Ubuntu Powered Tablet Spotted! 169
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the yes-have-some dept.
from the yes-have-some dept.
dkd903 writes "The year 2010 had been all buzz with tablets and a similar trend is expected during the year 2011 too. We have already seen a lot of Android powered tablets. But how does a tablet powered by Ubuntu sound? A Chinese manufacturer TENQ has launched a tablet called P07. The device is said to be running Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition and the boot time reported to be almost instant."
How do I feel? (Score:2, Interesting)
The article has apparently been slashdotted, so I can only guess how it's been implemented.
Please bear with me, I have to take a run-up to this.
I've used the Galaxy tablet, an iPad, and a tablet running Windows 7.
The iPad is very stable intuitive and usable. The Android tablet works much the same as the iPad with the additional features of a higher degree of customization, widgets, flash, and so forth.
The Windows 7 tablet sucks.
The main reason the Windows 7 tablet sucks is that the GUI doesn't seem to like living on a tablet. Too many operations assume keyboard and two button mouse, and tablet support consists of clumsy work-arounds to simulate a two button mouse on a tablet, when what is sorely needed is a new, mouseless paradigm, as the iPad and Android already have.
An additional problem I'm having with the Win7 tablet is that the virtual keyboard is not accurate enough to type in yer damned password. I have to resort to a physical keyboard to log into the damned thing. Part of the problem is probably hardware, but it does not help that the keys do not light up or do anything to indicate what key it thinks you've pressed, and you can't see what you're typing. If this really was designed to be a touch interface, instead of something cobbled together to have a presence in the tablet market, it'd work better than that.
Parenthetically, Microsoft already has a killer touch interface in Surface, so at least some people in Redmond know how a touch GUI is supposed to work. Given that, it totally baffles me that they'd try to push off this Windows 7 kludge as a serious contender in the tablet marketplace. I mean, what the hell?
Which brings us to Ubuntu. I've used past versions, and am very impressed. It's a tight little OS with a fast, well integrated, and at times amusing GUI. (I still get a kick out of shaking the rubber windows.) I think putting Ubuntu on a tablet is a very exciting idea.
But
Ubuntu out of the box is just as mousey as Winders. If all they're going to do is paste on work-around gestures to simulate a multi-button mouse and throw up a virtual keyboard, I'm not interested. I've already been down that road, and don't want to go through that frustration again. If that's what they're planning to offer, I'll stick with Android.
However, if Ubuntu produces a really truly designed-from-ground-up-to-be-mouseless interface, and it works well, then I'm all over that.
This is going to be interesting. Apple did the transition correctly to touch devices -- they came up with a brand new set of GUI rules instead of trying to reuse the paradigms in OSX. Android was designed from the start to be a touch interface. Winders has flubbed it so far, for their consumer devices at least. It'll be fascinating to see what Ubuntu does.
Re:Obligatory snooty reply (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got Ubuntu 10.10 on my Thinkpad X200 Tablet. It works pretty well, but not everything works perfectly. I've had every version of Ubuntu on it since 9.04, and some of the earlier ones actually seemed to work a little better. There are still a few kinks, though. Thankfully, sites like ThinkWiki [thinkwiki.org] exist to help with some of the problems.
I'm still having a few issues, though, such as the fingerprint scanner not working or when rotating the screen, the touch sensor doesn't translate its coordinates properly (so left-right becomes up-down when the screen is rotated 90 degrees). The mute button doesn't work properly either, but other than that it runs pretty well.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
The year of the Linux desktop could have been 2009 around the time of netbooks. However OEM's mucked it up by picking less than stellar variants of Linux and customers appeared only too happy to desert when Microsoft finally got their act together.
As a result, Linux netbook sales tanked and it's almost impossible to buy one in a major retail outlet these days as customers aren't interested.
I don't believe Linux will ever have such a good chance again and, personally, I blame this on the OEM's who could have escaped the grasp of Microsoft but, in their haste, failed to ensure that the customer experience was a good one.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux on the desktop has missed it's chance, the PC desktop is no longer the bleeding edge of development (at least as far as media and community buzz is concerned) in the face of new platforms. Hardware gets faster but it isn't really needed. Windows 7 and Linux run pretty fast. I haven't updated my hardware since 2008 and would see no benefit. SSDs have come of age, so I picked one up. I essientially experience no delay for anything. I see little point in sinking my yearly $1500 into hardware update, and little advantage in speed brought in software updates. (All the lag from a bloated Windows install was due to disk footprint and usage - lots of random reads over a big install footprint. Linux would do the same if you really went nuts with it. This is totally gone with a SSD, your Windows install remains as fast as the day it was new)
People are less interested in their desktop computing experience and keeping it up to date. With less interest, any radical change in the way people do computing is going to be harder.
To me, Linux has missed it's chance. All these years we battled with crappy Windows XP and Vista, when it would have been nice to hand a live CD to someone and solve all their computer problems. Installing Linux would most often give you a new set of exciting and deliberately difficult problems to solve, which was great, if (to use an analogy) you'd prefer a tough rubix cube to having sex. Getting the best out of Linux as a desktop took time and effort, because it came pre-broken to some extent, it was fun for some torture for others who were no doubt looking to escape toture. Now you can have 100% functional Ubuntu in 20 minutes, when back in the day that was luck of the draw. It's actually rather boring having nothing to fix to be honest. But for many people, tinkering is not the point of technology, technology is a tool not a toy.
