Ubuntu 9.04 ported to Nokia's N8x0 Internet Tablets
By Darren Murph 
posted March 15th 2009 5:16AM
posted March 15th 2009 5:16AM
[Thanks, Addae]
posted March 15th 2009 5:16AM
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The bigger consequence, of course, is that a lot of the work for stable Ubuntu builds on ARM is taken care of now. Sweet.
More ARM netbooks is now a serious possibility.
Very true.
The sooner that happens, the sooner people will see windows isn't the only Operating System in existense (just after we explain what an Operating system is of course) and the sooner Microsoft will start innovating rather than just making Shiny Stuff(TM)
Cool, but not that useful for me. As soon as linux is ported to a phone though... I'll probably:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4
Perhaps you've heard of the T-Mobile G1 which runs Android (a flavor of Linux)? or the Neo1973 from OpenMoko? Or any of the several Motorola phones that run Linux?
Linux based phones have been around for a few years.
I was talking about a more robust and full distro of linux. Android is cool, but it wasn't as revolutionary as I thought it would be.
And the openmoko is more of a dev tool/experiment. I mean it doesn't even have EDGE let alone 3g.
The problem here is CDMA users. Buy a GSM device and stop supporting bad technology from the 90's. By upgrading to a GSM device you will get 3G. Thank you ATT for helping to push America to true 3G with the Iphone. http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=MTE2NTQ
CDMA SUX
You do realise there were a plethora of 3G/3.5G capable phones before the iPhone, right? Even if it is a great device, it gate crashed this particular party just a smidgen late.
Just saying
Back to the important stuff. Stable and usable builds of linux on devices such as the N800/810 can only lead to good things. Community based projects are and will always be light years ahead of companies in addressing issues and adding popular new features to an OS.
Yeah, after lots of users complained. Wasn't one of the most hated things on the first gen iPhone the fact that it didn't have 3G?
The iphone is still outdated in that it doesn't support HSDPA, which means that you are stuck on the slow 3g band.
Although I am not sure why this is in an article which is neither about the iphone or phones in general. It does look very interesting, I wonder if it any faster than maemo is, I might give it a try later.
@ Matt
I'm sorry to contradict you, but the iphone does actually support HSDPA 3.6Mbps
Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_3g-2424.php
It doesn't support the 7.2Mbps band, however ...
Johno:
"Stable and usable builds of linux on devices such as the N800/810 can only lead to good things."
Uh... you do know that the N800 and N810 _come_ with a stable and usable build of Linux, right? It's their native OS. In this respect, this story isn't anything new. It's just a different (more popular) flavor of Linux that has been ported to them.
(and it's not the first "other flavor of Linux" ported to them, Android already has been shown running on them)
As usual, whenever there's a post about the Nokia internet tablet, someone starts talking about phones and the iPhone. But, since we're here....
Actually, what makes the iPhone 'outdated' is ATT throttling down the networking speeds.
The problem with Ubuntu being ported to the N810 & N800 is CDMA users? The problem with a new OS for a device lacking cell-phone capabilities and compatibility with either CDMA or GSM, in any form, is CDMA users?
I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but (on good days) a simple majority of the stories on Engadget aren't Apple-related. This is one of them.
CDMA is really an inferior technology, huh?
Buy a CDMA device and stop supporting inferior technology from the early 90s. By upgrading to a CDMA device you will get reliable 3G that doesn't suck down the battery in a blink of the eye.
See what I did there?
GSM was pushed through for the sake of pushing a standard through. CDMA's only weakness is, in 2G modes, it's slightly less power efficient than 2G GSM. But, it's got higher voice quality, better spectrum utilization, and IIRC it's simpler to deploy on the carrier end (meaning, for example, in a disaster area, Verizon and Sprint can deploy trucks with cell towers on them.)
Oh, and before you bring up SIMs... there are GSM phones without SIMs, and CDMA as a protocol does support R-UIMs (which is the CDMA version of the SIM.)
"It doesn't support the 7.2Mbps band, however ..."
Who cares? 3.6 vs 7.2 Mbps on a handheld device with a screen matrix of even 800x600 is going to be noticable. The iPhone actually works, unlike my constantly crashing WinMo from HTC, Motorola, ...
I can't believe I waited this long to try an iPhone based on a Unix BSD core vs. the crap that M$ pushes. If Ubuntu was around earlier I would have one by now.
OK Apple haters, and M$ lovers I'm ready for my extra light shade of grey....vote me down!
Nice
Now that XFCE 4.6 has been released, i would have opted for Xubuntu over Ubuntu, as its window manager uses slightly less resources:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/hands-on-xfce-46-has-nice-new-features-no-fat.ars
However, if one decided that the performance of Ubuntu/Xubuntu was undesirable, a high speed mini-sd card could be inserted and partitioned as swap space.
This is great for competition on the mobile computing arena. Nokia may have mixed feelings about this, but this development essentially puts a big dent on any plan from computer companies (I'm thinking of Apple right now) to release to market anything that looks like a Netbook but is crippled to run only a select few applications from a pay-per-use application repository.
Great success!
Hmm... Now if only they manage to port Ubuntu on Saab, I think you'll have a nerdgasm so strong it'll hurt.
Ubuntu for Saab, you mean a special build for legacy hardware?
