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Dual-core Smartphone Runs Android and Ubuntu
nk497 writes "ARM is showing off a test handset at Mobile World Congress, which runs Android 2.3 and Ubuntu 10.04 at the same time on a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 chip. ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone and with Nvidia announcing it will be putting quad-core mobile processors into tablets by autumn and smartphones by Christmas, that prospect looks to be approaching faster than anyone expected." Video is attached if you're curious.
but that will improve.
Saying that this sort of thing will happen eventually, with Meego being mothballed after Nokia defected to Windows we need a good Linux based OS other than Android
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
I'm thinking that I'd rather have a computer on which I can run different kinds of phone services. The computer should of course be small and have good battery time. The difference? I don't like having a SIM card connecting my phone to a specific provider. ISPs have much less power than phone providers.
Motorola Atrix 4G.
It runs Android 2.2 and Ubuntu at the same time and you can buy it (for a crazy high price) soon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
If presenter is not dwarf, then that thing is tablet pc and not a smartphone.
But we all know that Nokia is now being Microsoftisized. Wow! I've never used Ubuntu (I'm a SuSE boy), but I guess it's time for me to create an Ubuntu VMware image. When that thing hits the market, it's number one on my list of stuff that I don't need, but must have!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
That's a space station!
Oh, Nokia fucked it up. Drat.
(Yay for N900 comunity release!)
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I think smart phones are dumb. Yeah they can do some neat things, but the trade-off is not worth it. Too high of a price to pay both monetarily and figuratively, I will always want to be unplugged most of the time; no desire to be a capitalist Matrix power source.
People have been running ARM Debian / Ubuntu on their Android devices for some time:
http://www.android-devs.com/?p=152 (albeit you'd only be booting one or the other OS at a time)
A simpler way is by using the chroot method such as the one described at: http://www.misfit.co.zw/?p=144 , that way you can still run the Android OS with all the drivers and everything, but be able to SSH or VNC into a full Debian ARM install running on a chroot on a partition in your SD card.
I haven't had too much luck with it yet (TnT-Lite on my GTablet didn't let me use the loopback device to mount an img file... will try again using a straight ext2 partition on my SD card). Looking forward to being able to apt-get stuff onto my phone/tablet, though :-P
It won't fit in my pockets and if I tried to hang it off my belt I'm afraid it would pull my pants down so it's too big for me to think of as a phone. But, the screen isn't big enough to make it an iPad like device. It looks like it has ports to drive a regular monitor and keyboard so it might fit between a netbook and an iPad and serve as a kind of kids notebook carried in a backpack. I hope they don't charge too much for it.
Why do I wan't to run 2 OS's on my phone (and/or tablet).
It's a handy device that should give me simple and fast funktions.
I don't want to split my stuff up.
Know where did I put X, and Y program runs os OS1 but the data is streamed to OS2.
the picture I just took is now on OS1 but my upload/mail program is on OS2.
It might sound cool, and really few can use it to something productive.
But the most of the users just want there smartphones/tablets/computers to work. And not swits between OS's that takes up system power, and HDD space.
ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone
ARM dreams of a time when they are making the cash of Intel and AMD combined.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The next batch of smart phones are so smart they will beat Rutter and Jennings in Jeopardy too!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've yet to read a comment proclaiming smart phones are a waste of money and I just want something that acts well as a telephone.
I thought I was reading Slashdot, but I guess I am on some other website.
(OK, maybe they're also short a spinning platter, too)
But think about it guys -- there is no magic here.
It happened this way: Jobs wanted to save hardware costs on his laptops, so he decided to junk the keyboard and sell the sizzle, or "less is more". (If you don't understand Apple as a hardware manufacturer which regards software as NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering costs) you don't understand Apple's strategy of selling over-priced hardware.)
Other tablets had a rotating screen that locked over the keyboard when you needed to use it that way. Much more useful.
So if you can put 4 cores in a laptop, why not in a keyboard-less laptop?
