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Internet Devices Get Their Own Ubuntu Version

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Jun 25, 2008 07:08 PM
from the your-own-personal-linux dept.
Linux Business Handhelds Hardware
Barence writes "A version of Ubuntu targeted specifically towards mobile internet devices (MIDs) has been released by Canonical, although there is presently only one product on the market which can use it. According to the company, the pithily titled Mobile Internet Device Edition 8.04 has been optimized for use with handheld internet platforms, and designed to run smoothly on Intel's Atom chips as well as with small touchscreen displays. This follows Canonical's announcement earlier this month that it would be creating a version of Ubuntu for netbook devices such as the Asus Eee PC and the Acer Aspire One called Netbook Remix."
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Submission: Internet devices get own Ubuntu version by Barence (1228440)
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  • Canonical are one of the big movers and shakers in the OSS world, and that they are putting so much effort into putting OSS on as many devices is possible is good to see. Of course it could be a futile effort IF Nokia buy out Symbian and open up it's source.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Xygon (578778)
      Symbian's OS might be great once open sourced, but the breadth and depth of applications built for Linux, as well as the design of Symbian OS for handhelds, not MIDs, says to me that it's a long ways from being better for this type of platform. Symbian can grow from small to larger, but I myself would rather have a full featured OS on my MID than a phone system turned OS.

    • Re:this is great (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Wednesday June 25 2008, @09:02PM (#23944143) Journal
      I could certainly be wrong; but I'm strongly inclined to doubt the viability of Symbian on the MID. Symbian is, to be sure, superior to Linux in terms of small footprint and low resource demands. However, Linux is far more general in terms of design and body of available software.

      Looking at the history of Palm OS, I am inclined to believe that expanding a specialized OS is harder than slimming a general one. Back in the day, Palm OS was hilariously superior as a handheld system. It ran practically forever on pitiful hardware and a couple of AAA's, and the system of "conduits" was a fairly elegant structure by which a handheld could function as an extension to a desktop computer. Over time, though, Palm OS didn't grow very well. Features like a network stack(sync over network was a nice feature; but just wasn't the same thing as actual network access, which never really meshed with the Palm OS structure) and interaction with mass storage devices with user visible filesystems just didn't fit with the old structure of tying data directly to applications.

      Even now, with the benefit of significant advances in silicon and battery technology, it would be hard to get a linux system to match the old Palm OS devices in their areas of strength; but the fact that Linux has by nature features that Palm OS could never really integrate properly has proven to be more important. In the case of Symbian, I would also note that Nokia's own N770, N800, and N810 "Internet Tablets" are Linux, rather than Symbian, devices.

      Since the purpose of a MID is to bring a limited number of the functions of a full computer to a handheld device in as close to their full form as possible(e.g. webbrowsing, not general purpose apps; but full webbrowsing, not cut down mobile phone crap), Linux is a pretty natural candidate; being, as it is, modular enough to shrink down while offering pretty much any computer function ready for the taking.

      • However, Linux is far more general in terms of design and body of available software. {...} Linux is a pretty natural candidate; being, as it is, modular enough to shrink down while offering pretty much any computer function ready for the taking.

        And this is where Microsoft somewhat missed the point with their offering.
        On one hand they have a windows vista which is a large resource hog and just can't be crammed inside a small device.
        On the other hand they have WinCE/Pocket PC which, well has *windows* in the name, and has some related elements in its API, but well, is just an entirely different beast which : both doesn't give the advantage that a derivative of an OS has in terms of features and is a descendant of a handheld system which limits its

      • I am inclined to believe that expanding a specialized OS is harder than slimming a general one.

        See also: DOS + Windows 3.1 -> Vista.

  • Kitchen appliances? (Score:3, Funny)

    by allanw (842185) on Wednesday June 25 2008, @08:13PM (#23943813) Homepage
    How about Ubuntu: Toaster edition?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by gawdonblue (996454)

      How about Ubuntu: Toaster edition
      The Cylons Were Created by Ubuntu. They Rebelled. They Evolved. They Look and Feel Human. Some are programmed to think they are Human. There are many copies. And they have a Plan...

    • Runs NetBSD! And Java!

    • Funny as it seems, I'm currently having a play with Ubuntu: Fire alarm edition, so you should be ok if Toaster Edition crashes and burns...

    • No, running your OS on a toaster only works if the OS is the brain spawn of an angry South African.

      • i hear they're working on a ubuntu: dildo edition. for all the fags who already like having dicks up their faggot asses. fucking faggots.

        Ah.

        So, they are taking on OS X as well?

  • I would be curious... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by toppavak (943659) on Wednesday June 25 2008, @10:43PM (#23944893)
    to hear from someone with a bit more understanding of the reason the builds posted for MID are specific to Menlow and McCaslin and whether / why these builds would or wouldn't work on more generic intel hardware such as present in the current eeePCs not to mention how difficult would it be to get it to run properly (just install the generic i386 kernel?).

