W00t! Can't wait... my N7 has been collecting dust. Writing special-purpose scientific tools that work on the linux desktop and on N7 seems a much better answer than porting to Android.
I don't even use Ubuntu for the desktop or the laptop, what motivation do I have to use it on a phone or tablet? How about making Unity less than an unholy mess before branching out into other form-factors?
I don't even use Apple operating systems on my phone or any other device, what motivation do I have to use it on an iphone, ipad or other apple product?
Look at it like this. They may have cool new features not seen on existing tablets. Your favourite company might then incorporate and, hopefully, improve upon the feature and you now have a new feature on your platform that may not have been planned before.
No one is forcing you to use it but it still has potential to positively affect your tablet experience, even if it's indirectly.
You're commenting (and just created an account) on a site called hacker news and you cannot think of something to do with it?
- build apps or port apps to work better on it. I can also do this without having to resort to Java like Android if I want to do things the recommended and supported way. I am also guessing that running su/sudo on it will not feel like an ugly hack to do like it is on Android[1] since it should be built in.
- run scripts (you can do that on Android with the Android Scripting layer and the terminal emulator, but it still has its quirks).
- easier access to things that are harder to deal with on Android or iOS (development tools) via apt. Perhaps even something like Blender or Gimp will run decent on it.
There are lots of possibilities. Perhaps not if all you want to do is browse the web and check email. However, I consider it another way to hack around and build things.
It wasn't meant to be a jab at your newness exactly. I just thought you're rushing into commenting too quickly perhaps? I don't know, I didn't even make an account on Hacker News for over a year after reading and didn't comment much right away afterwards still. Everyone is different though in that regard and just because it suited me does not mean it does for everyone, so take my example at face value.
I just loved the comments and insight on here and felt I shouldn't post much unless I really felt I had something to add to the conversation. If you haven't yet, I recommend reading the FAQ area[1] about posting stories and comments. It's really good information that seems to get skipped over sometimes.
I love their solution to run apps side by side, by using the phone version for the smaller app. Android is the only other platform that could really do it, with both widescreen tablets and apps where the same binary can run on phones and tablets.
That's too bad. I love the Ipad hardware, but I'm just not a fan of the Apple interface. Being locked out of my own computer drives me nuts--especially whenever I try to watch something in Flash.
Yeah, that's unfortunately the big hangup that keeps me from adopting Apple (mobile) stuff past app development reasons. It's too limited really for hacking and modding. Sure, there's some groups out there that mod with jailbreaking to add features, but if you want to add an entire OS, you're just kind of out of luck. There's a small part of me that likes seeing how I can get around all that without source, but after a while, I rather stop fighting it and just use a platform for modding/hacking that makes it easier. Even custom ROMs for Android are usually a bit quirky and full of bugs if they're running on anything other than Nexus devices, due to a mismatch in driver versions and the OS version much of the time.
If you want something to just hack around on and mod stuff, I recommend getting a Nexus 7 for that and use your ipad for your normal usage. They're cheap, battery life is good (as far as Android goes, it's 7-8 hours for me normally). Ubuntu for tablets is to be supported for it and there's an unofficial webos port for it out as well. That plus the entire AOSP android source and plenty of ROMs out there to take features from.
Unlocking + rooting Nexus devices is dead simple. Basically plug into USB, run a few terminal commands and you're done. Granted it makes taking updates a bit harder (if you mod past this), but if you're rooted and unlocked, you usually do it yourself anyways versus taking a direct update.
Yet another announcement by Canonical that isn't backed by a "Buy" button. I understand that it's not exactly easy for them, but it's becoming a bit boring how they keep announcing new "products" with no way of actually purchasing them. Couldn't they have waited for a year or so for this to be ready to ship and then launch it? At the very least it'd be good to have "Available to buy in July, 2013" or whatever.
There are plenty of reasons. Virtually no technology / OS vendor announces and ships on the same day. Apple gives a few weeks lead time between announcement and shipping too.
There's a big difference between providing the OS to download and shipping a product. I wouldn't expect to be able to buy it and have it 2 days later, but a pre-order option would be good.
Sorry, they're releasing images in two days. Seriously, though! Not everything has to be instant. They're putting themselves out to gauge interest and probably lure OEM vendors to their booth at MWC.
"and probably lure OEM vendors to their booth at MWC"
This is the whole problem, isn't it? When Google wants to make a device, they call up Asus or whomever and have it made. When Apple wants to make a device, they hire folks to do it, and those folks call the manufacturers for the parts. Why does Canonical expect the OEM to call them first on the basis of pretty mockups?
It's been picked by all major media outlets. Canonical is trying to create a buzz so major vendors start paying attention to it. I think they have been really successful in doing that. If Ubuntu comes with 10 basic apps that I use let's say Chrome browser and an ePUB reader. I would totally switch.
Why should major vendors take this more seriously than consumers? It's not like they can buy the product either. If I were Google or Apple, I'd be a lot more worried about a cool Kickstarter than a vaporous brochure site. Three kids with passion trying to get funding are worth more to me than a dozen graphic artists at Canonical with no idea how electricity works. I'm happy for them to prove me wrong, but this is what, the third or fourth thing they've "announced" with absolutely no idea how they're going to produce? Saying "I don't know how to build this, but I intend to" is a lot better than "If you call me with hardware, I'd love to art direct you." Why would anybody capable of manufacturing a device bother calling them rather than just making a shitty Android device on their own?
Major vendors have capability to make hardware and not consumers. Consumers are end goal but not where it begins.
How preposterous of you! They are going to release images in 2 days. What do you expect them to do come to your house and give you a lecture on electricity. You seem to know everything about manufacturers and Canonical and their internal communication. Of course Canonical is talking to all parties. Do you want them to include you in the discussion? I like your negative attitude.
That's exactly why I don't understand why they continue to produce marketing material rather than actually getting the work done to make a product.
> Of course Canonical is talking to all parties. Do you want them to include you in the discussion?
No, but they seem to be mainly interested in including me, rather than people who might get it done. Is it so hard for a company to call another company? How many years before there was a Nexus tablet did Google tell us they were going to make one? Did their marketing ever send you the message "hey, we don't know anybody at Asus, but if you do, would you mind sending them by our booth at the next convention? Thanks!"
This seems to be aimed at developers more than at end users - note that big segment at the end where they plug the SDK (it was the same with Ubuntu Mobile). Right now it looks like they're trying to get apps written so that the platform is actually usable when released to consumers.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm now using Cinnamon as a desktop environment. I really, really wanted Unity to work, but I've had continued performance problems which make it ultimately unusable for me. I understand Ubuntu's need to turn a profit, but I really wish they'd focus on making Unity stable and performant before chasing down these other opportunities...
Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probably different from the average Unity user.
Any mobile development will help laptop and desktop users. They recently cut down 200MBs of RAM usage in Unity. All apps from phone and tablet will be portable to desktop. I sincerely hope Ubuntu pursue's it to the end.
I find that Unity feels sluggish and inelegant, performance wise. There is always a slight delay when I open the dash, and I generally dislike it's behavior. However, I stay with it because I dislike the alternatives, so no point switching for me.
I think this is good news for Unity on the desktop because it means they will be tweaking the hell out of it for performance. I read that it's already better in 13.04, and we can probably expect it to get better over the releases.
Other than that, I wouldn't use Ubuntu on tablets right now. I'm not enough of an early adopter to switch to this OS which is - let's face it - probably not ready for prime time and still pretty buggy. The first versions of Android sucked, I don't see why this would be an exception. Nailing it on the first try is very hard.