This "Your phone will be everything!" idea that some people tout is just stupid. No, no it won't. Even presuming we arrive at a day where battery life is no longer a problem and you can have more CPU power than you need in a phone, it still won't be your only device. Why? Because phones are designed to be mobile, that is their primary requirement. They need to be small and light so they can travel with you. That is wonderful, but that isn't what you always want.
A good example would be a TV and watching media. Could I watch movies on my phone? Sure, it can play them and I can even get Netflix on it. Yet I have a big HDTV sitting in my living room. The reason, of course, is I don't want to hold a tiny device in front of my face to watch movies (never mind killing the battery) I'd rather lay on the couch and watch movies on a large screen. I don't have to choose bit TV or small phone, I get to have both.
Same deal with a computer. You aren't going to want to do all your web browsing, all your work, etc on a tiny phone screen. Much nicer to have a larger screen, a full size physical keyboard, a mouse. Again it isn't a choice you have to make. You don't have to choose phone or computer you can have both.
Now I realize that with advances a phone could potentially integrate with other devices. Add an HDMI port and it could output to my TV, or monitor. Still I can't see the appeal. Why would I want to have to fetch my phone and hook it to my TV, meaning I can't easily use it as a phone if needed, when instead I can just have a little Blu-ray/network media box hooked to it so I can play media when I want? Heck it even means that others can use it and not need my phone.
Same deal with a computer. Even if you get to the point where your phone is powerful enough, why wouldn't you have a desktop and/or laptop as well? Easier to just have all your data stored on an accessible network location rather than having to take your phone out and hook it up as a computer when you want to use it as such.
Also I think all this ignores the very real problem of battery and processing power. While it is easy to say "Oh things are more than powerful enough as it is," that is just lacking foresight. Yes, even fairly low end processors can handle the basics of current computing. However maybe we'd like something better. How about a computer that can understand your speech or writing? Where you can talk to it, in normal, natural, conversation and it can give you what you want? That would be a major improvement in user interface.
However such a thing will not come cheap processing wise. You can see the first glimpses of it with Watson, IBM's Jeopardy playing computer. It takes some massive strides towards dealing with natural language, but is still very limited and has problems. To accomplish that feat requires a whole room of Power7 servers. Not going to be fitting that kind of power in a phone any time soon.
There is a real over obsession with the whole smartphone thing from some people. They are cool, and they are certainly on track to become a part of everyone's computing experience. I think the day is not far away when most people will be able to quickly get information on their phones as needed. However that is real different from wanting to use the phone and nothing but the phone. There's a lot to be said for a desktop, a TV, and so on.
ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone [...]
Maybe if all you need is AOL. I don't easily foresee a time when any telephone is going to replace my desktop for Photoshop, Premiere, serious gaming, decent word processing, etc.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Only a fuckin' no-life no-ambitions geek cares about this shit.
It's not even cool in the way true inventors were when they got their designs to fly and pushing the boundaries of their science/art.
It's just a fuckin' mastabatory excercise to see how may things you can get a fucktarded OS to run on. Who really cares?
Big sucker isn't it? The evil plot here is to make cell phones slowly morph into connected laptops so everyone has a computer that is required to have a data plan that pays out $100/mo to Verizon instead of $50/mo to Time Warner.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
OK, I've read TFA, and this makes no sense to me. It's kind of implied that they're running 2 copies of Linux at the same time (Maybe one on each core? Is that the significance of the "dual-core" part? Or is that just a coincidental red herring) - because that's what running Android and Ubuntu would mean - but that's just bonkers.
WTF?
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
"ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone." I'll keep my keyboard and ginormous monitors, thanks. Maybe in a generation or two, when humankind fingers have evolved and are short and pointy ... but not now,
I bought an N900 because I needed the functionality. I can manage servers using it. That's handy when travelling.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
For many non-typical computer users, their smartphones already *are* their only computer. These are people for whom a computer is basically an advanced communications device. It surfs the web and enables social networking. And that's most of what they need. Throw in a few basic apps and games and they're happy to fork over $500 and $60/mo for the rest of their lives.
