Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Best Tablet For Running a Real GNU/Linux Distribution?
bmsleight writes "Android is nice, but I do not want to pay to print or be beholden to the cloud to do everything or chroot. I just want a tablet that can run a MythTv-client, OpenOffice.org and good old apt-get instead of an app market. I have a Joggler — which costs £60 — I'd like something similar but with a battery, a bigger screen, and other modern tablet features. So, what's the best tablet for running a real GNU/Linux distribution (ideally Debian)? Bonus points for the best apt-get-able distribution that works with a tablet."
I have absolutely no information on this, however I did feel like getting the first post for once.
You want to try Unity.
Tablet owners are the only people remaining i haven't heard complaining about it.
The Asus Transformer isn't exactly cheap, but you can run full blown Linux distros on it. I've read of people running Ubuntu on it. I've had Arch Linux running on mine. I went back to Android after a bit just because my OS choices were more for the "cause I could" factor.
Password Authentication Bypassed for Root
Yeah, nigga.
I be usin' Ubuntu because it be African 'n' sheeit. Dey try to be batty wit' dat purpa shit, Ubuntu be purpa like purpa drank HOLLA.
Sheeit! Whoo-wee! Dat indo weed be hittin! Gawd dayum, nicca! HA! Dat purpa drank and dat indo weed got me seein' some weird sheeot on my muthafuckin' Samson Galaxy tablet. Ha HAAA! Dey be a little elfs 'n' shit singin' and dancin' and drinkin' malt LICKA and puffin onnat indo weed.
Hey, you know how to oda pizza in Italian? Like dis: Fucka youa, sucka my dicka!
Linux based WebOS is going to be free, as HP announced yesterday, and Ubuntu has been installed on the Touchpad already. In the US Touchpads can be purchased for low price, like $99 on eBay. Outside the US some (for example me) got one for low price through Amazon.
Debian can run on both x86 and ARM architecture I believe. With some skill you might be able to get a normal android tablet to fulfill your needs.
has dev firmware that is gnu/debian
Ok, a tablet PC is not exactly the same thing as a plain tablet, but if you are serious about Linux, then you can't beat a proper laptop that can also be used as a tablet with the keyboard folded down.
I have a 10" Iconia Tab A500 and I know one can run Ubuntu on it, though I do not know how easy it is to install as I haven't tried it. A500 may not be the best tablet out there, but it sports a pretty good, strong aluminum construction which makes it plenty sturdy, and more importantly it sports a full-size USB-host port meaning that you can plug in all kinds of regular USB-devices. In an emergency you can even charge your cellphone from it.
A500 has bluetooth, 802.11n support and does have a MicroSDHC slot for expanding storage, but it isn't exactly cheap. And it doesn't come with 3G. If you want 3G then you can use a USB-dongle under Ubuntu or buy A501 which is otherwise the same as A500 but does include a built-in 3G modem (though I don't know if it is supported under Ubuntu, you better google that)
Other than that I really do not have much to offer though, sorry.
You do not have to pay to print on Android, and nor do you need to rely on Cloud Print to print either.
You just need to install the Android app from the printer manufacturer that makes your printer. That's all. And those apps are all free (with no ads and no paid apps equivalents). You can just think of them as drivers. They'll work through the usb to your computer, through bluetooth, or through wifi.
I love my Lifebook T900 from Fujitsu. I run either Windows 7 or Debian Mint. I like having the power, the screen is a Wacom Tablet, and I can do powerful shit on it. Max RAM is only 8GB at this point, and getting Linux to address all the functions of the Wacom was a challenge (and not quite finished yet), but overall it is a great convertible tablet. My younger brother calls it my $5000 chess board, but the i7 processor gives me some great math and graphics possibilities.
My second choice would have been a similar tablet from Lenovo. I've used Lenovo tablets before and always found them dependable and very usable with Linux installed. I picked the Fujitsu because it seemed to have more durability features.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I think its going to be a bit above the price range you want. Tablets aren't cheap. You might not need an iPad, but whatever you get is still probably going to cost around $300.
and stick a big ass battery at it's back. what you're going to do otherwise is to pay 600bucks for something that doesn't do much more, tbh(transformer prime). or 1200+ for a tablet pc. with tablet pc's(x86) you'll have more freedom and better luck with drivers, while you can install debian on some arm tablets now.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Even if you are lucky and Linux installs with no hitches, you will waste a day. If things don't go smoothly, which is far more common than the Linux community admits, expect to waste 3 days to a week.
