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.

Comments

Battery life must be bad

[EricTheRed]

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

Re:Battery life must be bad

[migla]

Did you watch the video. You could fit a battery the size of a cat on that phone.

Re:Battery life must be bad

[CRCulver]

Intel has announced that it is going ahead with Meego development. Meego was never just about mobile phones, but extends to netbooks and in-vehicle devices as well, so the loss of Nokia was no crushing blow. Nokia was the only major handset manufacturer committed to the Meego edition for mobile phones, there are also several smaller firms who planned to release Meego smartphones by the summer (Aava was preparing Meego cores for multiple firms). Meego has in no way been "mothballed".

Re:Battery life must be bad

[EricTheRed]

yes I did & obviously this is a prototype so it would be big.

Thing is when it gets to a production model - will batteries cope with a dual core phone? A lot of current phones have problems especially with low signal areas draining the batteries regardless of 'optimum' conditions they tend to use when stating battery life.

Re:Battery life must be bad

[MozeeToby]

Most of the Dual cores draw less power than the single cores at idle, which is where your phone's CPU spends most of it's time. There are only a very few applications that seem to peg even my 1.5 year old Motorola Droid, mostly games and whatnot. I would expect the average battery life to improve when moving to a new dual core compared to a single core simply because they can slow the clockrate and disable unused parts of the die. Of course, maybe the new single cores will perform even better battery life wise, I'm just saying compared to what is common now.

If I'm not playing games the display is typically the number one power user at something around 35%. Next is cell standbyat 18%. Only after that is OS related things which all added up together come to about 17%. CPU just isn't the biggest power draw on most smartphones, unless you're playing graphics intensive games. If you're doing something like browsing the web you'll see the transceiver and display numbers jump up faster than the browser's because there really isn't that much to think about when it comes to displaying a page.

Re:Battery life must be bad

[alvinrod]

Wow. Cricket or baseball?

Re:Battery life must be bad

[aaaaaaargh!]

What exactly is your issue with Android?

I've recently had the pleasure of playing around with an Android device. So, let's see...

It wasn't able to correctly recognize the foreign-language hardware keyboard...no accent characters.I would have needed to root it in a rather complicated way, potentially bricking the device during the process, just in order to change the keyboard settings! (That was the Toshiba AC100 and I've returned it.) Moreover, the "marketplace" didn't look very interesting to me, there is just too much proprietary crap software for Android there. I'm really not interested at all in having to pay for software on my phone and would prefer to have access to all the applications available on one of the large Linux distros. Even worse, I had to get a Google account in order to use the "marketplace", even though I was only interested in free applications. That sucks. Now, what else there is...Android also has an ugly "corporate drone" GUI design and look-and-feel that I personally dislike. Lots of shiny buttons, but I want to be able to choose and adjust the look of my phone's GUI as I like. Perhaps this possible with Android, I just didn't find an obvious way to do it. Android also seems to have a tendency to submit data to 3rd party sites without asking me (e.g. to Google, correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not even using Google as a search engine and certainly don't want any Google searchbar on my phone. Finally, I'm using Emacs for my work, notes, schedules, coding, and so on, but Emacs doesn't seem to run on Android.

What I want is a phone running Ubuntu or some other decent Linux distro. The phone could look similar to a N900 but perhaps the keyboard should have one or two additional more modifier keys. Once one of these is out, I'll buy it.

(This is not a joke, it's my honest opinion. Sorry if it disturbs some people...and no, I'm not RMS.)

Re:Battery life must be bad

[Luckyo]

First of all, as said above most dual cores drain less power then single cores when only one core is in use. There has also been an implementation where a tri-core CPU was used. Two cores are designed for high-power scenarios like video playback, while third was a significantly slower low-power core that was designed to run low power scenarios like background operations relevant to the phone. In low power scenario, two of the three cores simply power off while in high power the third core powers off.

On the issue of low signal areas, this is a problem with the way phone handles networking, and is a totally separate issue. Hint: in most cases you can save a ton of battery longevity but setting your phone to 2G only mode when not using anything network-intensive. This causes phone to completely stop rescanning and re-attempting connection to 3G network, which is the main power drainer. 2G network is generally available everywhere (at least around here) so phone is pretty much always connected without power intensive "lose network, rescan, reconnect" cycles.

