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Maru OS Exits Private Beta, Lets You Use an Android Phone As a Linux Desktop (liliputing.com)
Maru OS has exited beta, and is now available to anyone who wants to give it a try. For those unaware, Maru OS offers a platform that runs Android as well as Debian Linux on a smartphone. When you connect a Maru OS-powered smartphone to an external display, you get "full-fledged Linux desktop environment." Maru OS was unveiled in February, and currently supports only one smartphone: Nexus 5. The developers behind it have also started to work on making the project open source. They hope that doing this will help them support other devices as well. Brad Linger, writes for Liliputing: Work has also begun on making Maru OS an open source project, which could allow additional developers to contribute to the project or port it to run on other phones, although the current version of the Maru OS does require phones that support HDMI via MHL or SlimPort, which means not all phones will be able to run the software unless wireless display support is added in the future.
of android phones running linux on the desktop?
Suck it, Continuum.
I was running desktop Debian Linux on my Compaq iPaq PDA around 1999.
This seems familiar. I had the original Motorola Atrix 4G, and when it was placed in a dock with an HDMI output (or the laptop dock that included a screen) it booted a Linux environment that was also based on Debian. It was very limited in what applications could be run.
My Kyocera 6035 phone, from the early 2000s. The first phone for which I heard the monkier "smartphone". The seams between the
PalmOS (active when the phone cover was open) and the base phone OS (when it was shut, with a numeric keypad) were more than obvious. But it was quite a good phone for its time.
I support a rich ecosystem of third party developers... but to get the best possible user experience this should be build right into Android by Google.
Does a single use case exist where this would be useful?
Linux Luddites had an interview with the developer (note the singular, not plural "developer") in Episode 76.
Well worth listening to.
The podcast hosts are quite charming and always enjoyable - and they have really good sound quality, editing, & production.
The developer, working alone, has apparently done a very impressive job.
The Linux Luddites' slogan is, "Trying all the new open source software and deciding we like the old stuff better." Yet they (at least Joe) were quite impressed with Maru OS.
This project might have some legs to gain traction in the enthusiast community.
I wish the project a lot of luck.
Does it have a predilection for jumping into boxes too small to contain it? xD
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Why not support displaylink as well as NHL or slimport?
£20 will buy such an adaptor, supported by android
2016 will be the year of Linux on the desktop on the phone. :-)
In all seriousness, I like this idea. Ages ago (wow, 10 years, actually -- this was before I got an iPhone) I got a 624 MHz Dell Axim X50v PDA and I realized that it was comparable to the 150 MHz desktop I still had which ran Windows 95, Photoshop 3, and Netscape 3. Those were dated at the time but still totally usable. For light usage, I could see something like this working. Unfortunately, the #1 use for computers anymore is web browsing, and web pages have gotten REALLY fat in the last 5 years.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I would prefer Tablet to be honest. Phones are too small to get anything of significance done. (unless you get a keyboard, which helps a lot)
But phone is still useful for a full OS on it, and not half-ass gimped Android core (with root!).
Carrying a nice portable network tester would be a very handy one.
Or perhaps doing some coding on the go.
I do these already, but they are still limited in what you can do. (I might try change that soon, though, I'm sick of all these shit apps)
With a decent tablet and full window manager and actual file structure that doesn't make you want to vomit your eyes exactly 17 times, it would make tablets vastly more useful.
Surface Tablets are great for that purpose. (installing Linux that is)
But, like the rest, are gimped for no real reason. No actual justifiable reason for how gimped they are. "Just because".
If Microsoft and other tablet vendors were to stop being such massive dickholes, allowing the full platform to be open would massively improve sales in the business arena alone.
But instead all they want to do is create walled gardens with fecal matter.
They aren't even more secure because of their strict app stores, they are WORSE than desktops are. App stores make it so much easier to find malware than any point in the internet, worse than all those P2P horror stories of thematrix.mov.exe. Now you can simply search, click, install in seconds, enjoy your identity theft.
They took Linux and absolutely shit on its core security principles.
The newish changes coming up in Android look interesting, but it still doesn't change the fact the Google Play store is broken at the core, and all those scanning techniques simply don't work because you can just sideload code after install from a trusted server, completely bypassing their systems.
Is there a single use case where this ISN'T useful?
Talk to any sales person or executive who is on the road 4 days a week 52 days a year. Talk to any average person with a phone who has to work on a big spreadsheet once a year (tax time). Talk to anyone who has ever tried to do detailed photo manipulation on an iPad or phone.
This is the future. The idea that you are going to have BOTH a phone AND a PC is a dated concept... your phone IS A PC, it just has a tiny screen and no good input device. The ability to take a phone, dock it and get a full desktop experience will all of your files still available, is the nirvana pretty much anyone who is not a hardcore developer or gamer is waiting for.
If you could use the Linux desktop on the phone somehow (Xephyr or VNC application maybe?) this could make an Android phone as capable as one of Nokia's Maemo/MeeGo devices.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Have a look at the tablet produced by BQ with ubuntu.
Not latest specs, but prove the point
Ubuntu is further.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca