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Samsung To Let Proper Linux Distros Run on Galaxy Smartphones (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung has announced it will soon become possible to run actual proper Linux on its Note8, Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones -- and even Linux desktops. Yeah, yeah, we know Android is built on Linux, but you know what we mean. Samsung said it's working on an app called "Linux on Galaxy" that will let users "run their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS." "Whenever they need to use a function that is not available on the smartphone OS, users can simply switch to the app and run any program they need to in a Linux OS environment," Samsung says. The app also allows multiple OSes to run on a device. Linux desktops will become available if users plug their phones into the DeX Station, the device that lets a Galaxy 8 run a Samsung-created desktop-like environment when connected to the DeX and an external monitor.
About time. Why can't my phone be my PC? Plug in a monitor, wireless keyboard, and voila! Unless you are running seriously heavy software (Where you would probably use a desktop anyway) a smartphone could probably run 99% of your stuff. I am only talking as software developer here.
My daily-driver laptop is an 8GB RAM 128GB SSD i7 8 core computer.
I can get a, say, Samsung Galaxy Note8 with 6GB RAM and 128GB SSD ARM 8 core CPU. Definetly not fast as my laptop, but probably fast enough to compile some files and run a development environment.
I get what Samsung is trying to do, and while I think the idea is clever, I'm not sure the "Dex" platform is the solution.
Clearly Samsung should've called Motorola for some been-there-done-that information. Moto tried this whole thing with the Atrix line (which was an awesome phone with the best biometric implementation), and it BOMBED!!! Web-dock, Desktop-dock, TV-dock; no-no-no.
I get that they exist to make money, but if they think a few thousand Penguin worshippers are going to affect the bottom line...might be time for some new employees. Also, I'll be interested in the EULA.
P.S. "Penguin worshippers" is meant lovingly...
An S8+ with Dex system is actually very close to perfect for me, what Canonical's Unity aspired to be probably. Even the Standard Android Dex desktop "thing" is pretty close to acceptably good. It's actually only really let down by the quality of the apps, I can't find a decent resizable "sh"-ish terminal or SSH client. There's quiet a few but they all have their own little oddities. After that there is a little bit of clunkiness in the GUI because Android isn't really "desktop" orientated but it's better than some tablet UI's.
They're very, very close. If this works well they'll potentially have nailed it.
Regards, Phil
After all, it is totally ridiculous to carry around powerful universal computers and restrict them to be used as a phone and phone-type app only.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Termux. launches Bash and provides a debian-style package management system for extra tools. think Cygwin for Android.
If you have a [physical keyboard then your phone can essentially become just a screen.
The one thing I wish it could do on a stock phone is talk to a USB-OTG serial adapter. unfortunately that requires root and I haven't felt like modifying my phone's base system to get it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We heard you like Linux, so we put Linux in your Linux so you can run Linux in your Linux.
VT-100's with no permanent seat assignments, worked perfectly well back in the days of horse-drawn computers. Ah, the reedy "beep" sounds!
Linux used to be the core of my computing experience. I used it on my desktop, I used it on my laptop, I used it on my servers, and I used it on my phone (through Android).
But changes within the Linux ecosystem have been ruining the experience for me. Systemd brought me some serious reliability problems. While GNOME 2 was excellent, GNOME 3 has been terrible. Wayland has never worked on any system I've tried it on, and X is feeling long in the tooth. PulseAudio meant that my sound would often not work. Even Linux's filesystems have stagnated, with us still using the old and limited ext4 FS, while other OSes are getting excellent modern filesystems like ZFS.
Over time I've realized that I'm better off without Linux.
When I needed a new desktop and a new laptop, I just got a MacBook Pro. macOS gives me the UNIX-like environment that Linux gave me, but it's far more reliable and the macOS UI is so much nicer than any of the open source desktop environments. While I routinely had to waste hours fixing problems with Linux, especially problems involving systemd, macOS just works reliably pretty much all of the time. It's a no-fuss environment that makes me way more productive than I was with Linux.
All of my servers now run FreeBSD or OpenBSD. FreeBSD gives me the UNIX-like environment that Linux gave me, but it's not infected with systemd, and it's far more reliable. OpenBSD gives me extreme security in cases where that's most important. Both of them are a pleasure to work with, compared to the burden that I came to realize that Linux was.
When I needed a new phone I got an iPhone. Android was perhaps my least-worst Linux experience, but I also got tired of Google not providing updates only a couple of years after I got my Nexus 4 phone. I don't want to have to jailbreak or root my phone just to be able to upgrade! At least iOS supports devices several years old.
So I can't see why I'd want a phone running a traditional Linux distro. My life and computing experience has gotten much better the more that I've distanced myself from Linux. There are a lot of great alternatives out there these days. Maybe Linux was useful around 1999. But the computing world has changed, and Linux has fallen behind nearly all of its competitors.
Thanks for the effort, Samsung, but this product is useless to me.
If you have a [physical keyboard then your phone can essentially become just a screen
I busted my ass to get this 27 inch screen, so you'll have to pardon me when I give this bit of news a big whoop-dee-freakin-doo
I wish they would just run Linux natively and dump the whole Android part.
This is pretty damn cool. This will bring about a large homebrew workforce that will only help Samsung sell even more sets. Great news. Makes me like mobile even more now.
Unfortunately, I just bought a Galaxy S7, so I'll probably sit this one out like I did with the N900 launch. Hopefully, it's still an option with my next upgrade cycle in 2 to 3 years, unlike the Nokia N900 that died on the altar of Redmond before I was ready to upgrade.
Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
Forget the cheap cable...miracast should be the answer (and charge a DeX license fee instead of selling hardware if they want).
I actually proposed this to the engineers on-site for the launch event and caused some consternation at the time. I was "that guy" asking for the feature they didn't have, didn't think of, and pretty much would make their product useless :)
With that said, I have one and use it. It needs some refinement around the apps and all to be truly useful by itself. Instead it does work as a good platform for Citrix and getting back to our VM farm at work.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
So, while I appreciate the theme of being able to run a full blooded Linux environment, it doesn't fix the fact that the basic OS provided by Samsung is complete crap and not worth keeping on the phone. Unnecessary processes and constant unwelcome intrusions are the main reason that I replace the OS. Adding a compatibility layer doesn't remove the underlying problem that Samsung's out of the box OS experience is craptacular and abusive.
I'd run a pixel over this any day.
--WooooHoooo--
Wouldn't it be hilarious if 2018 turned out to be the year of the desktop because of mobile phone adoption?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I though at first that Samsung was unlocking the bootloader so you can install the OS of your choice.
But no, this is an app. Meh.
The N900 ran native Linux and it ROCKED.
I could compile and run just about any unix/X-windows program on that thing.
It had USB networking built in.
I could write apps using standard python libraries like gtk. You could add/modify GUI widgets with python scripts.
It was a Debian system that used standard repositories with thousands of apps.
Plus it made phone calls. It could make cell calls, voip calls, XMPP calls, all from the same app.
Yes, the average moron would not care about most of this stuff, but for anyone with any hacker cred, it ROCKED.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?