At the other end of the spectrum, it's likely that smartphones will become the portable hard drives of the future, attached to a generic monitor and keyboard as necessary. This is the reason that Microsoft is fighting so hard for the mobile market even though they are obviously far behind. Their desktop bloatware doesn't run on phones today, and there is an opportunity for others to unify the desktop and mobile software markets with apps that operate seamlessly everywhere.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I really wish they would come up with a standard for external displays and input for mobile phones.
A standard would allow things like a phone slot in your car that would enable your phone's full UI to appear on your car's larger touch display, enabling music/phone/apps in the car in a way that exceeds "ipod integration" and the lame, out of date software experience most cars provide on in-dash electronics, as well as providing an ergonomic experience (steering-wheel mounted controls for music, volume, phone) more appropriate for behind the wheel.
I'm semi-surprised Apple hasn't already gone there, given the number of carmakers that provide interfaces compatible with Apple's iPod. Are there technical limitations that would preclude this for the iPhone? Even if it "only" included the standard display 2x zoomed (ala the iPad's execution of iPhone apps), it would be a lot nicer than even a phone on a Pro-clip type mount.
And this is just cars -- I can imagine TVs with these slots and "remote controls" that provide touch interfaces, etc.
The N900 sucks compared to modern phones anyway. You'd do better with a normal Android phone running Debian.
N900 wasn't even that great when it was new (eg. crappy touch screen) but nowadays it's outdated as hell.
And why can't you manage those same servers via an Android phone? RDP, Citrix, SSH, ect...all supported just fine.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
not with todays data plan costs and that per device data costs with locked in app stores.
Some people actually need real-time info and access. If the markets are open and I don't have access, I'll have a meltdown.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
"ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone "
These days, laptops and netbooks are hot items. Lots of people have them, however they have limitations. Even if we fast-forward however many years it takes to have a device smaller than a netbook and more powerful than a desktop, it will not replace everything.
Game consoles. Sony has their little PSP phone. This is great, however what you will never see is a SonyMicrosoftNintendoPhone. Oh, you want to play games from more than one big name? That means another device. "Oh but someday they will focus on software, and that might be possible." I doubt it. Locked hardware makes development easier. Everyone plays with the same device hardware, everyone gets the same experience. Our consoles might all be phone-sized, but many of us will have more than one.
Televisions. Not for the reason some might think. Yes, you could have a television with a phone slot, or a wireless link, which is great, but this necessitates everyone having one of these superphone things. My five year old doesn't have a computer yet. I want him to have one, but I don't want to replace it because he treats it poorly, and we don't have any space in our current home to have a shared computing space, where we could supervise him. I don't want him having A) a smaller, portable, more expensive device that B) I can't monitor as easily. I also don't want to use my own superdevice to drive his television watching, when I want to do something else. Well, now we need at least two. (I have two Xbox 360s for this very reason. The kids play Kinectimals while I play Fallout New Vegas.)
Computers. Yes, computers! I know, virtualization, you can have lots of operating systems on one piece of hardware. I'm struggling with getting Xen running on Arch right now. This is great, however sometimes it is nice to have separate physical hardware. And, no, pushing everything to the cloud just doesn't cut it. I want a media server that doesn't depend on Comcast's awful bandwidth and bandwidth caps, thanks. Once bandwidth is as free as the air we breathe, then, THEN the cloud will be a place of magic and unicorns. Right now, it is a great idea that can't be fully utilized.
On top of that, power and size often scale together. The more space you allow for components, the more components you can have, or the more powerful components you can use, the more power you can accumulate. There aren't many i7 laptops for a reason. There are no i7 smartphones. Sure, a 16-core ULV processor from the year 2017 or whatever it may be will probably be more powerful than my Core2Quad. I don't care. I want the 64-core desktop processor that makes that 16-core processor feel archaic. I also want an absurd amount of RAM, assuming we still use that, and more storage than I can fit in a smartphone form-factor. (Again, I don't want EVERYTHING in the cloud.)
