Um, whoops! It seems as if those
earlier reports of Canonical crafting a special edition of
Ubuntu specifically for tablets may have stemmed from taking certain quotes out of context, as a new interview over at
Golem has confirmed that the company has no short-term plans to pursue that full-on tablet PC push that was so well hyped. It's a bit of a bummer, honestly, with far too few legitimate tablet operating systems on the horizon; Windows 7 just feels a grown man's OS, and there's no telling if
Windows Embedded Compact 7 will ever truly live up to its incredible potential. According to Mark Shuttleworth, though, the forthcoming Ubuntu Light will be distributed on a variety of systems, but the smallest it's really aiming for is netbooks. We get the feeling these guys will come around eventually, but for now it's on you to squeeze your favorite Linux build onto that
ginormous iPhone 3G tablet you've already got on pre-order.
posted June 18th 2010 12:02PM
Cool,
first thing I saw, I thought it's from Apple. But I was wrong. hu3
@hazelnuts89
Ubuntu is really a polished operating system. I greatly prefer the experience over Win7, however I've yet to use OSX over a significant period of time. Mark Shuttleworth has promised that the next release (I think) will concentrate on small UX changes to really solidify the experience. Considering that 9.04 is already really solid, I wouldn't be surprised if 10.10 offers the *best* UX of all the popular desktop OSs.
@MagnetMan I think it already does. And it continues to. The User Experience isn't Ubuntu's problem at all: it's support, both from hardware and software vendors.
I think it'll continue to grow and eventually reach a tipping point: it'll provide enough advantages to consumers to have them use it, then enough consumers will use it (as well as other non-Windows operating systems) to make developers consider porting their applications to cross-platform tools, then enough popular software will be available for it that those consumers that were previously reserved about using it will start to adopt it. From there, it climbs: as more people use it, more software becomes available; as more software becomes available, more people will use it.
I don't expect it to happen any time soon, but hey: Linux and the idea of open-source development are here to stay. It's certainly becoming more and more a popular approach to software.
That's a shame, it's so fast to boot up and easy on the RAM.
Too bad Ubuntu... looks like MeeGo will be the linux to use for tablets
@mhedhli But hold on a minute! Anything that runs on MeeGo will run on Ubuntu and vice-versa. They're essentially all the same tools underneath: Linux, GNU userland and Xorg graphical environment. Canonical has already stated that they expect users to use the side-bar-launcher, "Unity", with their fingers, and if finger-friendly software is developed for MeeGo then Ubuntu might become a tablet-friendly operating system without any real developer intervention.
Of course, they could tweak a few things to make it nicer...
When they get to the T's in their naming scheme it will be Tanzania Tablet Edition
Man, I would really love some ubuntu on any future tablet I get.... but just because they don't specifically make it doesn't mean it won't get ported over. Offical support would be nice thought :/
Maybe run Obuntu under VMware under Windows Compact 7? On the other hand, just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's needed. There are enough OSes already in the pipeline perhaps...
@brianM
I don't think these tablet cpus can handle that. Plus if I was going to run ubuntu on one of these bad boys I would like to allocate the entire drive to an ext4 partition.
Ubuntu is fast. It is free. It eats little ram.
Its too bad. I bet if it was lisenced with ubuntu it would be cheaper.
That's why in KDE we're working on a shell for different form factors.
@apol I really do love just how flexible Plasma is. It's produced what I think is the best netbook experience, and while we're at it, the best desktop experience too. :)
I suspect only a slight deviation from the current plasma-netbook would be necessary for a tablet, what with the widgets already being touch-ready and all. :)
Linux UIs are not finger-interface compatible. Consequently there are no finger-friendly apps.
Canonical can, but it simply makes no sense for them to release an OS without useful applications.
And they are really small company to be able to supply applications themselves or organize enough 3rd parties.
@Dummy00001 Maemo would like a word with you about finger friendly linux UI's my good sir.
@Dummy00001 has a good point.
I have Ubuntu Netbook Remix running on my O2 Joggler, but while the launcher is finger friendly, the capacitive screen is not precise enough to allow me to accurately hit the 'x' button to close a window, and many of the applications require drop down menus which are nearly impossible to hit exactly with a finger.
Otherwise Ubuntu is pretty amazing, especially with Flash running in Chrome.
Ubuntu? What's that?
Windows 7 release + Android releases + iDevice hysteria have pretty much drowned them out of the public consciousness (if they were ever there)
@LANjackal
I pity the fool
@LANjackal Ubuntu is a very popular and user-friendly version of Linux that already comes in several different flavours to suite users needs and likes/dislikes.
@DBG Ubuntu is awesome, windows looks quite garish compared to ubuntu's clean interface
@LANjackal I was being sarcastic with my question, guys. Of course I know what Ubuntu is and don't deny that it's a solid OS.
But it just can't match the excitement/hype* of other OSes out there right now.
*This has no bearing on the OS' technical merits
Wouldn't the Linux community be best served by a KDE-like effort instead of something spearheaded by a single company such as Canonical? Touch is complex and takes a lot of refinement.
@mlayer Refinement? That would be the speciality of Ubuntu and most definitely not of KDE?
though frankly a plasmoid style tablet could be very cool.
@mlayer
Canonical is cool. I'd rather see them than a start-up.
@tricheboars KDE's hardly a start-up. It's much older than Canonical, if anything. It's been going for nearly 20 years now!
Bummer! I really wanted ubuntu. does meego run debian packages?
@tricheboars no, but it runs (almost) anything complied for fedora. (but you have to install with the terminal and use "yum localinstall filename --nogpgcheck"
Hopefully the next version will work more like deb files in ubuntu.
*sob*
Makes no difference. As others have said, even if you tweaked the OS to make the OS finger-friendly, none of the apps would be, and Canonical just can't make that happen. Android and Meego are your only (Linux) bets here for the moment.
@Fanfoot Consider: if MeeGo pushes people to make finger-friendly apps, they would be able to run on Ubuntu as well. Issue?
Well thats too bad.. I had some high hopes...