First Look At Ubuntu Touch, the Smartphone OS

colinneagle writes "The first developer preview of Ubuntu Touch – aka 'Ubuntu for Phones and Tablets' – was unveiled just a few short months ago. And, just a few weeks back, it was announced that the team was shooting for having a fully functional (aka "can use it as your actual phone, on a daily basis") version by the end of May. May is now over, so Bryan Lunduke published some screenshots and analysis of the core features of the Ubuntu OS for smartphones and tablets."

Comments

Interesting

[Vanderhoth]

It's interesting. I'm an Ubuntu and Linux Mint user at home, but I can't really see value in having it on a phone. Although it would be nifty if I had a docking station at home and work where I could just drop my phone into it to use it as a more portable computer with a full monitor, keyboard and mouse when available, and the regular phone touch interface when on the go.

Re:Interesting

[DrXym]

The value in these devices might be if you could take your phone, plug it into a dock and suddenly it becomes a full blown Linux desktop. That's a useful thing to strive for. Otherwise not so much.

Re:Interesting

[Vanderhoth]

I could see this happening in the near future.

My Galaxy Note II isn't incredibly powerful compared to either my one year old Ubuntu Laptop or my four year old Linux mint machine, but it's certainly more powerful than the computer I built ten years ago and would be great for simple games, word processing, web surfing and e-mails. I like the stylus for writing texts and taking notes on the phone, but a full keyboard would be even more useful when available.

I could see this being really awesome with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, LAN connection and dual full screen monitors hooked to a docking station, which could really be done with an Android, iPhone or Windows phone. MS should have done this, they might have been on to something if they had implement Metor on Windows 8 for mobile devices that would switch to regular Windows 7 style desktops when plugged into a docking station, rather than the steaming pile of crap Windows 8 turned out to be.

Re:Interesting

[Insightfill]

It's interesting. I'm an Ubuntu and Linux Mint user at home, but I can't really see value in having it on a phone. Although it would be nifty if I had a docking station at home and work where I could just drop my phone into it to use it as a more portable computer with a full monitor, keyboard and mouse when available, and the regular phone touch interface when on the go.

Sounds like Ubuntu For Android I've got a regular Galaxy Nexus, so external video isn't for me, but sounds good in principal.

Re:don't we already have Linux for smartphones

[Errol backfiring]

Sure, but unlike Maemo/Meego/Sailfish, it was Not Invented Here.

Re:don't we already have Linux for smartphones

[gmuslera]

Which one? Android, Meego, Maemo, Tizen, WebOS, Firefox OS, Sailfish, etc? We have a lot, each one with their own strenghts and focus. Ubuntu Touch points toward integration between desktop and phones (as in you connect to a monitor and you have a desktop running from your phone) and having the same environment in phones, tablets and desktops (maybe in a bit smarter way than in Windows 8). And being Linux based, and in good part using common libraries (i.e. for a lot of them you can develop in qt/qml), or html5 apps, or being able to have compatibility layers (i.e. Preenv to run WebOS apps in Maemo) there is the possibility that a lot of apps could be shared or ported between them.

Re:don't we already have Linux for smartphones

[Dusty101]

Well, if you're referring to Android, then I think the answer is yes & no. It's probably more accurate to describe it as a phone OS based around a Linux kernel, as opposed to a mobile incarnation of an open GNU/Linux (which a lot of people would simply refer to as Linux). I think it could also be accurately described as a less-open fork of Linux. The distinction is a pretty fuzzy one, though. And you're right, in that there are also things like the Maemo/Meego/Mer/Sailfish effort (as others have noted).

As I understand it, this Ubuntu effort is more purely an open GNU/Linux implementation, with added-on phone-centric bits. The cool thing about this is that if you have a high-end Ubuntu Touch phone, then you'll be able to plug it into a docking station and use it as a full-fat Linux desktop. This also means (of course) that it's more independent as a device, and doesn't rely on touching base all the time with the Google mothership, which might appeal to some users from a privacy point of view. If this does mature to the point of being very usable, I for one might be very tempted.

Attention to Detail

[norminator]

I love how on Slide 9, he points out the attention to detail... except that in the largest text in the screenshot there's a glaring typo.

Not so much a gripe about Ubuntu Phone (since it's not a released product) as it is about TFA,

Re:I wonder

[norminator]

I'm sure it won't matter, since your carrier will pass on whatever call information and data used no matter what OS you're running on the phone. Also, any online services (Facebook, Google, etc.) are doing the same.

Re:I wonder

[Beardo the Bearded]

sudo apt-get install NSA-backdoor

Re:I wonder

[RDW]

sudo apt-get install NSA-backdoor

NSA-backdoor is already the newest version.
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
      constitutional-rights