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Ubuntu Heads To Smartphones, and Tablets
First time accepted submitter GuerillaRadio writes "Mark Shuttleworth is to announce that Canonical will be taking Ubuntu Linux to smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, FL starting today. Shuttleworth said, 'This is a natural expansion of our idea as Ubuntu as Linux for human beings. As people have moved from desktop to new form factors for computing, it's important for us to reach out to our community on these platforms. So, we'll embrace the challenge of how to use Ubuntu on smartphones, tablets and smart-screens.'"
Having a tablet oriented linux distro is going to open up the linux market. Ubuntu has a reputation for working out of the box, let's see if they can keep it with such unusual hardware.
So we can look forward to the "year of Linux on the Tablet" just after the "year of Linux on the Desktop"?
They modified Linus? What did they do to him? I bet he's pretty angry about that!
Don't worry, it wasn't the real Linus, they forked him first.
Guns don't kill people! Admins do!
I want a desktop environment that plays well with multiple monitors and several open applications (each of which having multiple windows that I will want on screen at the same time, and selectable from a central location in the fewest clicks possible, with the task of exact identification handled without needing a click on most instances). You know, what Gnome 2 did quite well and what MS/Explorer has handled fine enough for over a decade.
Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly there. That's the big difference. They're competing mainly with Apple/Google, and I think they can take them on.
No, only:
- A long history of locked down devices
- A lot of custom hardware on each phone/tablet
- No tradition for dual boot
- Covered by a ton of silly software patents
Just look at how many problems Linux has had, and still to some degree has, with basic functionality even on fairly standard desktop gear. Like sound, network, wifi, suspend/resume, bluetooth, power management and so on. Now try this in the phone/tablet world where a lot of the hardware is used exactly once in one generation and there's lots of magic values and toggles. I predict the YotLT is even further away than the YotLD.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Canonical previously announced that their distro was being preloaded on three ASUS netbooks. That was in August. Didn't happen.
Canonical issued that Linux press release, but Asus never said they were going to ship those machines with Linux. Canonical has no credibility.
Ubuntu's traditional market niche is the technical and professional market, people who used to use UNIX workstations. Unfortunately, with 11.10 and the upcoming move away from X11, Ubuntu is hell-bent on leaving that market: Unity is already nearly useless for power users (it doesn't work well at all on large or multi-screen setups), tools like Synaptic are becoming non-standard, etc.
Unfortunately, Ubuntu doesn't have a chance in the tablet and smartphone market either. That market is already well service by Android and iOS. Ubuntu has virtually no mobile developers. And if it manages against all odds to even get a small market share, Ubuntu will face the kind of patent feeding frenzy that Android is being subjected to.
Too bad Shuttleworth couldn't leave good enough alone. He's going to kill Ubuntu and seriously hurt Linux as a whole.