Ubuntu Smartphone to ship from October 2013
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Speed Weed
Lord help anyone who buys one of them then!
Ubuntu is difficult enough to make run on a PC, never mind using it to send texts, make calls, and all the other 1001 things we do with our Smartphones!
Chillin
I still can't see the market for this.
Between Blackberry, IOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 (and the supposed future Samsung OS); the market is pretty sealed and covered. Who are they trying to attract with this offering?
lucidus
"Story does not exist"
Speed Weed
Certainly existed about 30 minutes or so ago, when I posted my comment about Ubuntu! 😉
Really regret now that I didn't also add that I've downloaded all of Nixie Pixel's fangirl YouTube vids on Ubuntu, and have watched them until my eyes hurt, but Ubuntu isn't all it's cracked up to be. 😉
scoutingwraith
I still think Ubuntu can have a chance within the market. Ill judge when the phone comes out.
seaplane pilot
:3eyes: Huh!? it almost installs itself and configures the hardware too.
Tat3
On common hardware yes, some rare stuff might/will not work as it should and there is some work to do for the end user.
I just cant see where Ubuntu is going to fit on mobile OS market, sure Android made room for more Linux related OS's as people are not afraid of Linux, but to replace or complete with it or with Windows Phone, iOS, Tizen, Jolla and others... Dont know what is going on with Mozilla OS or whatever it was called but that might be up there also. Meh.
seaplane pilot
Indeed as there is always work to be done configuring non native hardware with all types of Operating Systems.
"Ubuntu! Linux for Dummy's"
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2688260732657?r=1&cm_mmca2=pla&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-Book-_-Q000000633-_-2688260732657
Why are people bitching about a new Operating System to run on Mobile hardware is beyoond me. If Ubuntu Mobile goes well there will be all types of Mobile Distros available. It broadens the gate to so called tweaking and less restrictive operations of said device, maybe. :infinity:
The mobile operating systems (OS) used by modern smartphones include Google's Android, Apple's iOS, Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry OS, Samsung's Bada, Microsoft's Windows Phone, Hewlett-Packard's webOS, and embedded Linux distributions such as Maemo and MeeGo. Such operating systems can be installed on many different phone models, and typically each device can receive multiple OS software updates over its lifetime. A few other upcoming operating systems are Mozilla's Firefox OS and Canonical Ltd.'s Ubuntu Phone.
Tat3
Depends on the point of view if that is a good thing or not. It's going to be a nightmare for people who make software and want it to run on different phones. Windows Phone, Symbian(?), Android and iOS is a lot to ask. Even the fragmented Android is a problem as the amount of devices, user configs and so is just amazing. Some nice tools so one code can be ported to all of these should help a bit but prolly not be very optimized and not make it 100% done, some stuff might work on some phones, others need tweaking and so and so...
Neo Cyrus
Yeah, it configured my GPU fan into not working any faster than an extremely low percent. After tons of searching I never found an answer. I basically can't run Ubuntu on my PC without crashes due to the GPU overheating and the GPU eventually dying.
Pyro the Dragun
This is the only reason I'm looking forward to having a mobile Ubuntu distro. Once this is in the wild it won't be long before other Linux versions are similarly ported to run natively on a variety of phones.
You can already run bunches of different Linux distros on mobile devices, but for the most part these operate like virtual machines and can't directly use the phone's capabilities (making calls, texting, etc.). Having these distros tweaked to incorporate those things and run natively on a phone would be awesome.
Tat3
More different OS and hardware configurations = more buggy software for the end user.
deltatux
Huh? Ubuntu is arguably as easy and a lot more powerful than Windows.
The issue with Ubuntu Mobile OS is that it's basically doing everything that BB10 is doing but an open variant of it. I also fail to see how they'll capture people away from Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. These platforms have already saturated the market, there's really little wiggle room for other small players to jump on board and expect mass adoption that will encourage app developers to port their stuff over.
As much as I would like Sailfish OS to be successful, it's in the same boat as Ubuntu Mobile. Mozilla Firefox OS is probably the one that makes the least sense...
deltatux
Denial
I'll agree that it's more powerful in the right hands, but it's definitely not as easy. For someone doing basic stuff on a system that's supported, yeah it can be pretty straight forward, but if you try to install it on non-supported hardware, or more complex systems, or do anything outside of what's considered standard; there is lot of hackery involved. What's worse is finding help to said problems point you to threads in forums that over 5 years old and a solution which doesn't apply to the newest version.
deltatux
For the most part, for desktop support, Ubuntu has been excelling in this front. Ubuntu arguably have a lot of user-focused documentation that is available on their website. I would even say, more than the user-oriented documentation available for Windows. Rarely do I have to refer to forums to solve many of the Ubuntu issues that I do encounter from time to time. You can just check the Official Ubuntu Documentation website. Unlike many proprietary software, open source software relies on proper and easy to read documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/. Often the Community Wiki is a lot more useful than the forums: https://help.ubuntu.com/community
Now, there's also the debate over KDE and GNOME, personally I find KDE is a lot easier to work with than GNOME, but there are many Linux users who would disagree but that's a whole different kettle of fish.
deltatux
sykozis
I just think KDE is fugly....
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the market... Hopefully the end result with be better quality phones....since the focus on the phone part seems to have been lost.. I'm on Android phone #3 now (had to RMA the last due to faulty antenna) and the "phone" functionality has been a massive disappointment. Why do I have a phone that can browse the internet uninterrupted....but more often than not can't make a simple phone call?
If Ubuntu is going to enter the mobile market, they need to ensure a certain level of quality for phones running it and ensure it doesn't become as fragmented as Android. They also need QUALITY phones that fit different pricing segments....not just high quality, high end phones...and sub-par quality phones across the budget and entry-level price points.
Tat3
Do you think that common PC user gives a f*ck about documentation or is even trying look for solution ? It's just not how stuff works, with Windows it's just call that neighbours kid who knows something and he'll tell you what to do. If it's a big problem then it's a big problem and people are just not interested in using hour or more to try to solve something computer related. I really wish that people would spend 15min trying to look for a solution (might be a simple one) and if they cant figure it out, then ask someone to help.
seaplane pilot
lazy ****s
seaplane pilot
use GNOME or XFC
Denial
I agree that I wish people would look but even with documentation it isn't that simple on linux. Trying to install ubuntu on a RAID-0 setup and keep my RAID-5 intact was like reading through a dissertation on quantum field theory.
Microsoft is no better, but at least I can do a simple google search that will return reasonable answers. Problem with ubuntu is half the stuff returned is 4 years old and is only applicable to like 6.10 or some random build. So I posted on one of the ubuntu forums asking about, I was met with a response like "why would you want to do that on a desktop" or "blah blah company provides poor driver support".
It was a frustrating experience, not to mention dual monitors or advanced video card support, or the ASUS drivers that were at the time non-existent or any of the hundred issues I ran into.
That being said, I do run it on my Dell E1505 and it works well there -- but saying it's easier than Windows is just ridiculous imo.
