Ubuntu as a Phone OS

[jimbridgman]

Well, ubnuntu just made an annoucnement that they will have a mobile tablet and phone os, that will be matched with thier other versions so it is one os that will work on all your computing devices using all the same apps that you already run. They will also have the HTML 5 apps as part of this.

Just thought you guys might be interested.

I am very excited about this.

Sound off and let's discuss after you check out the video on the link below:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone

 

[mtnlion]

I see android becoming a GUI skin for Ubuntu. It's been nothing more than a matter of time before PC OS's merged with phone OS's . With some of the new hardware technologies almost ready for primetime our mobiles will take the place of PC/laptops in our lives. Desktops are evolving into more of a server role in the home. Appliances , home entertainment, environmental control will all be run from a central home super PC/server. The technology is out now but advances are coming that will make it more practical for the masses.

 

[jimbridgman]

I see android becoming a GUI skin for Ubuntu. It's been nothing more than a matter of time before PC OS's merged with phone OS's . With some of the new hardware technologies almost ready for primetime our mobiles will take the place of PC/laptops in our lives. Desktops are evolving into more of a server role in the home. Appliances , home entertainment, environmental control will all be run from a central home super PC/server. The technology is out now but advances are coming that will make it more practical for the masses.

Actually it is the other way around.... in the video it was said that the ubuntu phone os will work with the android kernel, so it should work on any current android hardware, and should be very easy to implement it.

This is really because the android kernel is really the general linux 3.0 kernel.

I am going to work on getting this working on this phone, as soon they release the OS to everyone. I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.

 

[mtnlion]

Actually it is the other way around.... in the video it was said that the ubuntu phone os will work with the android kernel, so it should work on any current android hardware, and should be very easy to implement it.

This is really because the android kernel is really the general linux 3.0 kernel.

I am going to work on getting this working on this phone, as soon they release the OS to everyone. I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.

You are saying You can boot this version of Ubuntu with our stock moto kernel?

 

[jimbridgman]

You are saying You can boot this version of Ubuntu with our stock moto kernel?

Not sure yet, but from the video in the link I posted toward the end, it sure sounded like that was the case. I am sure some work will have to be done, but it sounded promising.

 

[mtnlion]

I'm most interested in seeing how this turns out when you unleash your kung fu on it. My nexus 4 should be here soon, after it arrives my A2 will be at your disposal for any alpha testing. Then again my A2 has always been available for testing anything you or certain other devs come up with.

 

[Maribou]

This is super sexy. I cannot wait for this to come out. I have been using Linux, mainly Ubuntu off and on for years now. This just made my day. I love the GUI. I wonder... What type of bootloader this will use. Some modified versions of Lilo, or Grub?

 

[jimbridgman]

This is super sexy. I cannot wait for this to come out. I have been using Linux, mainly Ubuntu off and on for years now. This just made my day. I love the GUI. I wonder... What type of bootloader this will use. Some modified versions of Lilo, or Grub?

Prolly not going to be lilo, it has been a while since lilo was a default BL for linux. Grub, both in the the gui and text bootloaders has been the BL of choice for most linux distros for some time now.

I am guessing that if this works with the android kernel, that it might not use a separate BL for those devices, but I would guess that again grub would be on new devices that are made to run this by default.

 

[rp181]

I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.

I'm curious as to why you say this. Is there any particular reason that performance would be better with Ubuntu over Android? If the kernel is the same, it would seem to me that the performance level achievable would be the same with either.

 

[Maribou]

Prolly not going to be lilo, it has been a while since lilo was a default BL for linux. Grub, both in the the gui and text bootloaders has been the BL of choice for most linux distros for some time now.

I am guessing that if this works with the android kernel, that it might not use a separate BL for those devices, but I would guess that again grub would be on new devices that are made to run this by default.

Cool.Since it is open source do you think the BL will be locked down? I'm actually kinda confused as to how this would work. Would we still have our locked down BL if we installed a port of the Ubuntu OS? Or would the Ubuntu OS totally replace everything?

 

[jimbridgman]

It looks like the original phone this is made for is a galaxy Nexus, so.... We should be able to get this running on our A2 fairly easily.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/02/ubuntu-for-smartphones/

As to the person who asked about why I feel the performance will be better, is because of how linux itself and the apps that are used, use hardware, android itself does not handle apps talking to hardware very well, and tend to kill battery in the process much faster.

I run linux on a ton of my computers and devices, and I will tell you, I have a netbook running ubuntu and I get 13 hours on battery with it, where with any other OS I get maybe 6 hours. And yes it runs an atom processor, and I have been able to test running android on it, and ran very poorly as far as battery and performance was concerned, even with linaro running.

The ONLY reason we will not be able to run the true ubuntu kernel with this is thanks to motorola locking this thing down so tight that we can not run any other bootloader or kernel on this device.

 

[jimbridgman]

Cool.Since it is open source do you think the BL will be locked down? I'm actually kinda confused as to how this would work. Would we still have our locked down BL if we installed a port of the Ubuntu OS? Or would the Ubuntu OS totally replace everything?

Sorry to say for our phone, we will not be able to run the whole thing. We will have to keep our bootloader and kernel, but basically run this from our /system partition much like flashing a ROM.

 

[Maribou]

Sorry to say for our phone, we will not be able to run the whole thing. We will have to keep our bootloader and kernel, but basically run this from our /system partition much like flashing a ROM.

Thank you for clearing that up. I was thinking that was how it would be. I still can't wait to try this out!

 

[farshad525hou]

This may be a dumb question.... but wasn't ubuntu designed to run on x86? How would it work on ARM?

Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app

 

[Maribou]

This may be a dumb question.... but wasn't ubuntu designed to run on x86? How would it work on ARM?

Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app

Ubuntu has come a long way. There are many different variations of it now. http://www.ubuntu.com/download/arm

 

[hankbizzo5]

WOW this is a real game changer here..... Have been thinking for a while what could be the next BIG thing looks like this is it..... Take a quad core with 2gb ram 32gb onboard and 32gb sd and this is going to be a beasted laptop in your pocket.....

Haha just read the other part of the page and it almost looks loke a direct quote.....

 

[Jimmy273]

I don't know if I'm remembering correctly but wasn't Canonical working with Motorola on Ubuntu for Android? And wasn't even the phone they demoed it on in the video an Atrix 2?

They are obviously different projects as Ubuntu for Android was to allow the ability to boot into Ubuntu from inside android much like Jim's Webtop hack, but I just thought I should bring it up.

 

[kingkos]

Generally speaking, I'm pretty excited about this too. I haven't been able to find any information on the ubuntu "dock ". Availability, price, inputs/outputs, etc. I think it will be awesome to have a dockable piece of hardware to run as a mobile or home device.

Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app

 

[rvalentin913]

Oh wow this is gonna be just amazing a true Linux mobile os I for one can't wait to load an Ubuntu based ROM onto my a2

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

 

[lkrasner]

This is going to be so awesome if it really works. I'm already setting up a dev environment to port it to my tablet, where it will really be awesome.

EDIT: PS will it be able to run normal andriod apps too?