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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.
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.
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.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
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.
Proprietary display drivers are a bit of an issue when you're talking about a device that relies on a touch screen for nearly everything. It's a bit like an open source jetliner with proprietary wings.
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.
It could be a lot more free. At least it's already clear it's heading in the opposite direction when it comes to improvements from Google based on the article over at Ars Technica.
You can always install CyanogenMod + F-Droid as market replacement for a more open source Android experience, that supports a lot of devices. The device drivers could not be very open, but in the end, Ubuntu Touch is based on android kernel and drivers too (what shortened the path to support a lot of devices). That approach is also used by Firefox OS, and I think that Sailfish will use it too, and for phones those 2 are good alternatives. Now, for tablets or for attaching a big screen/keyboard to make it behave like a desktop computer the option will be Ubuntu Touch.
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.
Damn. I think I messed up on the link.
Here it is:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/4/
Umm... Android is openâ"except for all the good parts.
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.
The market, google apps, bundled apps with your phones, and, well, most of what can be installed with the market are not open source, in fact the AOSP versions of google apps lacks some functionality. With cyanogenmod and f-droid as market you get something closer to being open source with the exception that you pointed out.
What swipe at medical communities? The screen pulses and seizes, as in "My computer seized up". It wasn't ever aimed at any medical communities, presumably those who suffer from epileptic seizures that can be induced by flashing screens. Although those that suffer from that condition probably should stay away from this OS for the time being.
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.
Moderately Mediocre is 12 major releases beyond Almost Awesome, so we'll see it in late 2019.
The only thing proprietary are the video drivers and that's because GPU vendors are douche bags.
Ubuntu Touch uses libhybris to use the same proprietary drivers as android. In that regard it's not more open dan android itself.
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.
I wish you were correct, but it's not so. While there are a few very open Android devices, the great majority need many binary blobs to function, and not just for graphics. Some need binary blobs for touchscreen, WLAN, GPU, more.
I don't know of any truly free and open devices, which don't require any binary drivers to fully function. I'm sure some exist, but they're not the devices you're thinking of.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
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.
Or maybe you could own up to the fact that Google is engaging in more apple-like practices (tighter control) for the good of the product.
Google initially let hardware vendors and mobile carriers do whatever they want and the end result is a fractured, fragmented android ecosystem that's a pain to develop for and sells as many bad devices as good. More importantly, it's much more difficult to make money off of. It's in nobody's interest to have cheap, shitty, manufacturer/carrier abandoned android 2.x handsets that have never seen an update and never will.
Talk all you want, but in the end it's the ability to make money and Apple does it better than anyone else AND people literally line up to buy their products as fast as they can make them.
With each android iteration google locks down and ups hardware requirements, tightens their policy (to their own favor, duh), and makes the platform more clean and consistent. To everyone's benefit, in my opinion. It's making android handsets and tablets better, and they are selling better. I wasn't really a fan of any android device until I got the 2013 nexus 7. It's fast, light, inexpensive, and has a clean and completely pure google product experience free of third party crapware that in my opinion damages the android brand. (Samsung, I'm looking right at you)
Is it true or not that Google has closed several of their apps and letting the open source versions slowly rot away?
Perl Programmer for hire
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.
Is it true that you're contributing to the open source versions of the apps so that they don't rot away?
Because there's no way for Ars to be legitimately critical of Google and their handling of Android? Not even someone who specializes in writing about Android?
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.
"Platform" is a big word. While the Android OS is free, there are more and more components of the platform that are getting closed off by Google as they move from the AOSP stack to Google Play apps. See this Ars article for a rather scathing view of Android's "openess".
This isn't cable news, strictly Ad Hominem attacks are generally not very convincing. If you have specific points about the Ars article in question, feel free to make them.
As an Android fan, and a general loather of the walled garden of iOS devices, I am concerned watching Google beginning to steer in the same direction. It is smells like bait-and-switch, especially as components that were once in the open AOSP stack are now closed source apps. There is probably fair debate about what is the "operating system" and what is "value add", but if you couple Google's move to apps along with some of the business arrangements described in the article, it's beginning to feel like old times again.
Remember the dominant operating system when this line came out?
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
First you'll have to trek deep into the Amazonian rain forest, and discover a new species, so that you can name it a "Red-breasted Mediocre", in order for it to be a possible Ubuntu product name.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
i frequently have the same pulsation problem with the stock android, so perhaps it is a hardware failure.
What swipe at medical communities? The screen pulses and seizes, as in "My computer seized up".
nopee. I was going to respond with something, but you're just being intentionally difficult so I won't waste my time.
Let's see... how many of my android devices have come with the complete source code required to modify, rebuild, and run the software that came installed on them, without any loss of functionality?
Exactly none.
And that's the point. The Android Open Source Platform might be Free, but our phones are not running the Android Open Source Platform; they come with derivatives of it that usually depend on proprietary, closed-source differences. The result is that I don't have a reaonsable way to verify that my device is doing what I think it should be doing, or to keep it updated with security patches, or to be sure that I have disabled every bit of privacy-invading crap that hides in those commercial ROM images. The closest I can get is replacing most of the stock software with an open source alternative, which is not the same thing and (if I can manage to find one at all) usually means breaking several bits of functionality that I paid for when I bought the device.
This article is interesting and eye opening, it talks a lot too of Amazon replicating many APIs or services for their own Android fork. I wonder if Ubuntu being in bed with Amazon has something to do with this.
To resolve the conundrum in your sig, see your comment.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I'm guessing the Microsoft Surface Pro is relatively free/open, LOL.
Really, the platform where we always had the most freedom is the PC compatible. More than on a Raspberry Pi for example. Maybe some weird stuff has more theoretical freedom, like Richard Stallman's MIPS laptop (but how many vendors are there for that?, likely just one).
It helps that the PC has so many users, so much reverse engineering, and you can always fall back on pretending you're a 8086 or 486 with a 80x25 text display and do as if your storage were a hard drive from the 80s, even if it's really a USB drive or a mask ROM or an iSCSI target. It's almost impossible to brick unless you overwrite firmware with random crap.
"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.
you don't know what you're talking about. I don't see a conundrum here. I see a pair of idiots who should have tickets to the idiot farm.
You have a point, I didn't know that 'CSM' would get omitted. Options are numerous though at least on the traditional desktop, many motherboards to choose from. The low end retail ones especially are conservative, high volume/high availability, well supported esp. Asrock and Gigabyte ones (lots of BIOS settings : it's still dead easy to find a mobo with dual PS/2, on latest gen hardware. Even LPT and RS232 if you really want it, the full ports or at least headers.
The mobo from 2003 I had before still allowed to configure 5.25" floppy drives, with choice between 1.2M and 360KB. My current one from 2007 or 2008 only allows 3.5" floppy (I don't use floppy lol, if I have to find myself needing to boot a floppy I'd rather set up another computer, build or obtain an .img file, and beam it to my PC's network card via PXE and memdisk)