Yes, We need to support the open-source Jet Engine market. Its full of proprietry crap at the moment.
My Saab 96 runs Linux.
Hi anyone here has tried this? Any comments on performance? Is it usable?
OK , I have tried it, sort-of.
The device already runs full Debian armel, which is what Ubuntu is based on. It's really really cool what you can do with it (pretty much everything :) but at the same time really really annoyingly slow, even after leaving at the CPU at max overclock(400mhz).
Usable? Day to day stuff, NO. For an emergency, YES, it can read and edit word docs, docx and spreadsheets fine through open-office, it also runs full firefox with all the addons, and it does whatever else you can do with linux.
The good news is that the next version of the Nokia Tablets is going to use OMAP3 chips instead of OMAP2, this should do wonders for usability.
Either way, one thing is for sure, it can run full linux, and ARM cpus have wonderful battery life that blows Intel Atom right out of the water.
Between this, the VMWare on N800 thing from a few weeks ago, Android on N810, Google Voice, ZER01, and the possibility that the next gen Maemo device will have a built in GPRS/EDGE/HSPA modem ... I keep thinking about a device that can simultaneously run Maemo, Android, and/or Ubuntu, and acts as a phone via Google Voice on a ZER01 data plan.
Hopefully it'll be a large version of the N97 (and hopefully with a 5 row keyboard).
More realistically, it would be nice if someone would publish SDKs that would ensure a GUI app works properly under both Maemo and Android. Build-level unification to ensure widespread application availability seems a lot more practical than dual-boot handhelds.
a) the reason I mentioned vmware and said "simultaneously" is that I am not talking about multi-booting and statically running one OS at a time. I'm talking about running them at the same time.
b) I can see wanting cross-building compatibility between Maemo and Ubuntu, but Android doesn't even run X windows, and you'd need to be building one to object files and the other Dalvik virtual machine files ... that would be a lot more complicated. Especially when you add in how different the UI for Android vs (Maemo or Ubuntu; the User Interfaces for Maemo and Ubuntu are somewhat different, but they do have some similarities)) is. As much as I think Maemo's UI is _great_, the last thing I'd want is to run apps on Android that are completely not Android like in their UI. That would be both jarring, and incredibly poor design.
Wonderful news! I actually really like the Hildon desktop on the NIT which works really well for its small but high-res screen. With Android, Ubuntu, WinCE (via VMWare) and Mer coming out soon there is a plethora of choices to be had.
Mer is also based on jaunty and is focusing on making it useable (ie window size, touchable, finger friendly apps etc)
I'm sure this porting of Ubuntu will help Mer make the tablet useable; running a desktop window system on a touchscreen PDA is just not funny. I know there is effort going into Qt and Gtk to hildonise them too.
Ubuntu is perfect for this purpose. I absolutely love linux myself however its a light year away from being ready as a mainstream desktop OS. However for basic browsing without worrying about security its perfect. Also add the benefits of SSH, and apache if you'd need it.
**geekgasm**
But ye, its perfect.
I don't suppose porting to N770 will ever happen
Thats what im waiting for
anyone know what this "system information" app is?
That one is called "hardinfo"
If I recall from when I read the road map this will only support arm7 for the time being, Hopefully by 9.10 it will support the arm range and maybe even other RISC/MIPS architecture.
The "arm range"? Not sure what you mean, that comment implies a lack of knowledge here. Anything built for arm7 will work on newer ARMs; if you're wanting support for arm4 (IIRC, or maybe was arm5), go with Debian, which has made choices emphasizing compatibility above performance. If you have something older than that you want a modern Linux desktop on... good luck.
As for supporting MIPS devices with an ARM port, that doesn't make any sense; you simply can't target two completely unrelated architectures with one port.
It shouldn't be too hard for Ubuntu to make a MIPS port if they decide to, as Debian already has one, but I'm not sure why they would -- AFAIK, nobody's making MIPS end-user devices anymore. It would bear no more relation to the ARM port than the x86 port, though.
There's also confusion between ARM architecture versions and ARM CPUs.
ARMv1: ARM1 - very, very few in the wild
ARMv2: ARM2, ARM3, and ARM250 - for the most part, only in Acorn Archimedes machines
ARMv3: ARM6 (there is no ARM4 or ARM5) and some ARM7s
ARMv4: Some ARM7s, StrongARM, ARM8, some ARM9s
ARMv5: Some ARM7s, some ARM9s, ARM10, XScale
ARMv6: ARM11
ARMv7: ARM Cortex
IIRC, Debian is compiled to ARMv4.
Ubuntu will be compiled to ARMv5, with some ARMv6 and ARMv7 binaries where there's a significant performance boost.
This is similar to Linux distributions being compiled to i386 for optimum compatibility, even if they'd get more performance compiling to i586 or i686.
for mips lookup godsend
Ubuntu simply the best!
A full OS on the internet tablets isn't anything new. They've been able to boot either a full Debian desktop environment or KDE for a long time now.
3.6 vs. 7.2 is going to NOT be noticable on such a small device rather... grrr
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Watch_nitdroid_emulator_emulated_nokia_tablet_runs_android
Here is the n8x0 emulator for running android, but it should emulate ubuntu too, I'll test it