How much is you time worth? After a week you should have just bought something that does what you want.
But we have all done this for the fun and challenge ...
You could try the Smart Book from Always Innovating
www.alwaysinnovating.com
This is the tablet/netbook convertible that seems to have been the inspiration for the Asus Transformer
Comes preloaded with AIOS (their own customised flavour of linux), Android, Ubuntu, and ChromiumOS
I'm hoping to have one soon myself to try.
da da da dum indeed.
Here's the thread on debian-arm: http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2011/12/msg00008.html and the corresponding one on arm-netbook: http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2011-December/thread.html
The problem that's been made clear time and time again is that if you want low-cost mass-produced hardware, you normally have to go with GPL-violating products (see list here http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/android_tablets/) and that means that you will spend the majority of your time reverse-engineering the product for anything between two weeks and two years, depending on luck and skill, before getting something useful. By the time you're done, the product is usually end-of-lifed: thus if it breaks, you're back to square one.
The reason for the GPL violations is that the low-cost China-based Factories simply have zero software skills: they're provided with binary-only firmware from an ODM who themselves usually had to sign an NDA from the SoC manufacturer, itself in direct violation of the GPL, in order to get access to the source code. Normally there's a chain of at least *five* companies with whom you have to negotiate with for several days or weeks - each - in order to explain the situation to them, against a precarious balance of them basically not giving a stuff because there's no financial incentive for them to give you anything at all: they're already making money, selling product, so why should they care?
thus, we logically concluded that the only way to get non-GPL-violating product out there is to go directly to the factories and be the supplier of their software.
so for the past two years i've been contacting and vetting China-based factories, directly, to find at least one which is prepared to work with us (RH Technology - http://www.rh-technology.com./ the basis of the deal is, "we won't charge you for software expertise if you won't charge us for hardware design costs", and after two years we finally found _one_ factory willing to do a deal, and are looking for more.
we've also found an absolutely great CPU, called the Allwinner A10, which in mass-volume quantities is only about $7: that means that a PCB similar to the raspberrypi with similar features can be made for about $15 (not $25) and, because the Allwinner CPU is an ARM Cortex A8 not an ARM11 it is at least three times quicker than the raspberrypi's CPU.
now we have at least 15 Debian Developers who are willing to support the project by buying beta hardware samples, and we're looking for more people to help support this effort, by committing to buy product (just like with the OpenPandora http://openpandora.org./ we have set up a CIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_interest_company) because it's a better vehicle than a non-profit, charity or profit-maximising company. the CIC is called Rhombus Tech - http://rhombus-tech.net./
we also have the full support of the Board of Directors of the Allwinner CPU: they released full source code to us in advance. we've made it available and found it to compile successfully.
in-advance GPL-compliant hardware really is very very unusual. even USA-based companies typically release GPL source code on or after the day that a product is announced. Archos for example made a tablet that used the Telechips TCC8900 series of CPUs, and complied with the GPL (in direct violation of the standard NDA available at the time from the SoC manufacturer!).
other than that: about the only existing product on the market that i can really recommend to you is the alwaysinnovating touchbook: http://alwaysinnovating.com/ - it's about $300.
Have a look at Archos tablets. They support Debian on their gen8 series, but those are still a bit slow. People are already running debian on their gen9 products, and official support for that is coming soon.
See also:
http://www.archos.com/support/support_tech/updates_dev.html?country=us&lang=en
http://dot.kde.org/2011/11/30/plasma-active-archos-g9-tablet
http://dev.openaos.org/wiki/Debian
And having type apt-get in to install an app totally defeats the point of the touchscreen input mechanism and UI, what you want is a MacBook air or other thin laptop.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Seriously - the best system for running an OS and applications designed for a reasonable sized screen, physical keyboard and pointing device is one with... a decent-sized screen, physical keyboard and pointing device. Conversely, if you want a truly handheld device with no keyboard and a touch screen, you want a system and apps designed specifically for that environment.
That's one of the reasons why the iPad succeeded and previous Windows-running tablets didn't. I got an iPad because I was finding my iPod touch and Android phone very useful for certain things and could see a use for a larger version, not because I wanted a replacement for my "proper" computers.