I really hope Canonical doesn't intend to release a quad core Cortex A15 Ubuntu tablet with even the slightest lag or stuttering. I'd rather they delay it for months until they fix that, instead of releasing it like that. People are not going to take that for tablets anymore, and not with today's hardware.
From what I read somewhere, Ubuntu for phones was pretty CPU intensive, which could mean it didn't have hardware acceleration. I did notice some stutters when switching between apps in their own video. So that better not be happening when they actually release the devices, or people aren't going to give it a second thought.
In Ubuntu mobile's case, the first impression will literally decide whether Ubuntu has a future in mobile or not. So they better make sure everything is absolutely flawless, instead of hurrying up to ship it. If Ubuntu for phones and tablets has the same performance issues as on desktop, then might as well call it a dead-end now.
Sadly this sounds more like the Debian way than the Ubuntu way. I jumped ship on Ubuntu around 9.04 when it felt like they just started tacking on features without major quality control that led to degradation of Ubuntu.
I tried 12.04 not too long ago, and some of the same lagginess/weird quirks were still there. Now that many ubuntians are now trying to push for less testing/more releasing in Debian, it's like a skyscraper company telling their foundation builders to use sack concrete instead of whats been tested and proven to work for many years.
Some of you might have had bad experiences with Unity. I had some too, when it launched. But as it stands now it's integrated in my workflow and it's much faster/easier than anything I've experienced so far with Windows 7.
I think for a lot of people that don't do much on a computer, Unity/Ubuntu makes way more sense than it's iOS and Win counterpart. It's cleaner, there is less "clutter" on the screen.
Even from a tweaker/hacker perspective, when you are not working/coding and just want to relax and watch some content, Unity does the job pretty well.
I prefer their vision of the post-PC era than what Win/iOS propose. At least it's an open platform and it integrates fluidly in your activity flow.
For me the Dash is now finally fast/almost instant as opposed to 12.10. All these improvements will be in 13.04 (and the select safe ones will be backported to 12.04 over time).
I'm not using Unity, so I won't talk to that point, only the phone/tablet opportunity you think they should be ignoring.
Apple is already a heavyweight in this area and Google/Samsung have a dominant second place. Viable tablet alternatives need to establish a foothold now, before there is too much lock in from the existing entrants. Every iOS or Play app that I buy will make me (as a consumer) less likely to switch platforms. This is true for me, even as an early adopter. For a normal consumer that doesn't have the free cash, nor the desire for constant change, it is a killer.
Every month that they fail to have this out the door, they lose potential customers.
I actually think the tablet market is a lot more open for the taking than the smartphone market, contrary to what many tech writers thought a while ago that it's just going to be an "iPad market" just like the iPod market.
The smartphone market is almost 1 billion units per year now (or will be this year), with the potential for 3-4 billion units. The tablet market is only around a 100 million market right now, with the potential for at least 2 billion units per year.
The biggest chunk of these markets will belong to free and open source operating systems like Android and Ubuntu, so Ubuntu definite has a chance here. But most of the those markets will be lower-end devices, obviously, and Android can already work on very low-end hardware. Plus it has a much bigger momentum. If Ubuntu wants to have a significant market share of that, it needs become as "lean" as possible on low-end hardware, and make sure it makes people excited about it, so it gets a lot of buzz/marketing for free.
I tried to use Cinnamon and it was a very poor experience. It is very immature, simple things that are the norm on existing desktop environments are not there. I can't say I use Unity too much, I'm more of a KDE user, but Unity is a lot more stable.
When I used Unity at work, it would literally freeze every few days, and I'd have to ssh in from another machine and restart it. Tried Gnome 3 for a while but eventually gave up and went with Cinnamon.
Same for me re: Unity. On Gnome 3, it was a 50/50 chance that the screensaver would be frozen when I returned to work the next morning. Sometimes dropping to a console and killing the screensaver process would work, but a lot of the time it required a full restart of gdm.
What simple things was Cinammon lacking? I actualy enjoy using it more than any other DE I ever used. It keeps the traditional things I want and has a clean modern feel, and is easy to customize without overwhelming you with choices.
You are fully entitled to use whatever you want and enjoy it. However, the interface design of Windows 98 is 15 years away from being "modern." The best way you can sell this kind of design is to call it timeless, or say that one shouldn't fix what isn't broken.
Not to be pedantic, but it looks to me like they are both talking about the same thing. The GP sounds like he is missing things in Cinnamon that are taken for granted in modern DE's, that it is simple and at the level that modern DE's were when they were less mature.
One might say that Windows 98 is "less mature" than today's OS's, and if Cinnamon has features comparable to Windows 98, one might think of it being less mature as well.
I find that the Sun is not up to par with more modern stars, and the features it has are archaic and not in tune with the needs of today's users.
Oh, what, you want some examples of what I mean by that? Why? Can't you just accept it when I say that it's obsolete and we really should be looking for a new solution?
(I don't think you're being pedantic, just missing my point :)
I tried Gnome 3 for a few weeks, went back to a simple window manager for awhile (I had used Openbox for years), and also tried Unity and KDE4. Turns out I'm used to a certain kind of workflow based on "traditional" desktops. I prefer having resizable floating windows to maximized windows, I rely on too much desktop infrastructure to just use a window manager anymore, and KDE has extremely busy and cluttered interfaces. I've never seen anything like it, it was overwhelming.
I've tried Unity on 13.04; Canonical's make a lot of tweaks to the environment and it's much faster and the apps in the dock launch instantly on click.
Of course, I never use full desktop environments anyways; all of them are too big and resource-heavy, and their animations and cool whizzbangery always distracts me and interrupts my workflow. I only use WindowMaker now with GNUStep apps (with the exception of Firefox). It's old-school, but it works.
I was using fluxbox, but then I had a stint with dwm (http://dwm.suckless.org/). I got interested in haskell and finally settled on xmonad (http://xmonad.org/) with dmenu which seems to be insanely stable.
This is the most distraction free environment with absolutely no limitations (in the scope of my work) I have ever worked with.
Not to mention it'll run on any netbook easily, or other low spec computer.
When Unity came out, I reverted to gnome-classic for a while and tried Cinnamon, but found it to be the least stable - my system would occasionally freeze. Now I'm on Unity. It has improved to the point that it meets my needs (granted, I've only got one or two monitors running at a time) and stays out of the way. (I've got Docky running, which I find makes it easier to switch between applications.) I have also come to appreciate the elegance of the HUD as I've learned to use it.
I have to use Ubuntu at work, and Unity took a lot of customization to be workable.
Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating.
The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window location, so that you are moving the window as if by a long invisible stick, not by its original grab location.
The overlay scrollbars don't interact well with Eclipse; JUnit running tests outputs file paths that Eclipse turns into hyperlinks, and the hyperlink mouseover stops the scrollbar from from being triggered when the pointer approaches the child window border. The overlay scrollbar thing doesn't seem to have been fully thought through.
Gnome-terminal is one of the slowest terminals I've ever used; it would literally slow down development by blocking on log-verbose tests. I've gone back to my old stalwart of rxvt.
I don't understand the difference between Windows key and Alt key command prompts. I've given up trying to figure out how to register my various user-directory installed applications with the taskbar thing. So I've stopped using both, and now I start all my apps from the terminal, with shell scripts to redirect output if they are chatty.
The Alt-Tab task switcher is broken just like the OS X one is, switching between its concept of applications rather than top level windows. This means alt-tabbing between Eclipse and Firefox would bring the Downloads window to the fore, leaving the actual browser hidden behind maximized Eclipse. Usability disaster. With some difficulty and playing around with preference managers that come with warning labels, I've rebound the keys to a slightly more usable window switcher.