It's kind of like that now, you take a oldish computer, boot Ubuntu live, install, a few commands and it's a revived fully capable useful and fast machine. It's a free download and burn away, and there's tons of software available for free.
So why isn't it taking off? What's the problem? Well, we needed that about five years ago. Back then you were lucky if you could pull this off with linux, and then you'd have to do without flash, or properly working graphics drivers.
I had an epiphany when I wiped a old machine I'd installed Ubuntu 6.06 on and fogotten about, with Ubuntu 10.10. It was MUCH faster, and booted in 40 seconds to the desktop rather than more than a minute.
Problem is, Windows 7 was a leap ahead, I remember seeing Cannonical rush to make Ubuntu take less than a minute and a half to boot as soon as Windows 7 Beta's started showing massively improved boot performance.
Why couldn't that have been done sooner?
Why did it take until 2006 for compiz to go 1.0, when windows Vista? We saw 3D desktop effects demo'd by Microsoft in early longhorn in August 2003.
Theres not many more lines of code in a 2010 linux distro than a 2006, so why does it all run so much faster now on 2006 hardware? It's all been re-written ten times over in the process, re-written only to be incrementally better.
I guess there are lots of problems that can't be solved at a programmers desk, and decisions that can only be made from data gathered in a lab. Microsoft and Apple spend millions, billions even on R&D, labs, on UI studies etc for good reason.
Linux more than ever needs truly excellent UI design. Or it's just too late.
Android on the other hand is linux done really well.
Re:Obligatory snooty reply (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhhhh...it sounds like about half the stuff on your tablets does not work but "other than that" it runs pretty well? It is THIS, this "it is free so you should put up with it" attitude that keeps FLOSS from taking off on mainstream PC devices like netbook/nettops, laptops, desktops, etc.
Another perfect example: Remember how everyone was touting when Dell started selling Ubuntu on select netbooks? Ever look at one? Notice anything....funny...about them? Like the fact that Dell removes ALL Canonical repos and has to run their own? Why is that? Is it because Dell is pushing crapware on them like on the Windows boxes? Nope, it is due to the fact that even with such a limited amount of hardware to support Canonical can't be bothered to do actual QA before release and if you use the regular repos it breaks the Ethernet and sound! Oh joy, oh happy day!
Now damn it, I KNOW good quality FOSS software CAN be done. Hell Jobs took BSD and built an empire with it that has even surpassed MSFT in market cap so it CAN be done! But it will NOT ever be done with this "oh well, it kinda sorta works" attitude. If Apple pushed out an update that broke half the Macs don't you think people would have a fit? If MSFT broke half the new Dells out there? Hell yes, heads would roll! So why this "shit sandwich" attitude? It is like someone saying "Free meal!" and when you sit down they hand you a shit sandwich and say "hey it's free, you've no right to complain" well bullshit, we have EVERY right!
As a retailer I WANT to be able to sell Linux boxes, and not just "hey lets put it on the shitty hardware" boxes like what Walmart tried, but actual good quality machines! I WANT to have nice Ubuntu boxes right beside the Windows ones, and know that for at least 5 years after I sold it that it will keep running, even after updating! But right now frankly I can't. I can't because there is no hardware ABI, every damned upgrade which at 6 months is ridiculous, breaks two things while fixing one. I can't because I can't even expect it to go a full year without "update foo broke my driver" bullshit thanks to lousy QA, it is just a mess!
So while I wish these Chinese luck, I'll think they'll find out the same thing I and every other retailer I've talked to found out, that Linux ends up costing MORE money than Windows. How could that be? Simple figure in the returns when updates break crap, which by law then have to be sold as used, usually at a loss, figure in the amount of time required to fix all those breaks, and it quickly becomes MORE expensive than simply slapping an OEM Windows Home license and calling it a day. I'm sure I'll get hate for saying the emperor has no clothes, but he is wearing his birthday suit and his willie is waving in the breeze.
The average Joe, the ones you HAVE TO sell to to gain critical mass, ain't messing with CLI, ain't gonna deal with "update foo broke my drivers" or trawl forums for fixes. If a box leaves the store working it needs to STAY working as long as the user follows basic best practices. That simply isn't the case with Linux, as by following best practices the user will BREAK the machine by updating! So I have the choice of either pulling a Dell and repackaging everything and running my own repo (too expensive), turning off updates and leaving the machine vulnerable (unacceptable), fixing every update fuckup for life for free (too expensive) or just slapping a Windows License and an AV and AntiMal and calling it a day. Which do you think in the end I'm gonna choose?
So please don't settle for this "it kinda sorta works" shit sandwich mentality, demand real progress! Demand either a stable ABI, or if Linux guys hate those so much, even though Solaris, BSD, Windows, hell just about every OS other than Linux, has had them for over a decade? Fine, tell us of another way to INSURE that drivers continue working across releases and DO THAT. None of this "let the kernel devs" handle it BS, If a driver works now it should work five years from now AS IS PERIOD. Make it easy, make it reliable, and guys like me will be happy to sell your product and display it proudly on our shelves. Hell you think we spend all that extra money in Windows licenses because we LIKE to add that to our final cost?