OpenOffice would be hell on a tablet - I'm sure you could get it running, but its just not designed to be usable in that mode.
A MythTV front end for tablets would be terrific - if the UI were re-designed for touch operation: currently its really designed for a remote control or keyboard. Of course, you'd also have to worry about which video formats enjoyed hardware acceleration since your tablet CPU might not be up to software-only decoding (some existing solutions transcode stuff on the server side so the tablet can run them).
So, I guess the Asus Transformer sounds like a contender - but the whole point of that is that you can always disconnect it from the keyboard and use it handheld: if most of your software is going to require the keyboard then why not save your cash and get a netbook?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
It comes with Win7 which is pretty crappy as a Tablet OS. I installed Ubuntu with Gnome2 and Compiz (nowadays I'd probably go with Mint) and a permanent cairo-dock to call things like Compiz Scale for task swtiching and Compiz Expo for navigating virtual desktops. Most things work out of the box (cam, wlan, ogl..). The only thing I don't like is the lack of driver support for the tablet digitizer - it registers 5 finger multitouch under Windows, but only single touch under Linux, otherwise I could do some awesome multi-touch gesture wizardry with it. Still way more functional than under Windows and obviously more powerful than anything Android.
I think I'll take your mention of OpenOffice off on a tangent to do a little plug of my free software project...
A few months ago, I began the process of trying to port Apache POI to Android. For those who don't know, Apache POI is "the Java API for Microsoft Documents". It does Word and Excel, and also tries to implement other Microsoft formats, with various degrees of success.
I decided to start with a spreadsheet. I spent two weeks writing some scaffolding for a spreadsheet in Android. When I got it to where it looked good enough, I began working on loading Excel files with POI. And I could do so - with Excel xls files up to 2007. When I tried to load Excel 2007 and 2010 xlsx files, I ran into some problems...a topic which I'll get back to in a moment. Anyhow, I worked on trying to load Excel 2007/2010 xlsx files for a few more weeks, and when I saw I wouldn't, without luck, make any immediate breakthroughs, I put it aside. A few months later I open sourced my code on Github and cursorily described my 200/2010 problem in the README file. If anyone wants to look at it, feel free. As I said, I worked on features for two weeks and then got hung on one the 2007/2010 xlsx problem. The one big feature I did not include in the spreadsheet is the ability to finger swipe through the spreadsheet rows and columns - you can look around the spreadsheet with the arrow buttons on old, old Android phones and the Android emulator, but I spent all my time working on Excel 2007/2010 xlsx instead of features like that. It's only two weeks worth of work (plus the 2007/2010 xlsx work), and that minus my last six months of Android knowledge, but it's decent enough for what it is.
I sent a message to the POI mailing list after posting the code on Github. One of the POI dev's made a suggestion as to what to do - strip all non-Excel functionality from the schemas file - but that was what I already had for the most part done. I say for the most part because I probably stripped more than 80% of the non-Excel code. Why did I need to do this? Because Android Dalvik executables have a 65,536 method limit, and with all the Apache POI XSSF required libraries to do Excel 2007/2010 xlsx files included, my program would exceed that limit. Now there are two paths to get around this. One is the easier path - strip 100% of the POI stuff unneeded for Excel compatibility from the POI schemas jar. But I already stripped the low hanging fruit of this, and whittled 80+% of that stuff from the schema. Unless the other
Anyhow, back in July, when I stripped 80+% of the low-hanging fruit non-Excel schema and it was still a no-go, I put this aside and began working on other Android projects. In October I began thinking about this, and realized I was not going to get back to it in a while, so I cleaned it up (a little bit) and put it up on Github under the Apache 2.0 license (POI is Apache 2.0 so I figured I'd just use that as well), and posted to the POI mailing list.
I've had enough Android projects, and non-Android projects and things to distract me from returning to this. If my attention was turned to this again, the first thing I would do would be to repeat my 80+% non-Excel POI schema cleaning with the latest POI trunk (or last released jar, or whatever) and make my results public on a web page, or the POI mailing list or something. I would try to get it from 80%+ to 85+% and up to 100% clean of everything unneeded. If that didn't work, I would see if I could strip stuff from some of the other jar's, like xmlbeans or something.
If all of this didn't work, I would go the way of two Dalvik executable files in one Android project. With custom class loading, an interface for each needed method and all of that. An effort I seriously doubt I would start on my own - but who knows? If others were interested in this, I might put some more time and effort into it when I can. It would be nice to have a free software Excel-compatible spreads
The new generation (G9) Archos tablets look promising for running a more GNU/Linux than Android distro on them.