Oh, and the fun I had when I tried to bind Ctrl+Alt+F12 to a command in Eclipse; took me back decades to switching terminals with Alt+F keys.
In short, Ubuntu Unity is horrifically bad. Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers. The trough in the middle is very ill served.
>Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers
I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new users who are not completely helpless with computers Linux Mint LTS with MATE is likely a better choice than Ubuntu. MATE is very Windows-like; there's a lot that can be configured through the GUI in that DE and, FWIW, I have had a good amount of success converting Windows users to it.
As for those who are "so inept [they] only use a browser", well, not all of such users can afford an iPad, especially not in those parts of the world where they have both significantly higher prices on iPads and a lower average income than the US (e.g., Eastern Europe), and even Ubuntu with Unity delivers great value to them. It's an application that's not to be taken lightly, either.
Finally, Ubuntu makes it relatively easy to switch your the desktop environment. I admit I haven't seen any usability studies nor have I seen someone try to do it but I imagine a motivated middle-level user with sudo rights should be able to follow a tutorial on YouTube [1] on how to replace Unity with Cinnamon or MATE even if something more advanced replacing Ubuntu with Linux Mint is beyond him or her.
Edit: If you have access to gcc/g++ at work but not sudo rights (which is a very crappy situation to be in indeed) you can try to compile a different WM/DE in a local directory for your use and then create an ~/.xsession file to start it.
You must have done this already but for the benefit of whoever else might struggling with overlay scrollbars I'll note that you can disable them by putting
I already disabled the overlay scrollbar, it's trivial to fix with a Google search. None of this is hard for me, just enormously time consuming for all the broken things I need to fix or work around. I'm no neophyte; I've been using Linux since 1996, a copy of Red Hat 3.0.3 ("picasso", Wikipedia tells me) from a magazine cover CD.
The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.
>> The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked.
Even though I'm not a fan of Unity it's because I miss small thinks like being able to right click on a panel and add stuff or all the cool desktop themes which are missing in Unity.
Having said that, calling modern Linux desktops half-backed is either a clueless (and you make your case that you're not clueless) or possibly having an ulterior motives for drawing such a flawed conclusion. Modern Linux desktops are no more flawed than Windows.
Want to see a frustrating Windows UI bug? Put your start/task bar or whatever it's called at the top of the desktop. Then run Cygwin XWin and open a new X window. It will come up under the start bar/task bar. Several other programs do to. That bug has existed for like a decade from my recollection going back to at lest XP if not 2000.
Microsoft has like thousands of engineers, how hard would it be to fix that?
> The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked.
I think this is touching on a good point, I would much enjoy seeing one desktop environment being kept stable in terms of UI and slowly polished to perfection, instead of continuously starting from scratch and inevitably coming up with something half-baked. And this is not specific to Linux, just look at the Windows 8 mess.
Apple comes closest, at least they keep the rough lines constant, but they have the bad habit of needlessly replacing parts of the UI and losing features along the way.
You might want to re-think the part about the fantastic command-line experience. You can't auto-complete command arguments, even if you get it working for some commands, it won't work with all of them (i.e. 3rd party tools). Of course, you can try to remember the single-letter shortcuts, but they are often illogical because the letter is already taken by some other option.
I have Linux, OS X, Windows and Solaris systems at home. The one with by far the best command-line experience is Debian-flavoured Linux. Living without GNU coreutils is all but intolerable on other flavours, while the reliability of apt-get for making almost everything else trivially available is hard to beat.
I'm on Debian (unstable) too, I like it very much! I was commenting on the command line (bash, etc.), after learning PowerShell it just seems so... primitive. It's text-oriented, so you have to parse everything and there is no automatic tab-completion except for the commands themselves (i.e. I can't type nm<tab> --ti<tab> agg<tab> for `nmap --timing aggressive`). This is normal, as bash is MUCH MUCH older than PS, so I'm not expecting it to be on par with it, but I can't help comparing them...
Like Unity, Cinnamon has had a lot of work done since Unity came out. Judging either of today's offerings based on experiences from when Unity was whelped isn't doing anyone any favours.
I really hope they get the tablet interface right. Unity on the desktop has been a bumpy road. Although it's getting better, each release has its quirks. I'm having a lot of issues with their new web app integration for instance.
Since Ubuntu on the tablet is a literal clean slate, they can at least avoid the puzzle of making existing applications fit their desktop guidelines. A lot of popular apps still don't use the app menu for instance (GUI version of Vim, Eclipse, and even that new Steam for Ubuntu).
I'm still using Unity on two of my laptops. (They're both Thinkpads, which are very popular for Linux users.) Unity definitely still has performance and stability problems, as well as significant UI glitches.
I don't think I've had more than a week of uptime out of either laptop, and I think the median is something like 2 days. That was not the case with earlier versions of Ubuntu on the same hardware.
I like the ideas behind Unity, but the execution has been terrible. It's pretty obvious they're focused on arbitrary schedules over a solid user experience.
I have nothing against Unity. Sure, it had it's issues when it started, but the LTS version is quite solid.
Running a laptop from an Ubuntu OEM (System 76) with high end CPU (I7) and SSD I can't complain about performance or compatibility issues at all (though I'm only on a dual 1080p config).
Steam also works quite OK. Though most of the time I'm in a terminal with vim, so I don't care much about most Unity features. It looks nicer than the dated GNOME 2 / 3 / KDE stuff though (personal taste).
Also, I really got used to Ubuntu One file sync and music store and indicators.
This is a really great step. I previously though Ubuntu was going to ruin itself by getting into the mobile game so late but it seems like their solution might be unified enough (as a result of the time they spent watching others) to actually gain some foothold. I have a Nexus 7 and if they can allow me to dual boot somehow I will be all over this. I'd love to have a little touchscreen Ubuntu PC in my backpack. I'm still not convinced I want it on my phone but they have my attention on the other three screens.
I still don't get it. This emphasises on "productivity". Tablets, lacking any efficient ways of input are not productivity devices. They are great at consuming content, of course. There is a reason the iPad and the Kindle Fire rules the field.
There are vast portions of the workforce for whom productivity does not depend on getting stuff out of ones brain and into the computer, like it does for us. For lots of people, primarily managers, productivity involves getting stuff out of the computer and into the brain. Touch interfaces are very productive for these kinds of tasks.
Typically these people are the ones holding the purse strings, so targeting them is a good strategy.
That said, it looks like Ubuntu lets you drop down into desktop mode with a keyboard + mouse which is something I really like about Windows 8 over Android and iOS.
There is more to productivity than fast, accurate text input.
Touch is inferior for text input, but superior for other types of input. I know many designers who are salivating at the prospect of being able to do their work with a stylus that's also a screen (as opposed to the Wacom way of doing it).
To be fair to Wacom, you can embed a Wacom digitizer into a screen as well. I have an Asus EeeNote tablet that is a black and white screen with a Wacom digitizer over it, I use it as a digital notepad.
Indeed - the Cintiq has never really been affordable in the vast majority of cases. We have a whole team of designers here at the office and lots of Wacom tablets - and not a single Cintiq.
The digitizer-on-a-screen idea isn't new, but its affordability is definitely unprecedented. The Surface Pro (for all its faults) is a high-res IPS display with a Wacom digitizer and some pretty respectable specs for <$1K.