Everyone wants the superdevice, the phone that drives a monitor and keyboard without wires, that is your alarm clock, and your toenail + nosehair trimmer, and your car keys. I get that. I want one as well. Actually, I want more than one. The existence of a superdevice does not remove the need and / or desire for other devices.
Now, that being said, with Microsoft showing their Windows on ARM thing, I could see a day where ARM drives a lot more of our devices than currently. I just don't see the device count going down to 1.
You can even run the actual stuff in your N900 before putting it in a production server, if were for just ssh you can run a java client in most phones. But if you want to run Android's ssh, you can in the n900 too, there are at least 4 different OSs that run in that phone. Is not perfect, but still have functionality that no other smartphone provides yet, even after a year and half of its release.
You'll want the keyboard for the command line, hell even just writing emails. Way too many Android phones are touch only.
If your just an admin, then I'd imagine you'll run scripts on your work boxes. If your needs are more mobile however, then you'll want the ability to run perl & python on the phone itself. I know one nut job who uses an N900 as his primary computer for example.
You can run Android applications on an N900s anyways. So the question is only : Are Debian apps or Android apps first class citizens or 1.5th class citizens?
I personally chose an N900 primarily for the integrated, gsm, sip, and skype calling and breadth of im support integrated into the sms app. Android, iOS, etc. cannot touch that because that'll only work when Linux apps are 1st class citizens. And I'm less excited about a phone running Debian and Android simultaneously for exactly these reasons.
Ideally, all the social networking sites should be shoe horned into one application+plugins as well. I could imagine MeeGo developers pursuing this approach, but not Android, iOS, etc. developers. Apple's "there's an app for that" cop-out has poisoned real innovation too deeply.
Imho, Nokia should've pursued Android over WP7, releasing both pure Android phones, as well as MeeGo phones optimized for Android apps. Ideally, they could've integrated printing, Zphone, OTR messaging, and gpg encrypted email into the MeeGo phones, making them truly full fledged handheld computers and attracting 'certain market segments', and differentiating themselves from the mass of Android venders.
I believe a flashy encryption friendly phone will capture the inner-city market, i.e. people emulating the drug dealers, and make serious in-roads into professions like law and finance, plus all the tech heads would buy it.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
My wireless provider is a ravening control freak about the software I can run on my phone. I don't want to think what they'd do to my PC. I'd love an unlocked, open smartphone like the Atrix though.
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Systems Administrators: We read the manual so you don't have to.
But why Ubuntu? Linux Mint is much more feature rich, easier to use, more complete, has a better package selection, a better default layout.... In fact I can't think of a single way in which Ubuntu is even ON PAR with Mint, much less superior.
This is not a troll. Before you start flaming me, go ahead and run 10 Mint installs. Experience is the only real way to garner fact based information, and otherwise your opinion is just that: An opinion, and probably ignorant.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I really wish they would come up with a standard for external displays and input for mobile phones.
Some of the new generation of Android phones (Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, ...) have HDMI output in order to show the phone screen into a big TV.
They will also have a micro-USB connector (according to EU laws), so that is could be used to connect a keyboard and mouse to the phone...
I just want a universal computing device that fits in my pocket and has an always-on Internet connection!
That's a jeejah.
It is very possible full versions of Ubuntu running on ARM hardware that fits in your pocket will be the norm. You will be able to dock your device, plug a mouse, monitor and keyboard into it and use it like a regular PC. When running on the small screen the UI will need to change. So imagine Evolution mail running in a "mobile mode". My gut feeling is that the linux devs need to get cracking on this or something else will just fill its spot.
Someone has to say it that has to be the ugliest phone I have every seen, the size of a netbook in the style of a phone, ARM should stick to designing chips.
Nokia promises at least one Meego device every year.
