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Ubuntu Touch: The Other Linux OS For Your Phone
An anonymous reader writes "Ars takes a look at what Ubuntu Touch has to offer so far. From the article: 'It can't be stressed enough that even in this updated form, Ubuntu Touch is nowhere near usable as a mainstream mobile operating system. Canonical makes no claim that it is. For now, the software is about half development environment and half proof-of-concept tech demo. As such, we aren't going to be evaluating Ubuntu Touch using quite the same criteria we'd use for a shipping product—we're going to be focusing more on how the OS looks and works and less on how it performs. As we get closer to Ubuntu 14.04 and presumably Ubuntu Touch's retail availability, we'll certainly be revisiting it with a more critical eye.'"
I'm an Ubuntu user on the desktop. I mostly love it (even Unity), though it does have its occasional bugs. Part of me really wants an Ubuntu phone OS so that my phone and my computer can speak the same language seamlessly.
But part of me worries that this will result in the same fragmentation and lack of focus that has plagued Linux on the desktop since, well, since Linux on the desktop. Android is already fragmenting as so many phone companies won't update the OS on older phones. The result is 4 or 5 versions of Android running out there. Adding Ubuntu phone to the mix will further complicate matters.
So, my dream wish is that the Android people and the Ubuntu people will get together (for their own financial good, I think) and decide on some actual standards....and then actually stick with them.
As this makes a fair amount of sense, it will almost certainly not happen.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Please, oh please tell me the default wallpaper is brown. I want Shuttleworth's white African heritage to shine brightly like a freshly plopped turd.
His response to the whole Dash spyware debacle was literally "we already have root." Not "we're trustworthy," not "we will promise to keep your data secure," "we already have root." He might as well have said what he really thought, "if you chose Ubuntu we're already in control, bend over and take it."
Well sorry, Shuttleworth, but as of last year I've been happily running Fedora on the same desktop, and even with the crappy installer it didn't die trying to install GRUB on a 1TB GPT partition, so I'd say it was a success. You don't have root on my machine any more, and you're certainly not fucking around on my cell phone. I don't trust Google either, but at least they've managed to develop some common courtesy, what Shuttlworth seemed to have forgotten about once his pockets were sufficiently lined.
It will be an uphill struggle to get this accepted while the other free OS, Android, has such a head start. A few people who want to be sure that metrics are not sent to google will go for it. A few more who want non-JVM centric applications too (or the complex NDK) might too, but I think it will be a niche market
Do we really need this? I would guess "yes" only if it enables people to update their old Android devices, (those which have been orphaned by Google and/or their OEMs) to replace previous versions of Android with unpatched vulnerabilities.
Anyone got a take on this?
If you count Android as Linux, then 2012 was already that year. In fact, not sure if 2012 was already the year of Linux in computing devices, if you add all from cellphones and embedded devices to supercomputers (and count Android as Linux), then Linux is the most used OS in them.
I agree with the orphaned phones idea. The one thing that Ubuntu is pretty good at is regularly updating their OS while keeping it runable on old tech. This might make it a good option for the low-end smart phone market, too.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
The demo video I saw (can't find the link now) showed a Samsung S3 (I think) with a normal Android UI on its touchscreen.
They plugged it into a monitor with HDMI, and used a bluetooth keyboard/mouse, and got a fully-fledged Ubuntu desktop on the monitor.
I'm not sure whether Linux was hosting Android, Android was hosting Linux, or whether both were hosted by a third layer. But they were able to share resources -- there were desktop apps that manipulated the Android address book for example.
It does seem potentially useful.
...until they can post, "I replaced it with Mint Touch and never looked back."
"He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
You cant make phone calls.
I tried the first release a whole ago, neat concept demo but it turns your nexus into a useless brick. You cant even make phone calls because they have not eve started on the part that enables phone functionality.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One of the big challenges is to make Unity run fast. Currently it has always this slight laggy feel to it, even on C2D hardware.
Motorola had Linux based phones selling in PRC back in ... well, too long ago now...about 2004?
Max.
"Even tough it sucks, we'll give Ubuntu Touch a positive spin because, well, it's Ubuntu, and all things Ubuntu bring more eyeballs to our website. Maybe the filthy rich Shuttleworth will even considering advertising on our website."