Of course if you watch till the end you see that the form changes depending on context. A phone docked to a tablet docked with keyboard/mouse, but ultimately driven by the phone. That would pretty convenient in all forms of input.
This looks really promising and I think I'll give it a try, once there is something to buy...
The multitasking looks really good, it is an interesting way to solve this problem. If their implementation is as good as it is presented, we'll see Apple and Google copying this on their platforms.
It seems to me that this offers many of the benefits that I see with OS X, an interface that lets me just do what I want without a bunch of pain, but if I need more power I can drop down to the shell and really get at what I need. Additionally, if using MS Office on the device is possible in a non-shitty way, it will be amazing. They talked very little about this, so I'm skeptical, but it would be absolutely killer if this worked well. US business lives in MS office and a way to easily use it is REQUIRED before tablets can begin supplanting desktops in the enterprise.
The rip off of Apple's styling for the promo video is distracting and unnecessary. Come up with your own styling for this, the offering looks appealing, you've got capabilities that other competitors lack, there isn't a reason for you to copy someone else's presentation style.
When they mentioned "sharing" I was hoping for something like Android's share which would take whatever I'm looking at and give it to another app. Instead it's just social networks. Better than Apple's lame lock-in to Twitter and Facebook but sharing between apps in Android's a killer-app.
Wow. This is what Unity is for. I'm still on Gnome on my desktop because I'm not a Unity fan, but this is really incredible. Android better watch its back.
Ironically, it might be the walled-garden ecosystem of tablets that ultimately leads to mass end-user adoption of Linux. The desktop introduces too many complications -- there is a much larger set of use cases, and thus a larger set of situations where a Windows-convert can get confused, discouraged, or frustrated. Tablets, on the other hand, with their relatively fewer ubiquitous uses, can be fine-tuned in way that requires little-to-no end-user servicing. If Canonical can employ the Apple/Android software store model with enough flexibility that power users can still make meaningful modifications, then this could be the biggest thing to happen for end-user Linux in a long time.
What about iOS and Android? One is a Unix, the other a Linux. If you mean in the "truly open-source" fashion, then it's entirely up to the UI when it comes to the masses. I've personally never liked Unity due to very inconsistent buggy UI, and enjoyed Gnome 3 much more. The more competition the merrier, though.
That's a little like saying an omelette is an egg. :) Both make heavy use of *nix and OSS components, but they also add their own proprietary ingredients. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I'd prefer that full-stack open-source wasn't limited just to technorati. You're right that the masses define their experience by the UI: both what's delivered directly to users, and indirectly via the UI tools/ecosystem/culture available to developers.
I still don't understand the tablet form factor. I concluded that it's not for me some time ago, but am waiting for the general population to come around to one glaring flaw: you have to hold it. For me, it doesn't matter how light a tablet is. A five pound laptop will always feel lighter since it will effectively weigh nothing because it's always on some kind of platform during use, either my lap or a flat desk/table surface. The tablet holds your hands and/or your legs hostage as you need to get into that special tablet-viewing position to prop the thing up on your thighs. I don't mean to come across as a cranky person who bemoans tablet use, I just feel the process is cumbersome not being able to have your hands free and wonder if people really think this is the form factor to usher in the "post-pc" era, whatever that is.
That's the future. That's when the tablet becomes extremely useful. Productive-yet-portable in a way a laptop can't be. What I think the Microsoft guys really nailed is that the tablet is ultimately just another tool. The "post-pc" era still has plenty of PC's in it; they just work alongside tablets and phones.
I'm not sure what is supposed to be noticed in the second video, but the first one is basically already possible with current tablets, other than the "everything is transparent".
I mean, there is no deep conceptual difference between something like leafsnap and what is shown there.
But even looking at that, it still doesn't show why a tablet form factor (thinking >9" diagonal) is better for this things than something sized like a larger phone, or a foldable thingy like the (sadly dead) MS Courier.
The main difference I was getting at is thickness/weight. Tablets now are too heavy to carry around like a legal pad for long periods of time. When they become paper thin and aerogel-light, they'll be killer.
Other than that, it's not so much the form factor that's different from now, it's the software. As awesome as Ubuntu Tablet is, I think all of our tablet OSes carry too many PC relics with them. The OS in those videos looks nothing like software now.
> just another tool. The "post-pc" era still has plenty of PC's in it
Exactly. When people cry about PC sales diminishing, I am in no way alarmed, because for some things PCs will always be required, such as CAD, programming, etc...
As for the video, I don't think that sort of future is anywhere near us, especially not as soon as 2019. When you look how far technology has come since 2007, it hasn't really come THAT long of a way. Sure, smartphones have gotten bigger and all-touch, and tablets have increased in popularity and usability, but the general usage of technology is still the same. Especially when businesses are still using 90s technology like fax machines, I don't see it happening soon.
This isn't really a flaw, tablets aren't going to replace computers they are just another computer that is used differently. They are better for reading and passing around.
Products like the Surface Pro I think are overselling the form factor.
I'm fairly certain it's because the Surface has the keyboard-kickstand thing. Ipad doesn't. A few Asus models do, and perhaps some others I'm not aware of, but given all the advertising of it the Surface is the most notable.
I apologize for not being clear. It is my understanding that the Surface Pro is marketed as a tablet that is also a laptop replacement. I am arguing that current tablets cannot satisfactorily replicate the functionality of laptops.
The iPad, Nexus, etc. are marketed as supplemental devices, not laptop replacements.
The iPad and its ilk acknowledge the form factor's weaknesses while playing to its strengths: it's portable and tangible for looking at content. Thinner, lighter, longer battery life are consistent with these strengths. Microsoft is going in the opposite direction with Surface Pro: thicker, heavier, and shorter battery life. This direction slightly helps tasks which are a weakness of the form factor (content creation), while undermining tasks which play to the strengths of the form factor.
The general population already has a solution for this. It's rare that I see an iPad without some sort of cover that also can act as a stand. While you're sitting on the couch, this isn't as big of a problem because you can rest your arm(s) on your lap. But stand/cases are the answer people have come up with.
That could also be said to be a flaw in books, but that's an interface that had some staying power. And most people probably use a tablet, like a book, setting on a surface or propped up on something.
Paperback books are generally lighter and more grippy. You can also plant your thumb right in the middle of the spine for a balanced feel. Most tablets can't be held this way since their bezel is too thin to be held by only a thumb. Sure, you could attempt it, but you're going to obstruct the view.
For me holding it is the point! It's the only way to get the angle exactly right for all 2^32 different slouch positions I move between as I read on the couch.
I do admit there needs to be some work on the ergonomics-- thinner does not mean better-- but the general 'holding it' concept works great, for me at least.
I still don't understand the laptop factor. You are supposed to stay in the same place because the computer can't move, you can't either. Because the computer can't jump, you can't jump.
I use to go outside and work on the go on the field or lab, standing up, with a laptop you must sit down for working, non sense for me(we are bipeds, we designed for standing up a big part of the time, when we sit our bodies metabolism change, we become less active). I can talk with other people and show things on my tablet just moving my hand, or the tablet where the person is. With a laptop the computer does not move so I HAVE TO MOVE THE OTHER PERSON!
I use arms for holding my tablet in the car, in the lab, and a gorilla one for the field that I could attach to anything(a tree, any structure), and a backpack when I don't use it.
I just need one tablet which I could do real work, run UNIX programs, and add a pixel qi display for working under the sun, and I will have my dream machine.
PD:When I say that a laptop does not move I mean 95% of the time the table surface of the person I am talking with is already filled with things, is highly inconvenient so I do not ask unless it is very important and we make a mess.
