Dual-core Smartphone Runs Android and Ubuntu 148
nk497 writes "ARM is showing off a test handset at Mobile World Congress, which runs Android 2.3 and Ubuntu 10.04 at the same time on a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 chip. ARM envisages a time when the only computer you'll ever need is your smartphone and with Nvidia announcing it will be putting quad-core mobile processors into tablets by autumn and smartphones by Christmas, that prospect looks to be approaching faster than anyone expected." Video is attached if you're curious.
Battery life must be bad (Score:5, Interesting)
but that will improve.
Saying that this sort of thing will happen eventually, with Meego being mothballed after Nokia defected to Windows we need a good Linux based OS other than Android
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
What's interesting? My phone runs Debian already. (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, Nokia fucked it up. Drat.
(Yay for N900 comunity release!)
Been trying to do this for a while... (Score:4, Interesting)
People have been running ARM Debian / Ubuntu on their Android devices for some time:
http://www.android-devs.com/?p=152 [android-devs.com] (albeit you'd only be booting one or the other OS at a time)
A simpler way is by using the chroot method such as the one described at: http://www.misfit.co.zw/?p=144 [misfit.co.zw] , that way you can still run the Android OS with all the drivers and everything, but be able to SSH or VNC into a full Debian ARM install running on a chroot on a partition in your SD card.
I haven't had too much luck with it yet (TnT-Lite on my GTablet didn't let me use the loopback device to mount an img file... will try again using a straight ext2 partition on my SD card). Looking forward to being able to apt-get stuff onto my phone/tablet, though :-P
Re:What's interesting? My phone runs Debian alread (Score:1, Interesting)
The N900 sucks compared to modern phones anyway. You'd do better with a normal Android phone running Debian [android-devs.com].
N900 wasn't even that great when it was new (eg. crappy touch screen) but nowadays it's outdated as hell.