KDEs Plasma Active, on top of MER is being worked on:
http://dot.kde.org/2011/11/30/plasma-active-archos-g9-tablet
And the general philosophy of Archos seems to be encouraging development of alternative firmwares (not without loosing warranty, though):
http://www.archos.com/support/support_tech/updates_dev.html?country=us&lang=en
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
www.alwaysinnovating.com has a open source hardware tablet. It's where Asus got the idea from. It's compatible with any distro that supports ARM
there has been decent success getting ubuntu running on motion computing tablets. bluetooth, function buttons, and the finger print reader seem to have issues still. digitizer and sound were figured out long ago.
still use my aging le 1600 on a daily basis.
there are a bunch of tablets at DealExtreme.com, naturally they all run Android so you can load up whatever. It's important to read the reviews so you can find a decent one and not a junker.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A few years ago I got a Compaq TC1000 from eBay. It ran linux flawlessly, although it needed the proprietary nvidia driver to get screen rotation. This was long before the iPad, the current tablet craze or much thought of special operating systems for tablets (ok, it came with a special mobile edition of windows, but their wasn't much difference). Now the TC1000 is low power for today's needs but I'm sure there must be lots of tablets out there with a higher spec that people are offloading because they want an iPad or equivalent. They may not have capacitive touch-screens but otherwise would probably be ideal for you.
HowTo: UFW ) Block Outgoing Ports Except Those Needed + More in Ubuntu 11.10
Contents -
Part 1: (. Novice .) - Block Outgoing Ports Except Those Needed .) - Sysctl: configure kernel parameters at runtime .) - Configuring before*.rules .) - Blocking Private Networks
allow: 20-21, 53, 80, 123, 443 outgoing only
Part 2: (. Moderate
Part 3: (. Moderate
Part 4: (. Advanced
###
Part 1: (. Novice .) - Block Outgoing Ports Except Those Needed
allow: 20-21, 53, 80, 123, 443 outgoing
I have tested this at the command line and it works. Here /etc/ufw/ufw.conf
are the instructions on how to block outgoing ports except
those specified using ufw at the command line. This guide
assumes you have previously modified
to enable auto-launching on system startup and ufw is
running.
This configuration will allow the following outbound ports: /etc/ufw/applications.d
20-21, 53, 80, 123, 443 which is all that is required for
many users. The outbound port mapping may be customized
by you for your setup if it's your desire for allowing
other applications using different ports. This guide
does not cover configuration of apps which would reside
in
1. Open a Terminal window
2. With ufw started and configured for system startup
with the default inbound deny, begin:
sudo ufw deny out 1:19/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 1:19/udp
sudo ufw deny out 22:52/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 22:52/udp
sudo ufw deny out 53:79/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 53:79/udp
sudo ufw deny out 81:122/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 81:122/udp
sudo ufw deny out 124:442/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 124:442/udp
sudo ufw deny out 444:65535/tcp
sudo ufw deny out 444:65535/udp
3. Check your work in one or two ways:
sudo ufw status verbose
sudo ufw status numbered
Configuration is complete. To test this configuration you may start applications requiring the use of another port, such as a torrent application and when it fails to function, your leak test is a success. If you prefer retaining the above configuration, you may customize applications which allow it to use ports 80 or 443 to function. Or, you may prefer to redo the above differently with your own port range to allow for ports you need
open.
I wrote this post because I couldn't find the information on-line on blocking outbound, or the information found was in error for the current version of Ubuntu 11.10. Or, there were posts where users *wanted* this functionality but people would post back unhelpful information in different ways, including but not limited to, "You don't need to do this." Yes, some would like this functionality, otherwise they wouldn't have asked for the information!
When you've finished using the sudo command in your
Terminal, close it out with:
sudo -K
followed by:
exit
If you're continuing to use sudo for other operations
at the command line, don't type sudo -K until you've
finished.
One example of an application which may be customized for
this setup is Vidalia/Tor:
- Open Vidalia's Control Panel and click on Settings.
- Now click on the Network Icon.
- Next, click the box which says, "My firewall only lets
me connect to certain ports - Firewall Settings", from
here it should say 80,443 by default, you're done here,
click OK.