"I still don't understand the tablet form factor. I concluded that it's not for me some time ago, but am waiting for the general population to come around to one glaring flaw: you have to hold it."
What you have obliquely hit upon is what makes tablets destined to be the center of workplace computing. You CAN hold it, like a notebook or sheaf of paper. You can walk around with. You can also lay it on a table and type on it, or use a keyboard with it for sustained typing for most office tasks.
The deskbound will be left behind when everyone else is walking around, and will suffer tribulations.
We may suffer tribulations, but I'm awfully fond of my 24 inch NEC WUXGA (1920×1200) monitor, it's hard to get enough screen space when programming. I have difficulty imagining a "tablet" form factor with a physically big enough screen for me that I'd be willing to tote around., and in an aging population this is not going to be a minor detail, e.g. to do his basic day to day online tasks my father needs a screen at least that big and not too far below IPS quality, plus of course a browser that's good at Ctrl-+.
Since I'm fond of parity/ECC, I'll continue to build my own machines out of server/workstation class components with fast SCSI/SAS disks, the later until we get good enough with SSD lifespan and all that (I can remember Ted T'so, I think it was, being horrified to learn that Firefox wrote 1.8MB of data for every page it loaded...). In my experience since 1995 this class of systems don't die before I take them out of service 5+ years later, so the investment works out pretty well depending on how I account for the opportunity cost to research, procure and build them. I like building things, so there's intangible value to that as well, and it makes it easier maintain my parents' computers.
What percentage of the workforce do you expect shares your requirements, or the rough equivalent? Probably about the same as need to build a machine for their requirements.
People like you used to be the whole PC market. Now you are less than 5%. I would argue that 95% of the PC market constitutes a kind of "overshoot" of success, since, until recently, there were no alternatives that could overcome the manufacturing efficiencies of PCs. 95% of the PC market is made of users who don't need PCs (meaning Computers they Personally control), and their PCs are locked-down and use trailing-edge versions of Windows.
Agreed, which is increasingly another reason I go for server/workstation class components. There are other professionals who need this class of machines, the CAD/CAM, scientific workstation, etc. crowd who e.g. Sun used to cater to. Small numbers for sure.
The other segment I can think of are the really hard core PC gamers, who I don't have any sort of reading on (decided to give that up in the mid-late '80s to limit damage to my hands on up). 5% might be too low, but I'd accept it as a working estimate. E.g. my parents would today be well served by small unconfigurable boxes as long as they can speak to a regular big monitor, keyboard and mouse, and I plan to move them from Windows XP to something non-Windows like Chrome/Chromium OS in a year or three. Hmmm, I suppose there's also the big machine to satisfy a big ego market as well. Big machine as in way overpowered to run MS Office for a Pointy Haired Manager.
The rest of the "PC" market is as you note, although it's not inconsequential. But it has very low margin, is trailing edge in every way, and by now has got to be "mature", in that replacements almost certainly dwarf new installations, especially with the declines in new business formation. I'm not focused on it, don't know how it will move, but again something like the machines that could well serve my parents, e.g. based largely on tablet technology cores, could well disrupt it and take it over from Dell etc. as they are today.
Which I mention because there's got to be a reason Microsoft is investing in Dell going private, although it might not make much sense (e.g. the acquisition of Skype which I gather put the final nails in the coffin of Microsoft's mobile phone ambitions, since that make them radioactive to the carriers).
If they would just sell the damn thing and not have advertisements built into it. I have been using (a paying) Ubuntu user since v.7. It just angers me that they just wont outright charge for it.
It is a real use video, there aren't any fancy photos, there isn't any CG in the video in contrast with Canonical's page.
Plasma Active is being actively developed for about 2 years now and KDE 4 was developed from the ground up to be able to adapt to various form factors.
Since most Linux applications run on many different architectures, with such an approach you can keep your low power ARM based tablet and run all your desktop software -albeit a bit or more slower.
When it comes to notifications, easy sharing and usability features in general, it has them all and they are touch optimized.
I guess you mean that it doesn't look like Android or iOS. This can be changed easily through a theme. Conveniently you can download new themes from the theme settings screen, you don't need extra software nor you have to search in random places.
On the other hand, certain programs, like its text editor which can highlight code in almost every known computer language, does regular expression searches, support vi input mode etc, can't get much eye-pleasing. But you do get something you can actually work on.
I love the touch drived interface of tablets, but I don't think there is a reason to hide that a tablet device is a computer in different form and when you need it, it can perform as thus.
Exactly! But the Surface family has imo 2 problems.
1. Windows applications doesn't run on ARM, so you can't run your desktop software.
2. Microsoft has to differentiate its products, to assign them to different target price groups and to make them distinctive from competitive products. Same goes for Apple and Android tablet makers of course. They accomplish this by limiting what you can do with your tablet. One may not let you open 2 apps aside, another may not let you have multitasking, all in the name of branding and price-features ratio. In the end you get something you have to adjust to, instead of something that adjusts to you.
To be fair, that video is showing Plasma on a working device, where as the Ubuntu videos are professionally done advertisements. We don't know how smooth Ubuntu on tablets or phones is actually going to be.
"I am a bit tired of how much Ubuntu gets promoted compared to other Linux based solutions."
I find Ubuntu, (at least the LTS releases), to be the best supported distro for major third party applications and the easist for novices to use. I'm using it as development platform and as a VMware host for my Windows OS images. It has supports my Dell hardware better than Dell's Windows drivers. In time, I'll probably migrate to a different distro, but I don't have the cycles to spend on tweaking Linux, I just want a distro that works with what I need now.
My focus was on tablets and netbooks. We have a real and proven Linux based solution, a solution you can install now on your Nexus 7. Granted; it isn't perfect, the installation procedure isn't for the faint of heart, but it exists and nobody talks about it.
Then Canonical announces that it will do the same (Qt based, unified PC/Netbook/Tablet experience), it shows no code, no real use video and everyone talks about it.
I guess it is kind of disheartening for the many - many free software developers involved.
KDE commited suicide with 4.0. After that, whatever they produced was basically irrelevant, because nobody could take them seriously any more. Nobody is going to bet anything on KDE because of the fear that they could pull another "lets throw away a perfectly working 3.5 and rewrite everything from scratch" again. The same applies to Gnome also. Gnome could have avoided the fate by learning from KDE's mistakes, but they screwed up even worse, unimaginably worse.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and so on. They are the picture-perfect example of the saying in effect. For all practical intents and purposes, KDE and Gnome are dead now.
It is obvious that you haven't used KDE for many years. What is funny though, is that Ubuntu did the same thing (throw GNOME, bring Unity), yet you are perfectly ok with this.
No. KDE is a platform upon succesfull software is built.
You got the DE obviously, but you get also applications like kdenlive, calligra (and krita), amarok, digikam. The developers of these applications would have a more difficult time if KDE didn't provide them with its robust libraries. Even webkit comes from a KDE library.
Further more the Plasma Active team designed their own tablet and will soon announce it officially.
Ubuntu on the other hand is a Linux based distribution with their own DE.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 271 ms ] threadUnless there are any other suggestions? (I have a lenovo x220 tablet. I like the computer. The touch aspect is just basically ignored.)
GPU acceleration might be a significant hurdle on the nVidia.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/19/ubuntu-for-tablets-reveal...
Can't you make this argument about anything?
No one is forcing you to use it but it still has potential to positively affect your tablet experience, even if it's indirectly.