On my nokia 5800, I actually have a "scenario" set on home screen that shuts down 3G leaving only 2G up just for moments like those (for example when travelling between cities by train that has no 3G amplifier). It can make a significant difference to how long the phones battery will last.

Motorola is going to be selling this soon

[YesIAmAScript]

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.

Re:Motorola is going to be selling this soon

[Provocateur]

I'm not shocked that they manage to break Linus as well.

You mean to tell me, this time, it's personal??

Not a handset

[tokul]

If presenter is not dwarf, then that thing is tablet pc and not a smartphone.

That's not a phone!

[Arab]

That's a space station!

What's interesting? My phone runs Debian already.

[Eunuchswear]

Oh, Nokia fucked it up. Drat.

(Yay for N900 comunity release!)

Been trying to do this for a while...

[rwa2]

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

Re:Been trying to do this for a while...

[oakgrove]

People have been running ARM Debian / Ubuntu on their Android devices for some time

True. I've been running Ubuntu Lucid on my Droid for a while now. It works great for things like rtorrent and many other cli tools that are just an apt-get away.

The thing is, and I hope the device the submission is about might solve this is: no X server on Android so you have to run a vnc server and viewer killing any hope of video acceleration. You end up with choppy browsing in Midori, choppy video playback, etc. And no sound. Forget using mplayer to listen to your mp3's if that's your thing. It's a mixed bag. You definitely have true dyed in the wool Ubuntu, Debian, whatever on your Droid but it's a bit limited in its utility if I may say so myself.

Why???

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why???

[TheRaven64]

Most Symbian phones already run two operating systems, using the nanokernel as a hypervisor. One is a realtime OS for running the networking stuff, the other is a general purpose OS for the user apps. I wouldn't mind a similar isolation taken a bit further, so the phone dialling stuff is all contained in one OS that is locked down to a paranoid degree, while all of the fluffy smartphone stuff is done by a separate OS. In this case, someone who compromises the Ubuntu install doesn't get to run up your phone bill, for example.

Having a hypervisor on the phone is also interesting for migration. Samsung had some prototypes a few years ago where you could migrate live-migrate your phone's OS to a TV when you got home. With an HD TV and a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, you've got a more convenient working environment than a mobile phone, but when you want to go you just live migrate it back and your computing environment stays with you. You can also do fun things like snapshot before moving, so if you lose the phone you only lose the stuff that changed since you last left the house.

Re:A tablet is just a laptop without a keyboard

[CRCulver]

One of the motivations for tablets is that they have vastly longer battery life than laptops. Tablets are not simply keyboard-less laptops.

Re:ARM needs to get real

[thijsh]

I would buy a PC-replacement phone with HDMI or even better WiDi. Add a proper data storage backup server (which syncs wireless from anywhere) and I would be able to work anywhere by hooking the device to any monitor. Theft or loss will not be a problem with a good semi-online backup solution and mobile really means mobile, just get up and move somewhere else without interrupting any program or logging in and pulling up all files again. Once you get proper mobile PCs with some power the need for more useful interfaces when not connected to a larger display will create a perfect opportunity to develop better speech and writing interaction because the power needed is finally combined with the necessity. This will certainly be so common it's almost boring 10 years from now, mark my words.

Re:in other words

[TheRaven64]

Actually, they don't. They imagine a future where ARM, TI, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, nVidia, and so on are making the cash of Intel and AMD. Which doesn't seem too improbable...

Phone "external monitor and input" standard

[swb]

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.

Re:Phone "external monitor and input" standard

[Sky Cry]

What, you mean something like PDMI?

Re:Where are all the neo-luddites?

[gotpoetry]

He must want to access the internet away from home.

Re:ARM needs to get real

[VirginMary]

What is this silly "phone" thing you speak of? I just want a universal computing device that fits in my pocket and has an always-on Internet connection! Yes, I would be running a VoIP application on it amongst hundreds of other applications. But anything that is phone-centric? No interest in that at all! Finally I would like to be able to wirelessly have this device talk to my 46" screen, keyboards, mice etc. And yes, it must run a form of UNIX and I do want command-line access, too!

Re:Where are all the neo-luddites?

[KingMotley]

Just download the internet and put it on a SD card when you want to access it away from home.

Re:What's interesting? My phone runs Debian alread

[GweeDo]

And why can't you manage those same servers via an Android phone? RDP, Citrix, SSH, ect...all supported just fine.