Ubuntu Touch Port-a-Thon 48
jppiiroinen writes "Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has released the developer preview images for 4 different devices and a SDK Alpha on 21st day. Now two days after it seems that the community has kicked in and the Devices list is growing by the minute on their Ubuntu Touch Port-a-thon."
Re:N900 (Score:5, Informative)
Doubtful, though multitouch features wouldn't work. The lack of RAM and slow processor would be far greater inhibitors.
Re:So, what's the verdict? (Score:4, Informative)
There is a serious lack of features still. GSM data doesn't even work, and the only apps are the dialer, web browser, video player and camera.
Eye candy would be nice if it wasn't full of fake data and static images (see calculator and weather apps)
It's a chroot environment running on top of a bare-bones Android install (Cyanogen kernel, actually). It's based off 12.10 and actually includes the standard repo, so you can install anything that's been compiled for arm (or compile it yourself, godforbid) There's no terminal app, so you have to do all this remotely. You can try installing X11, but I wasn't able to get it to work. I think the Touch UI is locking the framebuffer. (if X even has support for it)
Re:So, what's the verdict? (Score:2, Informative)
The interface is pretty sluggish and the app selection is very minimal. I would recommend most people hold off for now unless you are a die hard Ubuntu fan or plan on developing apps for the OS. It's an interesting concept and I think the UI looks cool (people that like Unity may disagree with me here.) The whole idea of using swipe gestures as opposed to buttons that always remain on screen is also something that differentiates itself from Android and iOS.
I tried it on the Nexus 10 and I'm interested to see how the dual-pane/multi-tasking features will work in practice after watching the video with Mark Shuttleworth showing it off.