When you reload Vidalia/Tor, it will have written those port settings to the Tor configuration file and it will launch using the above two ports only. This is very useful when running Tor if you want an outbound blocking policy in ufw, as Tor b
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to 33cline for
I want to haul large cargo containers and other such extremely heavy and large items, and I want to use a small hybrid or similar vehicle to do it instead of a semi. I heard there are some people who have hacked their Prius into a tractor trailer. What do you recommend?
i tried, i really did. i even tried google translate.
Here's the big question... Are there any tablets where you can run Linux and use it on 3G or 4G cellular?
My guess you are looking for a pad and not a full tablet!
A Levono Thinkpad x201 is the best tablet (how ironic it has pad in the name) I used with Linux so far. Everything on this think just works (though I never tried the analog modem).
-gps
-gsm
-touchscreen/pen
-fingerprint reader
-tilt sensors
-all the special buttons
-wireless
So if you want a pad instead, take a look at the Meego "supported" devices:
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/TEGRA2
Beware of the Advent Vega pads, it's a nice platform but the screen is absolute shit. But maybe a poor viewing angle doesn't affect you that much.
you might want to look at cordia tab and ekoore.
In addition to installing Linux natively, on many devices you can install a full distribution in a chrooted environment inside the stock Android environment. There are some Android market apps that make that easy.
its like a tablet but has a keyboard and is 1/3 - 1/2 the price
Sadly, they were told, repeatedly, but they have cloth ears.
OMG! Ubuntu! Featured Intel Atom-based Ekoore tablets months ago. I'd go for that if I don't want to bother with ARM images and whatnot.
http://www.ekoore.com/web/en/home-2.html
Italian manufacturer, they are - dunno if they ship internationally.
Fujitsu Stylistic tablets. Honestly use the real thing and stop screwing around with consumer junk. You can get used ones for under $400.00 that work great.
www.ebay.com and search for fujitsu stylistic.
All done.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
needs OS. Now BSDI hand...don't = 36440 FreeBSD
You want to try Unity.
Tablet owners are the only people remaining i haven't heard complaining about it.
Why not Gnome 3, for the same reason?
More seriously, I think that KDE Netbook version would be a good UI for this. But back to the original question - aside from Apple, can't any tablet have its OS replaced with Debian? Also, since Windows tablets too would be ARM based, I'd think they'd be ideal for this - especially if there are any coming out of Nokia. Another suggestion - HP, since nobody has any idea of what sort of support WebOS will be getting going forward, so this would be a good tablet to plant this combination.
There are plenty of x86 Intel Atom based tablets that will run any Linux distribution you like. For example Viewsonic ViewPad 10 is ~$470, comes with preinstalled Windows/Android x86, and there are several guides on how to add all the missing tablet stuff to Ubuntu/Fedora.
But are you sure tablet is really what you want? Virtual keyboards are real pain under Linux, and if you are planning to actually use OpenOffice - maybe netbook would be a cheaper and better choice?
I had similar problem for a tablet for commercial use and I didn't want to program in java on android, I end up on ekoore tablet "Perl", http://www.ekoore.com/ sold directly with ubuntu I made a python program and I'm happy with it, Its a 1,6 dual core 2Gb ram 32GB SSD with capacitive touch screen...yes you can use 2 fingers, For openoffice use its fast and proficient.
I pre-ordered a smartbook in february 2010 (!!) and there is nothing there yet.
Forums are dead.
IRC is dead.
No reply to any email you send to them.
Dont bother with this company!
I have it running and here is how: http://blog.mister-muffin.de/2011/05/01/putting-debian-on-the-notion-ink-adam/
the product is dead and the company silent.
I've been with the project for over two and a half years and pre-ordered mine in february 2010 - no product yet. It was always delayed and the current status is:
forum silent, irc silent (been in both for three years now) and no answer to any email.
the product is total vaporware - dont buy it!
I got a second-hand V1 touchbook though but even that one is not recommendable - it has many hardware bugs, the most important one being that charging doesnt properly work and while there are resoldering solutions to some, there are none to others.
I'd recommend archos its nice open hard ware.
And to all you android lovers who say you dont have
to pay to print. Can you run CUPS? No I didn't think so.
Now fuck off
and get an HP TC1100 off ebay. It even has a keyboard attachment.