I think this would be a great market for Ubuntu. They were one of few distros that made installation of Linux pretty smooth and easy. If they can manage to do the same with their mobile OS, I think it could become the replacement for many of the old Androids out there. That said, Ubuntu has been increasing in system requirements since Unity and has been pushing for instalation on new hardware. The other flavors (Xubuntu, Lubuntu) have taken up the slack on older hardware. Since Ubuntu is aiming for preinstalls, it seems likely that it wouldn't be suitable for older phones. Especially when they are trying to also push some form of hybrid computing, mobile/desktop. The system requirements for that alone is probably higher than what most "orphaned phones" have . Still, it'd be nice if I could ditch old Gingerbread for a shiny new *buntu...
Will end users pay for the OS? is it supported by ads? I would love to see this succeed but to succeed it needs to make at least enough money to fund development (even if you have many volunteers there are still costs for testing and qa)
OS support wont sell as well for mobile as it does on big iron...
If it runs a version of zeitgeist, no fucking way.
That's Ubuntu for Android and a separate project. It actually, IMHO, has more usefulness than an entire Ubuntu OS for phones, which is what this thread is actually about. It's hard to search for information for one of these without getting information about the other.
That's some confusing branding, right there!
Thanks for the clarification.
I think its largest value is political and ideological. Right now, the various mobile computing platforms are heavily locked down compared to their desktop counterparts. The existence of more hobbyist-friendly OSes helps demonstrate a need beyond locked bootloaders and walled gardens. Just look at all the geeks who continue to hold on to their aging N900s despite being abandoned by Nokia when they partnered up with Microsoft.
3 days ago: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/10/0022257/ubuntu-touch-developers-aim-for-daily-phone-usability-before-june?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
but was it a good touch?
Just to recap, the main Linux based Android alternatives currently under development are:
- Ubuntu Touch
- Firefox OS
- Sailfish OS (based on MeeGo/Mer)
- Tizen (Samsung)
Software merit aside, Ubuntu seems like the least likely option to succeed. As far as I know (please correct me), they don't have much in terms of phone maker or carrier support. Firefox OS has Telephonica and GeeksPhone (still just a startup). Sailfish is developed by Jolla (a bunch of former Nokia employees), they seemed to be backed by a Finnish carrier. All these projects are relatively small scale compared to Samsung's Tizen. NTT Docomo is also backing Tizen which means the project both has the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and one of the world's largest phone carrier behind it.
I want at least one or two of these projects to actually succeed. Why? Because we badly need open source/linux alternatives to Android, which has severe problems (not all caused by Google - the carriers/manufacturers bear a large part of the blame):
- The security/updates situation is a mess, there's no way to deny it. Can you imagine a world where both PC manufacturers and/or ISPs must approve and deploy Windows updates before they reach the end user? This is Android right now.
And before the inevitable "Buy Nexus if you want updates" answer: Do you know how insane that sounds? "Buy Toshiba if you want to access Windows update", that's how.
- For Google, Android is just another platform to deliver adds, which means they built the system in a way that won't let the average user block them: The consequence is no effective root access for the user (in order to prevent - amongst other things - host file based and system wide ad blocking). This means Google or the manufacturer owns your phone, not you.
And no, being able to unlock the bootloader and install an after-market rom because you have a Nexus phone is *not* enough. Regular users don't need to install a special version of Windows/OS X/Ubuntu to have root access to their computers. Why should it be different with phones?
Linux is Free. Windows and OS X have to be purchased, Android on the other way is paid for by looking at Google's ads... hardly a sane and secure model for an OS. We need to get away from ad-based computing.
If you are super paranoid and don't want anything sent to Google then just install Cyanogenmod and don't install any Google apps.
Linux, succeeding everywhere it doesn't need X.org to function. Server (if you run a linux server with a GUI, you are doing it wrong), Android, TiVo, embedded. X.org is like the kiss of death, everything that uses it is DOA on the desktop (Linux, *BSD, Solaris etc). Remember when Sun unsuccessfully tried to compete in the desktop market? Or when X.org was making IRIX slow?
You mean they created that Unity abortion just because they wanted to? I was cutting them some slack because I thought it was supposed to be compatible with a mobile touch interface or something. I mean, I thought that was a little batty, but Holy shit, they're completely insane!
Yeah, let's see, I want my phone UI to get cocked up just for the fuck of it at any future point at some moronic UI designer's whim... No, sorry Canonical. Screw me once, shame on me; Screw me twice...
I'd rather use Firefox OS. It may be built out of some horribly slow scripting language, but at least if the platform tanks I can still run the apps in a web browser instead.
I would love to have full access to all the tools I have on my desktop/laptop on the device I carry around with me everywhere. It sure would make troubleshooting issues easier.