I'm running Ubuntu Lucid on my Galaxy S (over a Froyo/Gingerbread hacker ROM).
The problem is that Ubuntu window managers are not designed for a small touch screen, making it largely just a geeky exercise and barely practical.
Motorola already invented this. It's the Atrix. It runs normal Linux and X server, and runs Android at the same time. The Phone bits can show up as a window on your desktop so you can run normal apps like Firefox, and when you unplug the external monitor the phone's screen is Android again.
Whats the big surprise here? I remember running linux on PII (at least if not Pentium I - 100s) back a few- well quite a few, years ago. so Im supposed to be all excited that it runs on a gigahertz plus dual core chip? *sigh Wheres Caldera when we need it now? lol
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
... it is quite a steal. NOT.
I am sticking with my oldschool desktop. I predicted the phone would make the pc into the next mainframe, but with these very high contract rates, restricted usage, drm, and other problems this is equilivent of a mainframe being cheaper than a pc to run.
Until the mega telecoms die a horrible death I refuse to pay that much for a phone. That is $4800 over 2 years! I can buy a nice workstation for that price.
For those who think I am exerating the cost. How much texting, web browsing, and other functions could I get for $60 a month? Now imagine a family? The pc becomes a whole lot cheaper. $180 a month will be needed not to go over on text and bandwith and to use your phones full abilities and bandwith.
http://saveie6.com/
Google "i am feeling lucky" search result took me to this wonderful site http://www.appsinformant.com
it has an awesome selection of link to download games and apps that cost some $$ but they have them free
This neat device is called "Blaze" and has been available from TI for quite a while... http://svtronics.com/market_omap
Previous articles about phones being bricked by Exchange mail admins led VMware to develop a phone hypervisor to run a 2nd copy of the phone OS, so you could have a business phone VM (with a separate number) and if something was done to the business phone, the personal phone would still be functional. Note that clearing all mail and contacts information seems to be a "feature" of Exchange, ie. a requirement rather than optional. While this is acceptable for a company provided phone, it's not for a personal phone being used for business for the benefit of the company.
Running a full function OS on a phone may or may not be as useful, in general the UI is not optimized for a small touch screen, so usability might be less than desired. This would make more sense on a tablet, using a netbook spin of Fedora or Ubuntu as a base, or Meego, or one of the small distributions like Puppy (build it for ARM?).
Other than providing some extra CPU power, I don't see that being dual core is in any way a requirement, unless the HVM is missing in the single core models.
It's great that these devices can run Linux!!
David
http://www.youtube.com/user/BrokenKeys2010#p/u/17/G1kL6XnN4To
The touchscreen is great, multitouch would be nice, but at least I don't have to take my gloves off to use and I can use a stylus with it, or even any random object that come to hand, it is very sensitive and allows greater precision than capacitive does, it is also pressure sensitive which is great for anyone who want art masterpieces on their phone (and some have created some really impressive art using their N900 if you care to look.
The hardware is still decent, it has a great keyboard, the screen is 800x480 which compares to many new top-end phones, the processor can be overclocked to over 1GHz, the only thing really lacking is the paltry 256MB RAM, though it still multitasks nicely despite that limitation and it has 32GB internal storage, which many top-end phones don't manage to match. The hardware may be shown up by phones coming out this year, but it doesn't compare badly to current phones especially if you try to match all the features the N900 has.
But to be honest the best part of the N900 is the OS, there may be a few rough edges in it, but it has a great UI which actually makes multitasking a pleasure to use, it is far better than android in this regard.
For some features the current competition just doesn't compare to the N900. I'll admit it isn't for everyone, it certainly has it limitations so for anyone still thinking about buying one make sure you know what you are getting.
And no, you wouldn't do better running Debian on Android, if you do that you end up with a desktop UI, which isn't pleasant to use on a small touch screen phone.
Hey, thats neat.
I can probably put Maemo on that phone.
And weird people out with a Nexus 1 running Maemo and a N900 running Android.
Watch this Heartland Institute video