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by gwniobombux (941420)
      From Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded FAQ: [ubuntu.com]

      # What's the difference between UME packages and regular i386 packages?

      • For the kernel there are a few changes to support the LPIA architecture better (TODO: check with Amit). For the user applications, they have a special rule to enable or disable resources when compiled for LPIA. We may use the hildon interface and/or disable something that we don't have/don't need. We want to improve usability for small screens and fingers.

  • The devs just wanted half-naked women calendars [wikipedia.org] on as many mobile devices as possible.

  • I have a strong suspicion this is going to get flamebaited, but seriously, although I use Ubuntu every day, and have enormous respect for Mark Shuttleworth (he appeared on our podcast: http://zatechshow.co.za/episode-14 [zatechshow.co.za]), I don't think Ubuntu is ready for mobile environments.

    You can blame the lack of hardware support and other vendors if you like, but the fact remains that the user experience for Linux laptops is pretty damned iffy. Power management isn't, hibernate and suspend sometimes works, sometimes do

  • Mobile Internet Device Edition 8.04
    May I humbly suggest: MIDOS?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by adona1 (1078711)
      In fairness......Leopard - an incremental upgrade. Apple tend to release them (comparatively) frequently.
      Vista - worst OS since Windows ME? There has been one release between ME & Vista (not counting 64 bit versions). So...worst out of 2 OS'? Eh.
      Hardy Heron - I've not personally come across many bugs, YMMV there I suppose.

      No good operating systems in 8 or 9 months? Man, they should be releasing new versions weekly!
      • one release? which is that? 2000? XP? server 2003? try again...
        • I was referring to consumer OS releases only, and to XP specifically. I pulled the release dates from here [wikipedia.org], so if I'm wrong, I blame the source :)

      • Re:No good OS has been released since late 2007 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pembo13 (770295) on Wednesday June 25 2008, @08:04PM (#23943747) Homepage
        I still hold that I like Windows ME, at least a user had a lot of control over what it did and did not do.

        • I'd have liked ME if MS hadn't disabled real mode driver support for no better reason than "just because". I had lots of hardware at the time that required stuff to be loaded from CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, and none worked in ME, not to mention having to boot from a floppy to play DOS games.

          Other than this, it seemed to be a 98SE with better icons, and I'd have enjoyed using it if it had been at all possible.

      • Re:No good OS has been released since late 2007 (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25 2008, @08:28PM (#23943923)

        No good OS release? What are you talking about? Emacs 22.2 came out in March!

      • Hardy Heron - I've not personally come across many bugs, YMMV there I suppose.

        Ok, let me point out a few I've experienced. Some of these are outright inexcusable, I think. I've filed bugs for some of them, or found them already in the bug database; none of them seem to be handled very well. My overall impression is that Ubuntu is grossly understaffed for solid quality control.

        • On my laptop, the DVD drive is not recognized at all after boot (it was recognized when installing from CD, though...must be an awfully stupid bug)
        • Sound not working properly (stutters). Maybe related to t
        • Most of these complaints are probably bugs in the underlying open source software they used. They can't fix Firefox 3 overnight or rewrite gnome. Maybe they can come up with some fixes and patches, but I think you're expecting too much from them. They don't write the whole thing like Microsoft. They don't charge like Apple or Microsoft. If you hate the quality control, help them. Offer your time. Also, file bug reports with Mozilla and Gnome. The DVD drive thing could be a different kernel on the in
      • ... you're not really in a situation to complain about ubuntu, being free an' all.

        • Vista's better than the playskool stressfest that was XP.

          Absolute hogwash. I bought a vista notebook, which now has Hardy on it, and it was slow to do anything. Not only is IO slow, but the way they have laid things out in the UI is slow too. The number of clicks it takes to do any system configuration stuff is painful. Combine that with digital restriction management and the whole experience sucks.

          If I was interested in running windows, I would prefer XP. Even better would be 2000, if they had bothered t

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Calinous (985536)

            Windows 2000 still has one update or another from time to time. It's totally off the update map, but my Win2000 workstation still announce me of some update or another once a month or so (true, they are critical security updates and might only be for IE, Media Player, and other Microsoft applications, not to the operating system proper)

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Brian Gordon (987471)
            Oh I don't dispute that out of the box, vista is absolutely terrible. In order for it to be remotely usable after a reinstall, I have to:
            -Disable the indexing service
            -Disable all the other crap services I don't need like the diagnostic service
            -Turn off slow Aero transparency and just use opaque Aero
            -Run the registry tweaks to get sane folder type identification (make EVERYTHING "all items" by default)
            -Disable all MRU features and make my start menu all pins
            -Disable IE and WMP.
            -Disable sidebar.
            • You forgot to one:
              -Install it inside VirtualBox on Linux. It's much easier to manage that way and the performance is about the same on VBox 1.6.x as native, at least subjectively on my hardware.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Windows Server 08 is rock solid and fast.