- build apps or port apps to work better on it. I can also do this without having to resort to Java like Android if I want to do things the recommended and supported way. I am also guessing that running su/sudo on it will not feel like an ugly hack to do like it is on Android[1] since it should be built in.
- run scripts (you can do that on Android with the Android Scripting layer and the terminal emulator, but it still has its quirks).
- easier access to things that are harder to deal with on Android or iOS (development tools) via apt. Perhaps even something like Blender or Gimp will run decent on it.
There are lots of possibilities. Perhaps not if all you want to do is browse the web and check email. However, I consider it another way to hack around and build things.
[1] http://www.chainfire.eu/articles/125/_How-To_SU_published/
I just loved the comments and insight on here and felt I shouldn't post much unless I really felt I had something to add to the conversation. If you haven't yet, I recommend reading the FAQ area[1] about posting stories and comments. It's really good information that seems to get skipped over sometimes.
Also, welcome to HN :)
[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[1] http://0xdeadfa11.net/blog/2012/07/11/the-idroid-project-whe...
If you want something to just hack around on and mod stuff, I recommend getting a Nexus 7 for that and use your ipad for your normal usage. They're cheap, battery life is good (as far as Android goes, it's 7-8 hours for me normally). Ubuntu for tablets is to be supported for it and there's an unofficial webos port for it out as well. That plus the entire AOSP android source and plenty of ROMs out there to take features from.
Unlocking + rooting Nexus devices is dead simple. Basically plug into USB, run a few terminal commands and you're done. Granted it makes taking updates a bit harder (if you mod past this), but if you're rooted and unlocked, you usually do it yourself anyways versus taking a direct update.
This is the whole problem, isn't it? When Google wants to make a device, they call up Asus or whomever and have it made. When Apple wants to make a device, they hire folks to do it, and those folks call the manufacturers for the parts. Why does Canonical expect the OEM to call them first on the basis of pretty mockups?
How preposterous of you! They are going to release images in 2 days. What do you expect them to do come to your house and give you a lecture on electricity. You seem to know everything about manufacturers and Canonical and their internal communication. Of course Canonical is talking to all parties. Do you want them to include you in the discussion? I like your negative attitude.
That's exactly why I don't understand why they continue to produce marketing material rather than actually getting the work done to make a product.
> Of course Canonical is talking to all parties. Do you want them to include you in the discussion?
No, but they seem to be mainly interested in including me, rather than people who might get it done. Is it so hard for a company to call another company? How many years before there was a Nexus tablet did Google tell us they were going to make one? Did their marketing ever send you the message "hey, we don't know anybody at Asus, but if you do, would you mind sending them by our booth at the next convention? Thanks!"
-- nor a "Download" button for hackers wanting to install an alpha version on their Nexus tablet.
I looked unsucessfully for a Download button on the OP, the "developer" page that it links to and http://www.ubuntu.com/download.
Disclaimer: I run three monitors, so I'm probably different from the average Unity user.
I think this is good news for Unity on the desktop because it means they will be tweaking the hell out of it for performance. I read that it's already better in 13.04, and we can probably expect it to get better over the releases.
Other than that, I wouldn't use Ubuntu on tablets right now. I'm not enough of an early adopter to switch to this OS which is - let's face it - probably not ready for prime time and still pretty buggy. The first versions of Android sucked, I don't see why this would be an exception. Nailing it on the first try is very hard.
From what I read somewhere, Ubuntu for phones was pretty CPU intensive, which could mean it didn't have hardware acceleration. I did notice some stutters when switching between apps in their own video. So that better not be happening when they actually release the devices, or people aren't going to give it a second thought.
In Ubuntu mobile's case, the first impression will literally decide whether Ubuntu has a future in mobile or not. So they better make sure everything is absolutely flawless, instead of hurrying up to ship it. If Ubuntu for phones and tablets has the same performance issues as on desktop, then might as well call it a dead-end now.
I tried 12.04 not too long ago, and some of the same lagginess/weird quirks were still there. Now that many ubuntians are now trying to push for less testing/more releasing in Debian, it's like a skyscraper company telling their foundation builders to use sack concrete instead of whats been tested and proven to work for many years.
I think for a lot of people that don't do much on a computer, Unity/Ubuntu makes way more sense than it's iOS and Win counterpart. It's cleaner, there is less "clutter" on the screen.
Even from a tweaker/hacker perspective, when you are not working/coding and just want to relax and watch some content, Unity does the job pretty well.
I prefer their vision of the post-PC era than what Win/iOS propose. At least it's an open platform and it integrates fluidly in your activity flow.
Here's an example of the work from Feb:
- https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-February...
- https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-r-redu...
For me the Dash is now finally fast/almost instant as opposed to 12.10. All these improvements will be in 13.04 (and the select safe ones will be backported to 12.04 over time).
Apple is already a heavyweight in this area and Google/Samsung have a dominant second place. Viable tablet alternatives need to establish a foothold now, before there is too much lock in from the existing entrants. Every iOS or Play app that I buy will make me (as a consumer) less likely to switch platforms. This is true for me, even as an early adopter. For a normal consumer that doesn't have the free cash, nor the desire for constant change, it is a killer.
Every month that they fail to have this out the door, they lose potential customers.
[edit: just a bit of editing]
The smartphone market is almost 1 billion units per year now (or will be this year), with the potential for 3-4 billion units. The tablet market is only around a 100 million market right now, with the potential for at least 2 billion units per year.
The biggest chunk of these markets will belong to free and open source operating systems like Android and Ubuntu, so Ubuntu definite has a chance here. But most of the those markets will be lower-end devices, obviously, and Android can already work on very low-end hardware. Plus it has a much bigger momentum. If Ubuntu wants to have a significant market share of that, it needs become as "lean" as possible on low-end hardware, and make sure it makes people excited about it, so it gets a lot of buzz/marketing for free.
I mean, the GP said that cinnamon was too simple and immature, and when asked why, your response is that this design is, essentially, overly mature.
One might say that Windows 98 is "less mature" than today's OS's, and if Cinnamon has features comparable to Windows 98, one might think of it being less mature as well.
Oh, what, you want some examples of what I mean by that? Why? Can't you just accept it when I say that it's obsolete and we really should be looking for a new solution?
(I don't think you're being pedantic, just missing my point :)
I tried Gnome 3 for a few weeks, went back to a simple window manager for awhile (I had used Openbox for years), and also tried Unity and KDE4. Turns out I'm used to a certain kind of workflow based on "traditional" desktops. I prefer having resizable floating windows to maximized windows, I rely on too much desktop infrastructure to just use a window manager anymore, and KDE has extremely busy and cluttered interfaces. I've never seen anything like it, it was overwhelming.
https://plus.google.com/104354412340246703061/posts/TUCPE7JE...
Of course, I never use full desktop environments anyways; all of them are too big and resource-heavy, and their animations and cool whizzbangery always distracts me and interrupts my workflow. I only use WindowMaker now with GNUStep apps (with the exception of Firefox). It's old-school, but it works.
This is the most distraction free environment with absolutely no limitations (in the scope of my work) I have ever worked with.
Not to mention it'll run on any netbook easily, or other low spec computer.
Compiz regularly crashes, but thankfully it automatically restarts. Now I don't need to panic when the whole screen stops updating.
The "snap" window dragging feature is broken in the presence of multiple monitors; as you drag the mouse across the monitor boundary, the mouse pointer becomes momentarily disconnected from the window location, so that you are moving the window as if by a long invisible stick, not by its original grab location.
