Ubuntu coming to Android smartphones

bring. it. on.

 

oh this is going to be fun :nerd:

 

my main OS has been Ubuntu/Linux Mint for the past 4 years, i use Windows only to play games, i'm never going back to Windows as main OS, Linux does all i need and more whether it's web, music, movies, , work, only thing missing is proper gaming, looking forward to the day i can play real games from big developers on Linux and by the looks of it this could happend in the near future and that's great news.

as for Ubuntu on Android, definitely curious.

 

I don't see how Canonical is going to attract mainstream consumers, especially the ones who have amassed a rather large library of paid apps. Unless they can run Android apps on it, I doubt they can attract them except for the more technically inclined user or ones who freeload anyways (by only downloading free apps).

Personally, I can't fully transition without sacrificing my library as I do have paid items on my Google Account, plus, I have no issues with Android. However, I do want to try Ubuntu on phones.

deltatux

 

agree^

unless they can run android apps on it, i cant see any reason to use it instead of android

 

the article's title = Ubuntu to android smartphones.. it's not ubuntu smartphones.. there's quite a difference.

here's what i think..

if it's going to be Ubuntu to Android phones then i'm sure android apps will run on ubuntu phones, this way you get best of both worlds, the power & benefits of linux ubuntu + added bonus.. Android apps compatibility.

if on the other hand they meant ubuntu smartphones (generic meaning for your typical touchscreen phone) then i guess android apps won't run because ubuntu phones will be in a category of its own and the market will have 4 smartphones choices, iOS, Android, W8 and.. Ubuntu where every platform got its own market and apps selection.

but imho since the article clearly says Ubuntu to Android smartphones and not just ubuntu smartphones (big difference).. i think its gonna be ubuntu + android apps compatibility.

maybe i'm overanalizing everything but to me the clue is in the title. Ubuntu to ANDROID smartphones which smells like a Canonical/Google deal to me $$$.

 

Wait, what? Emulating Linux through JVM? wtf? How does that even works?

 

It would be also cool if it didn't send search data to Amazon.

 

Based on the direction Ubuntu has been going on desktops and late news why would someone want to put that to their phones and actually use it ?

 

Good luck running this POS on a sub $600 phone. You can check the requirement on their site...

 

They are Ubuntu smartphones, it's just that the Ubuntu Mobile OS can run on Android hardware is all. The prototype they've been showing off is Ubuntu Mobile on the Galaxy Nexus which they're going to release the image for you to flash on your Galaxy Nexus soon.

The first batch of Ubuntu smartphones are just Android phones with the Ubuntu OS, they're then working with hardware vendors to make phones that have been designed with the OS in mind.

The person you quoted was mistaken, while there are efforts to run desktop Ubuntu on your phone, it's actually not through JVM. It's actually just running the Ubuntu desktop atop the Android kernel (hence why the phone must be rooted for it to work)

deltatux

 

It is not emulation, it's virtualization. Two totally diferent things...

Yeah, the news is kind confusing here... The Ubuntu to Android is kind old news, it runs side by side with Android sharing the same kernel, but it has not been launched yet. The Ubuntu Smartphones is the real news. It has been announced in the first day of this year and is the biggest news from Canonica...

Because you can run almost any original x86 application in the arm version of linux. This way you can have almost anything (useful) in your phone, and it been officially supported by a big company is a great deal...

 

If the software is open sourced already, all you really need to do is just to recompile them to ARM (though optimization to the ARM architecture would be wise though).

deltatux

 

This looks a lot like Meego and WP combined. I am curious about its battery life compared to android's. Lets see when they release the image/rom

 

oh i get it now, thanks

so almost certainly no android app compatibility with Ubuntu, bit of a bummer indeed, but then again it wasn't totally unexpected.

i'm still interested in Ubuntu based phones, perhaps the thing that's going to make it or break it will be the apps selection, but imo i think Ubuntu phones are going to be more successful than W8 phones, mainly because Linux is under the hood which makes the OS very dependable and cost effective, and because so far linux/unix based phones such as Android and iPhones has been a huge success since the start, and Ubuntu phones won't be any different.. or at least it shouldn't.

also more competition is a good thing since consumers will be able to pick a W8/iOS/Android/Ubuntu depending on their needs and preference.

 

If they released in exactly when Meego was announced to die, they should have been more successful.