Open Source Project Aims To Make Ubuntu Usable on Arm-Powered Windows Laptops (techrepublic.com) 37
A group of programmers and device hackers are working to bring proper support for Ubuntu to Arm-powered Windows laptops, starting with first-generation Snapdragon 835 systems, like the HP Envy x2 and Asus NovaGo. From a report: The aarch64-laptops project provides prebuilt images for the aforementioned notebook PCs, as well as the Lenovo Miix 630. Although Ubuntu and other Linux distributions support aarch64 (ARMv8) by default, various obstacles including the design and configuration of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors make these default images not practically usable. The aarch64-laptops project developers are aiming to address these difficulties, though work is still ongoing. Presently, the TouchPad does not work properly on the Asus, with all three lacking proper support for on-board storage and Wi-Fi, which rely on UFS support. According to their documentation, this is being worked on upstream.
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If the 'Linux community' wants greater adoption of Linux (of any flavor) on any platform, then it has to be accessible to the average, non-techie computer user; your grandmother should be able to use it with equal utility to a superuser who is hacking the kernel sourcecode. It must, somehow, be all things to all people as much as possible. Otherwise the Microsoft hegemony becomes an indellible fact, and that's not
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>your grandmother should be able to use it with equal utility to a superuser who is hacking the kernel sourcecode.
That depends very much on what you mean by "utility" - most of the people I know get very little utility from a computer beyond internet access and maybe some word processing. The ability to run a secure web server or hypervisored virtual machine is completely irrelevant to them.
Ubuntu though does offer an excellent, simple, user interface quite sufficient to most people's needs, one that's
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Ubuntu ... one that's arguably both more powerful and easier to use than Windows or MacOS. ... every time I want to do something beyond the basics, I have to google. Perhaps it works like windows and you don't have to google, no idea. ... the remote desktop clients are the worst ... 5cm margin at the t
That is not arguable for Macs
While it is nice, it is not on the same usability level, probably never will be, unless Macs decline even more.
And: the UI is ugly and space consuming for no apparent reason. Gosh
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How long have you been using Macs versus Ubuntu? For example - The vast majority of advanced Mac hot keys are completely undiscoverable without Google - as in, literally not documented *anywhere* within the OS - and many of them are for still-fairly-basic functionality that has no mouse-driven equivalent. And good luck finding the advanced configuration options (most of which would be included in the "normal" options on any other OS)
As for your RDC criticisms - I'll let those be, other than to point out t
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Excellent simple interface? Where by default the screen has sticky edges? Where you can't use the on-screen keyboard to type on the "start menu"?
Linux hasn't had an excellent simple interface since the thin client days and early X.
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Linux (Score:3)
ARM laptops should really have been offered with linux from the get-go, the only benefit of windows is compatibility with the existing masses of x86 software and drivers for arbitrary peripherals - a benefit which is lost when running windows/arm. A linux/arm laptop would have the same software as linux/x86 as virtually everything has already been compiled for arm.
Having windows/arm will only result in user disappointment, either because expected things don't work or perform poorly under emulation.
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Having windows/arm will only result in user disappointment, either because expected things don't work or perform poorly under emulation.
We went through some of this with netbooks, now they're repeating it all over again with armbooks. Netbooks could run windows software since they were x86, but they could only run it poorly because of memory limitations. Linux wasn't so memory-hungry at the time, so it made more sense.
Unfortunately, the market rejected Linux then, because they wanted to run Windows software. Today, the people who would want a low-power laptop are probably more likely coming from the other end — they don't want a lower
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Are you sure? I suspect the market never got a look in. A bigger problem was that the staff at PC World were confused by the idea that the customer might want to know what the difference was, and went and hid in the washroom rather than face reality.
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the market rejected Linux then, because they wanted to run Windows software
Are you sure? I suspect the market never got a look in.
At least for the first couple years, they definitely had Linux netbooks in the store. I don't doubt, however, that salesdroids who knew what it was were lacking in number.
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ARM laptops should really have been offered with linux from the get-go, the only benefit of windows is compatibility with the existing masses of x86 software and drivers for arbitrary peripherals - a benefit which is lost when running windows/arm
ARM Windows laptops can run legacy x86 software (though, I believe, not yet x86-64 software). They ship with an emulator that emulates the main executable and bundled DLLs but can call into native code for things that comes with Windows (e.g. all of the GUI drawing code, video / audio CODECs).
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These laptops are not provided with linux, work is underway by unrelated parties to make it run on them.
If they were offered with linux preinstalled, then absolutely the expectation would be that all the hardware should work.
When a user buys a system with "windows", they expect it to run all the same software as any other windows laptop... They don't expect software or peripherals to be incompatible, or to run slowly via emulation. They used to sell netbooks with windows ce too, users were typically extreme
ARM-powered, not arm-powered (Score:2)
Damn you, camel case!
HP and Asus should sell them with Linux (Score:2)
Please... we desperately need a FOSS alternative to the "spyware as an operating system" that is Windows 10.
Re: HP and Asus should sell them with Linux (Score:1)
This guys a spammer. Spamming sites that mimick real sites using the .onl extension beware.