Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Touch On a Nexus 7: "Almost Awesome"
colinneagle writes "I installed Ubuntu Touch "1.0" on my first-generation Nexus 7 tablet and have been using it as my main tablet system for the last four days. Here's how it went. First off, the installation was surprisingly painless. I followed the official instructions and didn't encounter a single problem. That being said, the installation is really geared toward software developers, power users or people already comfortable on a Linux command line. If you're not in one of those categories, I recommend holding off for the time being. Once installed, Ubuntu Touch booted up rather quickly — in only just a few seconds (a fair bit faster than Android 4.x on the same tablet). And, immediately, I was presented with a short tutorial that appears the first time the system is booted, which, I might add, has got to be one of the slickest, least annoying tutorials I've seen. But... there were problems. The battery life was, to put it mildly, terrible. Performance has been mixed, and the OS was prone to what I call 'The Pulsating Seizure Feature' a few dozen times over the weekend. In a nutshell: launching apps (and, occasionally, moving between apps) can cause the device to freeze and begin flashing the screen rapidly."
is it smoother?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This will be the year of the linux tablet.
Though technically it's always been.
I'm looking forward to buying a phone that can run it. Android is not free enough, they use all tricks in their power to prevent forks to have the same functionality especially if that would mean for Google that they cannot collect any more data and pester us with their advertisement. So fuck Android and long life Ubuntu on tablets and phones!
Hats off for Ubuntu to make a generic OS for mobile devices... However those problems are big ones. Every device is setup just a little differently as to try to get a competitive advantage over their rivals.
Android is often heavily customized for each device so it runs more optimally, having a generic OS will be harder, because who knows what drivers should be on all time time and what should be on then off then back on again.
PC and Laptop do not suffer as much as they are not so much designed for Power Consumption, But if you had a custom OS on your laptop you may get a few more hours off of it. But most people use laptops for a few hours and plug in when they can. With Tablets they expect to use it all day and charge up at night.
ubuntu 1.0 should boot 4X slower than android 4.0.X, which is logical :P
7 seconds to open a calculator app must be a new low in computing history.
I'd definitely consider using this if it were in a usable state ... I tried an early alpha version nearly a year ago and it was much worse than what you describe, so at least by the sounds of it they've made inroads since then. What with all the attention Linux gaming has been getting on the desktop, and knowing how big-an industry gaming is now, it'll be interesting to see if any developers turn their attentions to getting games out for Ubuntu on mobile processing architectures.
Seriously.. "Almost Awesome" ... this sounds a lot like a nightmare and border line unusable.. I can only imagine the headlines if this was a windows device that failed to function. Which by the way windows 7/8 mobile has been smooth since day 1..
Have the Ubuntu releases wrapped around, then? I thought we were at "Teething Tapir" or some such thing.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
ftfs:
the OS was prone to what I call 'The Pulsating Seizure Feature' a few dozen times over the weekend. In a nutshell: launching apps (and, occasionally, moving between apps) can cause the device to freeze and begin flashing the screen rapidly."
oh good, I was afraid that we would have to get through a technology review without taking swipes at medical communities.
How much freer could Android be? The entire platform is open source.
The only thing proprietary are the video drivers and that's because GPU vendors are douche bags.
....Android is a mix of a whole bunch of licenses. That are likely to be APACHE (Source for hoycomb anyone) as much as they under GPL...and even Linux is famously a slightly amended GPL License. The first party applications...which in my opinion are what makes Android, are not only proprietary, they work is actually done remotely in the cloud, something RMS speaks badly about for reasons.
That said if you really want to know about free from the lad himself this is Dick on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html Android which discusses all kind of interesting things including...Replicant a truly free android. As a pleasant aside https://f-droid.org/ is an open source app store with open source programs, a must for those more careful with there software, and another feather in the cap of the awesome Android.
I had it installed on my Nexus 4 and it was a heaping steaming pile of crap. Kept dropping data connections and phone calls were full of bugs like not being able to hang up, or the phone app crashing when you press dial.
My favorite was the notification of incoming call just failing to appear until the carrier sent it to voicemail.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If terrible battery performance and screen freeze/flip-out is "almost awesome" I would hate to hear what "moderately mediocre" would sound like? Explodes in your hand? Shoots lasers out of the USB port into the eyes of unsuspecting children? Votes for Ted Cruz?
Umm... Android is openâ"except for all the good parts.
There is really no point in quoting Ars for anything remotely sensible when it comes to Android. They are a Apple site.