My setup is not a tablet, but it's very portable and flexible and runs a pretty much fully fledged Ubuntu install any time I want to. It also keeps the number of gadgets I carry around and thus synchronize to a minimum.
The basic part of my setup is a Motorola Atrix (http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-ATRIX-US-EN) with the Lapdock (http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/accessory-details/?LOSGId=accessoryBucket&q_sku=sku5100298#fbid=GYMvsMM9JQx). To that I then used Webtop2SD (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1119555) to move my Webtop environment to my 16GB SD card on its own dedicated 4GB partition and then did the work to create a full Ubuntu on Webtop (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1000316). Of course, I had to root the phone but that was dead easy... in fact all of the above steps I did in about an hour while sitting at my dining room table drinking my coffee on a Saturday morning.
It's not perfect... I'll admit that. It's slow compared to a laptop but in terms of functionality it's excellent. I can apt-get or run synaptic from my command line, and I added a small Gnome toolbar on the left side of the screen that contains my standard Gnome menu. I can surf the web, write articles in OpenOffice and I am not at the mercy of WiFi in order to be able to access the Internet. The Lapdock contains a battery that charges the phone while it's docked, and so I have gotten several hours of work done without needing to recharge either, and by the time I was done my phone was fully charged anyway.
The beauty part was that I was able to then go home and slap my phone into my Multimedia Dock (http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Multimedia-Dock-ATRIX-Packaging/dp/B004LWYYZ0) which is hooked up to my 23" widescreen monitor and has a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and there was my desktop again like it had never left.
I recently flew about 900 miles from home to get a new car (BMW Performance Center Delivery - http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Experience/Events/PDS/BMWPerformanceCenterFAQ.aspx) and drove all the way home, and all I took with me was my Atrix and Lapdock as well as my cameras and I was able to use them to move pictures and videos to a USB stick temporarily to clear up space on the cameras, as well as use it to check into email and so on. If I'd needed to I could even have dialed into work thanks to our Citrix XenDesktop environment that works like champ on the Lapdock. Thankfully that was unnecessary as it would have really detracted from my driving my new BMW on the Tail of the Dragon (twice!) and the Cherohala Skyway (which I videoed both of them using my ContourGPS video camera and car mount).
One tablet I have seen running linux (although not sure which distro, it was shown running a KDE environment in a podcast) is the EXOPC Slate.
It can be purchased from the Microsoft Online Store (only place I have seen it listed for sale in the US) for $399.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/productID.224518200/parentCategoryID.44066900/categoryID.54536100/list.true
We've made a Debian chroot installer and manager app for Android, so you can have a Debian chroot running in parallel with Android. You can apt-get anything in Debian/arm. We're interested in server software, so we haven't tried anything beyond things like ssh, nginx, jabberd, etc.
https://guardianproject.info/code/lildebi/
And the code is up on Github:
https://github.com/guardianproject/lildebi
Best Tablet For Running a Real GNU/Linux Distribution?
By "real", do you mean a distro with a standard desktop, such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or LXDE?
I.e. a desktop that was designed for mouse/touchpad input instead of fingers on the touchscreen? Why would you use such a system on a tablet? Or are you always going to run the tablet in laptop mode with an attached keyboard and touchpad?
Android provides a graphical environment that's designed specifically for the use of fingers on a touchscreen, and is based on the Linux kernel. So what is it about Android that disqualifies it from being a "real" Linux distribution?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the word "real". Is that referring to the touchscreen paradigm versus the desktop paradigm, with the desktop paradigm being somehow "real" and the touchscreen paradigm somehow being "not real"?
Has anyone been able to get Linux running on the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550? It comes with Win7 and runs an Atom proc...
Seems like a good platform for a linux tablet to me, but my initial googling didn't give me any instuctions for running linux on it.
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_EP121/ I love mine.
I have an Acer Iconia W500 with Kubuntu and I'm very happy with it. KDE was the best DE I've found (after trying Unity, Gnome 3, XFCE, etc.). Okular is jus amazing to read PDFs and browse using touch interface. You have to make some adjustmenst (third button emulation). GTK based DE have the problem of the new scrollbars (not touch-friendly). KDE has Plasma and you can make an Android-like interface with few clicks. I have few tips about it : http://conalambre.wordpress.com/
La culpa no es del chancho...
I have Kubuntu running on my Transformer, and if there's one thing I've learned, is this: the best device is the one you have a working kernel for.