The overlay scrollbars don't interact well with Eclipse; JUnit running tests outputs file paths that Eclipse turns into hyperlinks, and the hyperlink mouseover stops the scrollbar from from being triggered when the pointer approaches the child window border. The overlay scrollbar thing doesn't seem to have been fully thought through.
Gnome-terminal is one of the slowest terminals I've ever used; it would literally slow down development by blocking on log-verbose tests. I've gone back to my old stalwart of rxvt.
I don't understand the difference between Windows key and Alt key command prompts. I've given up trying to figure out how to register my various user-directory installed applications with the taskbar thing. So I've stopped using both, and now I start all my apps from the terminal, with shell scripts to redirect output if they are chatty.
The Alt-Tab task switcher is broken just like the OS X one is, switching between its concept of applications rather than top level windows. This means alt-tabbing between Eclipse and Firefox would bring the Downloads window to the fore, leaving the actual browser hidden behind maximized Eclipse. Usability disaster. With some difficulty and playing around with preference managers that come with warning labels, I've rebound the keys to a slightly more usable window switcher.
Oh, and the fun I had when I tried to bind Ctrl+Alt+F12 to a command in Eclipse; took me back decades to switching terminals with Alt+F keys.
In short, Ubuntu Unity is horrifically bad. Linux is completely inappropriate for the desktop, unless you are so inept you only use a browser (get an ipad instead), or you are sufficiently skilled you think nothing of switching window managers. The trough in the middle is very ill served.
I see how frustrating your experience with Unity was, and it certainly echoes my own, but does it warrant such a conclusion about Linux in general? For one thing, there are alternatives to Ubuntu on the desktop. For new users who are not completely helpless with computers Linux Mint LTS with MATE is likely a better choice than Ubuntu. MATE is very Windows-like; there's a lot that can be configured through the GUI in that DE and, FWIW, I have had a good amount of success converting Windows users to it.
As for those who are "so inept [they] only use a browser", well, not all of such users can afford an iPad, especially not in those parts of the world where they have both significantly higher prices on iPads and a lower average income than the US (e.g., Eastern Europe), and even Ubuntu with Unity delivers great value to them. It's an application that's not to be taken lightly, either.
Finally, Ubuntu makes it relatively easy to switch your the desktop environment. I admit I haven't seen any usability studies nor have I seen someone try to do it but I imagine a motivated middle-level user with sudo rights should be able to follow a tutorial on YouTube [1] on how to replace Unity with Cinnamon or MATE even if something more advanced replacing Ubuntu with Linux Mint is beyond him or her.
[1] Like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJYiPFodlg and many others.
Edit: If you have access to gcc/g++ at work but not sudo rights (which is a very crappy situation to be in indeed) you can try to compile a different WM/DE in a local directory for your use and then create an ~/.xsession file to start it.
You must have done this already but for the benefit of whoever else might struggling with overlay scrollbars I'll note that you can disable them by putting
into ~/.xprofile.The point is that Linux UIs are perpetually half-baked. I'm happiest interacting with Linux from Cygwin ssh. It's a fantastic command-line experience.
Even though I'm not a fan of Unity it's because I miss small thinks like being able to right click on a panel and add stuff or all the cool desktop themes which are missing in Unity.
Having said that, calling modern Linux desktops half-backed is either a clueless (and you make your case that you're not clueless) or possibly having an ulterior motives for drawing such a flawed conclusion. Modern Linux desktops are no more flawed than Windows.
Want to see a frustrating Windows UI bug? Put your start/task bar or whatever it's called at the top of the desktop. Then run Cygwin XWin and open a new X window. It will come up under the start bar/task bar. Several other programs do to. That bug has existed for like a decade from my recollection going back to at lest XP if not 2000.
Microsoft has like thousands of engineers, how hard would it be to fix that?
I think this is touching on a good point, I would much enjoy seeing one desktop environment being kept stable in terms of UI and slowly polished to perfection, instead of continuously starting from scratch and inevitably coming up with something half-baked. And this is not specific to Linux, just look at the Windows 8 mess.
Apple comes closest, at least they keep the rough lines constant, but they have the bad habit of needlessly replacing parts of the UI and losing features along the way.
Since Ubuntu on the tablet is a literal clean slate, they can at least avoid the puzzle of making existing applications fit their desktop guidelines. A lot of popular apps still don't use the app menu for instance (GUI version of Vim, Eclipse, and even that new Steam for Ubuntu).
I don't think I've had more than a week of uptime out of either laptop, and I think the median is something like 2 days. That was not the case with earlier versions of Ubuntu on the same hardware.
I like the ideas behind Unity, but the execution has been terrible. It's pretty obvious they're focused on arbitrary schedules over a solid user experience.
Running a laptop from an Ubuntu OEM (System 76) with high end CPU (I7) and SSD I can't complain about performance or compatibility issues at all (though I'm only on a dual 1080p config).
Steam also works quite OK. Though most of the time I'm in a terminal with vim, so I don't care much about most Unity features. It looks nicer than the dated GNOME 2 / 3 / KDE stuff though (personal taste).
Also, I really got used to Ubuntu One file sync and music store and indicators.
Typically these people are the ones holding the purse strings, so targeting them is a good strategy.
That said, it looks like Ubuntu lets you drop down into desktop mode with a keyboard + mouse which is something I really like about Windows 8 over Android and iOS.
Touch is inferior for text input, but superior for other types of input. I know many designers who are salivating at the prospect of being able to do their work with a stylus that's also a screen (as opposed to the Wacom way of doing it).
The digitizer-on-a-screen idea isn't new, but its affordability is definitely unprecedented. The Surface Pro (for all its faults) is a high-res IPS display with a Wacom digitizer and some pretty respectable specs for <$1K.
http://frenden.tumblr.com/post/38693256477/yiynovamsp19u
The multitasking looks really good, it is an interesting way to solve this problem. If their implementation is as good as it is presented, we'll see Apple and Google copying this on their platforms.
It seems to me that this offers many of the benefits that I see with OS X, an interface that lets me just do what I want without a bunch of pain, but if I need more power I can drop down to the shell and really get at what I need. Additionally, if using MS Office on the device is possible in a non-shitty way, it will be amazing. They talked very little about this, so I'm skeptical, but it would be absolutely killer if this worked well. US business lives in MS office and a way to easily use it is REQUIRED before tablets can begin supplanting desktops in the enterprise.
The rip off of Apple's styling for the promo video is distracting and unnecessary. Come up with your own styling for this, the offering looks appealing, you've got capabilities that other competitors lack, there isn't a reason for you to copy someone else's presentation style.
That's a little like saying an omelette is an egg. :) Both make heavy use of *nix and OSS components, but they also add their own proprietary ingredients. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I'd prefer that full-stack open-source wasn't limited just to technorati. You're right that the masses define their experience by the UI: both what's delivered directly to users, and indirectly via the UI tools/ecosystem/culture available to developers.
But watch a couple clips for me:
http://youtu.be/Jx7VNP5UO2k?t=5m9s (at 5:09) http://youtu.be/5jzAAPccBaU?t=2m27s (at 2:27)
That's the future. That's when the tablet becomes extremely useful. Productive-yet-portable in a way a laptop can't be. What I think the Microsoft guys really nailed is that the tablet is ultimately just another tool. The "post-pc" era still has plenty of PC's in it; they just work alongside tablets and phones.
I mean, there is no deep conceptual difference between something like leafsnap and what is shown there.
But even looking at that, it still doesn't show why a tablet form factor (thinking >9" diagonal) is better for this things than something sized like a larger phone, or a foldable thingy like the (sadly dead) MS Courier.
