help

Not CyanogenMod, but you could try Remix OS - I've run it in a QEMU+KVM virtual machine, and it looks pretty nice.

I'm not sure that's the real problem (well, I mean, it's a problem, but not necessarily a problem with this OS). A huge, red-light-flashing, klaxon-blaring, problem that I see is that it's not clear what license that this mess is licensed under. It says that it's free to download, but that it's also "only licensed to authorized business partners and pre-loaded on specific product models of those partners;it's not intended for personal use."

To top all of that off, I can't find anything about any license on any of their pages, including their FAQ. I wouldn't touch this thing with a pole of any length until I could figure out just what I was getting myself into.

I'm not sure that's the real problem (well, I mean, it's a problem, but not necessarily a problem with this OS). A huge, red-light-flashing, klaxon-blaring, problem that I see is that it's not clear what license that this mess is licensed under. It says that it's free to download, but that it's also "only licensed to authorized business partners and pre-loaded on specific product models of those partners;it's not intended for personal use."

To top all of that off, I can't find anything about any license on any of their pages, including their FAQ. I wouldn't touch this thing with a pole of any length until I could figure out just what I was getting myself into.

Was going to load up RemixOS on a VM to try it out, looked at the website found this:

Disclaimer: Remix OS is only licensed to authorized business partners and pre-loaded on specific product models of those partners;it's not intended for personal use.

I know they have their part of the software that doesn't have to be GPL, but the rest has to be released. Scrutinize....

I recommend this: http://www.jide.com/en/mini - it's an Android device with HDMI out, 2X USB, Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth. Works great as a device for Amazon Video/HBO/Hulu (Netflix is broken, but a patch is due within the next week or two). It has a local filesystem, and all the Android apps are available for it.