If it's an x86 tablet, you're in the clear. If it's ARM, then the vast majority of your problems will be related to getting various drivers/etc. implemented. Don't assume that the Android kernel can just be used as is - Android does a lot of stuff differently (e.g. no X server), which means getting the hardware to work with GNU Linux takes a fair bit of work. (Presumably Meego ARM tablets [do those even exist?] have kernels that can be used without any need for such changes.) So unless you have the ability and time to do this, make sure there's a reasonable amount of development going on for that device.
All that said, Ubuntu on the Transformer does work rather well once you have it installed and configured to your liking. Admittedly, it is rather obviously the result of a lot of reverse engineering (i.e. hardware support improves a bit once every few months), but it works rather well.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
yup its a tablet and the keyboard is detachable for $500. comes with a win7 license too.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/761072-REG/Acer_LE_RK602_047_W500_Tablet.html
amd fusion goodness, 10 inch screen ssd wifi bt the works and debian squeeze on it works great.
It really depends on your needs, but for me, I needed a tablet which actually had the ability to run real software. Atom and ARM processors are just not in the same category as Sandy Bridge. The Series 7 Slate only suffers one major problem, the RAM is only 4GB and is not upgradeable. It's soldered to the motherboard, but oddly enough, this is specifically the type of device which will be hacked on and I'm sure that so long as the address lines are available, someone will find a way to upgrade the memory at least to 8GB using a BGA rework station. I paid a rework shop to install a Core 2 Duo into my Sony Vaio UX at one point... money well spent.
It's a Core i5, which is dual core + hyper threading, 4GB of RAM, a 128 GB SSD with moderate performance. It's pretty good battery life too. I don't run Linux as the default OS on it, I use Windows 8, but I do use VirtualBox to run Kubuntu. Performance-wise, it's in a totally different class than the other tablets. I don't know where NVidia will be in a year, but I'd imagine that they are focuses mostly on Windows 8 support on tablets. And they aren't all that well known for stable Linux drivers. Also, there still isn't a proper "This is how ARM should boot from USB" spec out there, so updating Linux distros will be hackish for a while.
Oddly, the major success of the PC BIOS and the newer EFI has been almost entirely based on simply being able to boot the computer. After all, once the computer is boot, the BIOS is entirely unused.... drivers take over. ARM doesn't have a standard, flexible boot environment which is universal yet. Maybe they'll sort that out with Microsoft, but I have a really bad feeling that we'll be stuck with vendor provided boot loaders which will limit the lifespan of a device.
Does Linux do Voice and Touch user input? Do them well? The voice translators on Apple and Android are getting better... still generating snickers at times but really I'm impressed how much they are learning. In my opinion, a tablet without an input device is like a laptop without a keyboard. Getting a tablet to run linux is the second step, making sure Linux has the voice input and touch input comes first.
Whether tablets become a fad or actually change things will depend on how well they replace the keyboard. What the keyboard did to penmenship and editing and even thought is remarkable. I wonder if the voice translation will lead the next generations to speak and think differently (like Voice of America in "Special English")? Will we adapt our speech to say things that are more trite and repetitive and easily recognized, LOL, or will the software get better and better? If Linux or Android or Apple are only good enough to meet us halfway in transcribing speech, maybe tablets will be the start of the Dim Ages.
Gently reply
Dell had a Latitidue ST out, which is loaded with Windows7 (so it must be x86 compatible). It's quite expensive, but it has decent specs.
You could probably load a decent distro on it.
You *can* run full blown Debian on an Eken M001 tablet (cheap Chinese Android tablet), although personally I'd avoid anything using the WM8505 SoC... It's extremely underpowered, and once you drill down through all the marketing hype, it only has a 300mhz processor. Mine has been relegated to being stuck to my fridge with magnets and running a web app, it's just about perfect for that.
You Jogger has an Intel Atom Z520 (1.33 GHz, 512KB L2 cache) ... it can not play HD content.
Lots of people seem to be recommending rooting various arm-based tablets that come with Android stock; note that the questioner lists video playback as one of his major use cases. Does video playback actually work worth a damn on any of these hacked-up tablets? I didn't think there was a driver with accelerated video support for any of those systems.
See http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Acer/Iconia_Tab_w500/squeeze
It works, ish. I'm not impressed by the on screen keyboard options, yet.
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Asus Transformer for me. :-)
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