I'd like to introduce to my new car. It's almost awesome; except when the engine stalls, or the accelerator sticks at maximum revs, or the doors won't open or the wheels sometimes fly off when I'm going 60mph. But other than that, it's a dream!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What did you expect would happen?
Except don't expect CyanogenMod to be in the future https://plus.google.com/106978520009932034644/posts/L8FJkrcahPs .Ironically because open source is the reason for their assistance they seem to be trying hard to wreck a great model fro them.
https://plus.google.com/106978520009932034644/posts/L8FJkrcahPs This is Guillaume Lesniak Google+ post about CyanogenMod's Focal camera app. He doesn't like that licensing changes accompanying the new venture would limit his control. Accordingly, he has removed Focal from CyanogenMod
Desktop Linux is "Almost Awesome" for non-power users too.
...is a delight. In context of this article Ubuntu was incredibly successful with its "Linux for Human beings"(I miss that). Ironically unlike Mac and Windows Chrome OS/Android and GNU/Linux(Give it a name) are the only parts of the PC market growing!!!
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/4/
Ars has been unashamedly an Apple site for so long. Getting them to write anything sensible about open source or Google is impossible.
I'm super-excited about running a proper Linux on a tablet. The biggest concern I have is what kinds of privacy compromises are baked in. Canonical's monetization of users via integration of Amazon search into the Unity lens thingy* was what finally drove me to other distros.
*(And yes, I know it can be defeated, but that misses the point. I won't use a distro I don't feel I can trust.)
It sounds to me like it sucks pretty bad, especially with all those freezes you mentioned. I think Canonical can do a lot better. What you described sounds very disappointing.
Tablets are about being a consumer, or in many cases of "free" software, you're the actual product.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
So, when Ubuntu Touch is having a seizure, it kindly induces one in the user as well. How clever! The user will never notice that their tablet has become unresponsive when they're spasming uncontrollably on the floor, trying not to bite through their tongue. As long as the user's seizure ends before the tablet's, the user will remain blissfully unaware that there was any problem!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Vanishingly few here understand the problem of battery life on these ARM devices. A desktop OS cannot- repeat cannot ever have a decent battery life on such a device. Why?
Low power ARM SoC devices are designed with MULTIPLE, special purpose low-power hardware blocks, that run as much of the actual processing as possible. Playing an MP3 or video, for instance, is NOTHING like the implementation path on Linux or Windows, even with hardware acceleration. The Android device actually has special pathing for such operations, where hardware solutions independent of the normal CPU cores is triggered, allowing the CPU system to enter a minimum power-state.
DOING NOTHING is another key part of Android. Doing nothing is MEANINGLESS as a Windows or Linux concept. Doing nothing is everything on a mobile OS, where the device is constantly looking for such a time in order to enter the lowest power state for a 'running' device' as quickly as possible.
ARM SoC devices are a new computer paradigm, and this is something old-school nerds cannot get their heads around. Why did Apple HATE Flash on mobile devices? Because Flash CANNOT be made power-efficient - it is a "throw CPU resources at the problem" solution, and a lousy match for mobile devices.
This means that mobile ARM devices will NEVER be a good match for continuous computer processing applications that cannot be handled by dedicated hardware blocks, but how much heavy general CPU based-processing does a mobile device need to do?
Linux on a tablet is moronic. Windows on a tablet is moronic. Go to a laptop format with a MUCH larger battery, and now ordinary desktop operating systems are fine. But the issue of dedicated hardware blocks really clouds the issue. Once, Intel told us we needed their latest CPU chips to play video on our desktops, then to play MP3s. Later still, Intel told us to spend hundreds of dollars on Intel chips if we wished to encode video. Or recognise speech. Or render graphics to the screen. Each of these excuses for heavy, GENERAL PURPOSE, computing elements, like Intel CPUs, has vanished. Doing any of these tasks on your CPU today is the height of foolishness.
Without most people even noticing, computers have split into two camps. The old-school computers that need to run CPU intensive tasks much of the time. And the computer 'devices' that rarely run CPU intensive code for anything but very short durations. The second class are NOT the thin-clients once mistakenly anticipated as becoming the common platform for 'devices'. The second-class are also TRUE general purpose computers, but lack the energy resources to do continuous general purpose computing calculations.
Good thing they created Mir to resolve issues that Wayland would have had.
i frequently have the same pulsation problem with the stock android, so perhaps it is a hardware failure.
"Almost Awesome" I think that must have been meant as a joke. Constantly crashing and crap battery life on release software is probably the opposite of awesome...at least for me. Maybe he meant that it would have been completely awesome if it managed to electrocute him or kick him in the nuts some how.