          That's not been my experience, bloated and slow come to mind.

          About 5GB for the install of the base OS alone. With the increase in popularity of the VM, where hardrive space is limited (particularly for Web servers) Windows Server 2008 will never fly. Pay for the license and the extra resources, just for .NET? No thanks, I'd rather use Mono on Debian.

          That's without even starting on the CPU and RAM resources, it looks all impressive when you first start it (using l

          • I don't know about how it performs as a server, but without any server roles and configured as a workstation it's an excellent environment.
        • Not sure if Windows 2008 is rock solid, but I like it because ... it's a free download, so I run it as a KVM virtual machine. Add to that Visual C++ Express Edition, and I don't have to purchase any MS software when I need it for teaching. Pretty cool.

          Nice homepage, by the way!

          • It's pretty clear that there would be some bugs. (Personally I haven't seen any bug to date in my Ubuntu 8.04 system - but I use it right now only sparsely.)

            On other side it is important for LTS release to get software as fresh as possible - because users are going to use it for quite some time.

            It is some fancy mix of Debian support concept and Ubuntu's strive to do often releases. I think what does Ubuntu for such LTS releases is pretty good idea.

            If you really want super stable desktop, I can rec

          • LTS means "Will be supported for a long time", that is, be receiving bug fixes and other updates for a while. It does not mean "First version works perfectly". Yes, people will be using Hardy for a long time, but they will not be using the version as released in April 2008, they'll be using the most recent version.

            It works the opposite way to what you're suggesting: obviously, all bugs need to be avoided. But bugs in 7.10 are of considerably more concern because there's only a relatively short timescale

        • Re:No good OS has been released since late 2007 (Score:4, Insightful)

          by indi0144 (1264518) on Thursday June 26 2008, @01:33AM (#23945751)
          I agree with you and I have seen this kind of input all around: Ubuntu 8.04 it's great on old hardware, specially laptops.. so, getting on topic, An Ubuntu release for PID's/NETBooks should be a killer. Anyone know If this release works on old laptops or it's just intended for NEW specific machines?

          Maybe that it's what I like about Ubuntu, it's Linux, it's mostly FOSS but they manage to do it in a commercial and asertive way, I mean, they release specific version that works on a variety of platforms, it's easy on Joe Beigebox and teaches to develop the community way of thinking, so you know somewhere on the intertubes theres an answer or some dude ready to help, also it teaches you that computing it's way more than start button and Ctrl+Z.

          Don't bash Ubuntu for being so user friendly or the "bloat" in the GUI.. think that most of the people starting on Ubuntu will move forward to another distros as they advance in their knowledge, someday I will make the step to Slackware I love it, but I just don't feel ready, but hey! I'm loving learning this stuff as many people out there. No one of them are 1337s, maybe some will become.. lend a hand to the little brothers, you just don't know what ta13nts are coming in the way.

          • What i want to see, is an OS which is compiled specifically for the Atom CPUs...
            As i understand it, these processors are in-order processors, and therefore rely on the compiler to schedule execution correctly for their internal resources, as opposed to a full blown core2 which will reorder the instruction stream on the fly and thus compensate for less optimal compilers.

            Doing this should yield quite significant performance improvements on the Atom processors...

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by gibbsjoh (186795)

          Not tried it on new hardware, but I was really impressed last night when I put it on a 3 year old Toshiba Sat Pro - it just worked(tm). Even let me disable trackpad clicking without faffing about. Played AVI and MP4/H.264 with minimal fuss. Wifi will be the next step.

          I love tinkering but sometimes just want a distro to work - 8.04, whatever bugs aside, seems to fit the bill, to the point where I can finally recommend it to friends and co-workers.

          My 0.02.

    • These things come in waves. Give it time. Snow Leopard may prove to be a great improvement, updates to Hardy will fix the initial problems.

      I'm afraid we're just going to have to wait until Windows 7 for a better Microsoft OS

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Xygon (578778)
      ZOMG, they're working on their next version, this one must have sucked! "Leopard=fail, Apple is already working on 10.6" Since when is working on the next version of your OS a sign of failure, and not a sign of good business sense and continual development?
      • When apple can't fix it and they have to move on completely. Authenticating with LDAP is a nightmare on 10.5. I've been trying to upgrade a lab to leopard, and it's very painful. I wouldn't even consider migrating servers yet. Most of the NeXT guys retired. This was their first big release out of that and it shows. I know how they feel because I've had problems with releases too. The difference is that I don't charge for my work.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      yes because there are only 3 operating systems in existence. There is obviously only one linux distro, and all the other ones on distrowatch are fakes

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by queldor (1184789)
      What about Freebsd 7.0, they did a wonderful job of that.

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