Other than that, it's not so much the form factor that's different from now, it's the software. As awesome as Ubuntu Tablet is, I think all of our tablet OSes carry too many PC relics with them. The OS in those videos looks nothing like software now.
Exactly. When people cry about PC sales diminishing, I am in no way alarmed, because for some things PCs will always be required, such as CAD, programming, etc...
As for the video, I don't think that sort of future is anywhere near us, especially not as soon as 2019. When you look how far technology has come since 2007, it hasn't really come THAT long of a way. Sure, smartphones have gotten bigger and all-touch, and tablets have increased in popularity and usability, but the general usage of technology is still the same. Especially when businesses are still using 90s technology like fax machines, I don't see it happening soon.
2030, perhaps, but 2019 is too soon.
This isn't really a flaw, tablets aren't going to replace computers they are just another computer that is used differently. They are better for reading and passing around.
Products like the Surface Pro I think are overselling the form factor.
The iPad, Nexus, etc. are marketed as supplemental devices, not laptop replacements.
The general population already has a solution for this. It's rare that I see an iPad without some sort of cover that also can act as a stand. While you're sitting on the couch, this isn't as big of a problem because you can rest your arm(s) on your lap. But stand/cases are the answer people have come up with.
At this moment I'm consuming HN sitting on the couch with an iPad on my thigh and using one finger.
That could also be said to be a flaw in books, but that's an interface that had some staying power. And most people probably use a tablet, like a book, setting on a surface or propped up on something.
I do admit there needs to be some work on the ergonomics-- thinner does not mean better-- but the general 'holding it' concept works great, for me at least.
I use to go outside and work on the go on the field or lab, standing up, with a laptop you must sit down for working, non sense for me(we are bipeds, we designed for standing up a big part of the time, when we sit our bodies metabolism change, we become less active). I can talk with other people and show things on my tablet just moving my hand, or the tablet where the person is. With a laptop the computer does not move so I HAVE TO MOVE THE OTHER PERSON!
I use arms for holding my tablet in the car, in the lab, and a gorilla one for the field that I could attach to anything(a tree, any structure), and a backpack when I don't use it.
I just need one tablet which I could do real work, run UNIX programs, and add a pixel qi display for working under the sun, and I will have my dream machine.
Do you eschew clothes, eat only raw foods, sleep outside, and run to work (on bare feet) each day?
What you have obliquely hit upon is what makes tablets destined to be the center of workplace computing. You CAN hold it, like a notebook or sheaf of paper. You can walk around with. You can also lay it on a table and type on it, or use a keyboard with it for sustained typing for most office tasks.
The deskbound will be left behind when everyone else is walking around, and will suffer tribulations.
Since I'm fond of parity/ECC, I'll continue to build my own machines out of server/workstation class components with fast SCSI/SAS disks, the later until we get good enough with SSD lifespan and all that (I can remember Ted T'so, I think it was, being horrified to learn that Firefox wrote 1.8MB of data for every page it loaded...). In my experience since 1995 this class of systems don't die before I take them out of service 5+ years later, so the investment works out pretty well depending on how I account for the opportunity cost to research, procure and build them. I like building things, so there's intangible value to that as well, and it makes it easier maintain my parents' computers.
People like you used to be the whole PC market. Now you are less than 5%. I would argue that 95% of the PC market constitutes a kind of "overshoot" of success, since, until recently, there were no alternatives that could overcome the manufacturing efficiencies of PCs. 95% of the PC market is made of users who don't need PCs (meaning Computers they Personally control), and their PCs are locked-down and use trailing-edge versions of Windows.
The other segment I can think of are the really hard core PC gamers, who I don't have any sort of reading on (decided to give that up in the mid-late '80s to limit damage to my hands on up). 5% might be too low, but I'd accept it as a working estimate. E.g. my parents would today be well served by small unconfigurable boxes as long as they can speak to a regular big monitor, keyboard and mouse, and I plan to move them from Windows XP to something non-Windows like Chrome/Chromium OS in a year or three. Hmmm, I suppose there's also the big machine to satisfy a big ego market as well. Big machine as in way overpowered to run MS Office for a Pointy Haired Manager.
The rest of the "PC" market is as you note, although it's not inconsequential. But it has very low margin, is trailing edge in every way, and by now has got to be "mature", in that replacements almost certainly dwarf new installations, especially with the declines in new business formation. I'm not focused on it, don't know how it will move, but again something like the machines that could well serve my parents, e.g. based largely on tablet technology cores, could well disrupt it and take it over from Dell etc. as they are today.
Which I mention because there's got to be a reason Microsoft is investing in Dell going private, although it might not make much sense (e.g. the acquisition of Skype which I gather put the final nails in the coffin of Microsoft's mobile phone ambitions, since that make them radioactive to the carriers).
That said, I think people trying to use tablets like baby laptops are a little nuts, but to each their own. :)
Here is a video of KDE's Plasma Active running on a Nexus 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7isMAmwW0
It is a real use video, there aren't any fancy photos, there isn't any CG in the video in contrast with Canonical's page.
Plasma Active is being actively developed for about 2 years now and KDE 4 was developed from the ground up to be able to adapt to various form factors.
Since most Linux applications run on many different architectures, with such an approach you can keep your low power ARM based tablet and run all your desktop software -albeit a bit or more slower.
I guess you mean that it doesn't look like Android or iOS. This can be changed easily through a theme. Conveniently you can download new themes from the theme settings screen, you don't need extra software nor you have to search in random places.
On the other hand, certain programs, like its text editor which can highlight code in almost every known computer language, does regular expression searches, support vi input mode etc, can't get much eye-pleasing. But you do get something you can actually work on.
I love the touch drived interface of tablets, but I don't think there is a reason to hide that a tablet device is a computer in different form and when you need it, it can perform as thus.
Sort of like the Surface tablets...
1. Windows applications doesn't run on ARM, so you can't run your desktop software.
2. Microsoft has to differentiate its products, to assign them to different target price groups and to make them distinctive from competitive products. Same goes for Apple and Android tablet makers of course. They accomplish this by limiting what you can do with your tablet. One may not let you open 2 apps aside, another may not let you have multitasking, all in the name of branding and price-features ratio. In the end you get something you have to adjust to, instead of something that adjusts to you.
I find Ubuntu, (at least the LTS releases), to be the best supported distro for major third party applications and the easist for novices to use. I'm using it as development platform and as a VMware host for my Windows OS images. It has supports my Dell hardware better than Dell's Windows drivers. In time, I'll probably migrate to a different distro, but I don't have the cycles to spend on tweaking Linux, I just want a distro that works with what I need now.
Then Canonical announces that it will do the same (Qt based, unified PC/Netbook/Tablet experience), it shows no code, no real use video and everyone talks about it.
I guess it is kind of disheartening for the many - many free software developers involved.
Here's a hands-on video of the phone version: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/2/3828266/ubuntu-phone-os-han...
KDE commited suicide with 4.0. After that, whatever they produced was basically irrelevant, because nobody could take them seriously any more. Nobody is going to bet anything on KDE because of the fear that they could pull another "lets throw away a perfectly working 3.5 and rewrite everything from scratch" again. The same applies to Gnome also. Gnome could have avoided the fate by learning from KDE's mistakes, but they screwed up even worse, unimaginably worse.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and so on. They are the picture-perfect example of the saying in effect. For all practical intents and purposes, KDE and Gnome are dead now.
Further more the Plasma Active team designed their own tablet and will soon announce it officially.
Ubuntu on the other hand is a Linux based distribution with their own DE.