Can't Wait

Story: Kubuntu Active To Run On Tablets Total Replies: 18
Author Content
Fettoosh

Mar 17, 2012
11:44 AM EDT
My wife got her birthday present yesterday. It is an IPad III. I didn't buy it for her (I don't support Apple), our kids did. She is going crazy with it.

With the little time I had with it, I must admit, it is really a nice tablet but so far I found one deficiency, it doesn't have a USB (was going to try a Linux USB). But it is fast, very nice looking and appealing and my wife just loves it and She says she doesn't need her Netbook any more (will see).

All of that is not going to change my mind from waiting for Vivaldi when it comes out with better hardware and running Kubuntu Active.

To keep her IPad for herself, she promised to buy me a Vivaldi. :-):-)

tracyanne

Mar 17, 2012
6:07 PM EDT
Yes I waiting in anticipation for my KDE Viv.
Jeff91

Mar 18, 2012
11:20 PM EDT
Even if the iPad had a USB your live distro wouldn't boot on it any better than it would on the piles of Android tablets out there that also fail to run full Linux distros due to closed source hardware.

~Jeff
tmx

Mar 19, 2012
6:50 AM EDT
Dude, Apple iPhone/iPad will never ever have a USB port. In fact, neither do many Android tablets besides a few. That's too much freedom.
JaseP

Mar 19, 2012
8:56 AM EDT
Many Android tablets can be jail broken. And a select few can even have their bootloader opened up. Not quite as easily done with iPads. But, give someone enough motivation and enough help, and all the walls come down.
Fettoosh

Mar 19, 2012
9:49 AM EDT
Quoting:Even if the iPad had a USB your live distro wouldn't boot ...
I should have added a smiley. :-)

Quoting:Dude, Apple iPhone/iPad will never ever have a USB port. ...
True and more sleazy is they want (coerce) the IPad users to use the cloud, which is free for now until they are hooked I suspect.

My daughter who decided to buy the IPad runs Linux (Kubuntu on HP pavilion dm1z) and she loves it and wouldn't run Windows or Apple. She bought it because she knew how much her mom loves Apple products and how happy having her own IPad will make her. She was right.

We went to the AppleStore to find out about an adopter Apple has to connect USB, we were disappointed to find out it is for cameras and power ONLY. Now I despise Apple more.

Quoting:Many Android tablets can be jail broken...
According to slashdot & If you believe ZDnet

Quoting: "Just hours after the new Apple iPad was released, it was jailbroken in three (how appropriate!) separate ways. This means that hackers have already found and exploited security holes to run custom code on the new iPad with iOS 5.1. The tools for jailbreaking your new iPad aren't yet available, but this first step means the software will be developed sooner rather than later."

gus3

Mar 19, 2012
9:57 AM EDT
Oh great:
Quoting:hackers have already found and exploited security holes
And the black-hats rejoice, while Apple wipes the egg off its collective face.

Or maybe it's an effort to drive down their stock price, so they can buy more back with their cash reserves.
Jeff91

Mar 19, 2012
10:21 AM EDT
"a select few can even have their bootloader opened up"

Even with an opened boot loader you _still_ won't be able to boot a fully functional alternative operating system on the device.

~Jeff
JaseP

Mar 19, 2012
10:39 AM EDT
Jeff,

That depends,... If thebootloader is TRULY open, the only thing stopping you is hardware support. That's a developer problem, not a system problem. You cannot expect a hardware manufacturer to support every conceivable OS. Plus many decide on included hardware based on cost versus performance. That doesn't always lend itself to open hardware (especially video & wireless).
Fettoosh

Mar 19, 2012
10:47 AM EDT
@Jeff,

Why would a Linux fan want to run it on Apple hardware other than to tinker and prove it could be done! Granted the style is pretty nice, but there is much better hardware configuration these days and at a lower cost to use.

There are many many people who buy Apple products as a result of their advertising and just to make a fashion statement.



Jeff91

Mar 19, 2012
3:08 PM EDT
"That's a developer problem, not a system problem. You cannot expect a hardware manufacturer to support every conceivable OS."

No - it is a closed source driver problem and really a platform problem with ARM (at least I consider the fact that 90+% of hardware can't function without some closed drivers that don't work outside of Android).

If it is unreasonable for a hardware maker who creates an android device to get their drivers working in the mainline kernel - then it is also unreasonable for me to support or promote their products.

~Jeff
BernardSwiss

Mar 19, 2012
7:38 PM EDT
Linux users don't require developers to support Linux -- just to not hinder them.

This applies to boot-loaders and hardware drivers alike.

So hasn't Jeff identified the more essential point for this particular case?

Obligatory automotive analogy: -- What good does it do to hot-wire the car, if you can't operate the accelerator, brakes or steering?
Khamul

Mar 19, 2012
9:25 PM EDT
Forget all the stuff about running Linux on your tablet. How about just being able to use Linux on your desktop/laptop WITH your tablet or smartphone?

I just got an Android device (HTC Sensation). Using it with Linux is trivially easy: I plug in the USB cable to the mini-USB port on the side and into my computer; on the phone, it asks if I want to just charge the device from the USB port, or if I want to connect it as a data device. I tap on data device. The phone then automounts on Linux in /media/whereever. Then I just browse through the directories with any file manager or bash. To copy photos from the device, I just go into the /DCIM directory, just like any digital camera these days. To copy music files to the phone, I just copy them into the appropriate place in the directory structure. Nothing's keeping me from using Linux with my new phone.

If I want to update the OS on my phone, I don't even need a computer; it does it automatically over the network (I've configured it to download updates only through a WiFi connection to reduce my 4G network usage, since I only get 2GB/month before they reduce my speed). Then I can let it do the update only when I direct it to, which is when I have it plugged in.

With Apple junk, this is impossible; almost everything has to go through their stupid iTunes application, which of course is Windows-only. Want to copy photos from your iPhone? Gotta reboot into Windows and start up the massively bloated iTunes, since Apple doesn't just keep stuff in a standard place. Want to copy music to your phone? Gotta use iTunes again.

It's also pretty cool how on Android, you can replace all kinds of things with custom versions. There's all kinds of third-party dialers, contact managers, etc. in the Android marketplace. Apple would never allow anything like that. They don't want anyone's precious "experience" changed from the way the high priests at Apple want it to be.

Android may not be as open as we'd like, but it's a whole lot better than Apple, and easily the most open thing out there these days that's commonly available.

Steven_Rosenber

Mar 20, 2012
4:10 PM EDT
I'd love a Linux-running tablet with a UI that takes into account the touch factor (i.e. no keyboard and mouse) but offers all the applications I now use on the desktop.

I also have an iPad 2 (won it in a contest for filling out some survey), and I probably use the web browser 95 percent of the time, the Twitter app the other 5 percent. You can't seem to get a decent text editor, FTP client or podcatcher without paying $5 here, $2 there. And that's for software that's ALWAYS inferior to what we're accustomed to on the Linux desktop.

I'd welcome a Linux distribution dedicated to the tablet format (even if it's Ubuntu) running on an actual tablet device (preferably <$400) as opposed to Android, which I'm not terribly enthusiastic about at present (especially given my Virgin Mobile phone, which will never get an update to it's Froyo base, though the crapware that comes along with it seems to want to update itself all the time).
Fettoosh

Mar 20, 2012
4:32 PM EDT
Quoting:I'd love a Linux-running tablet with a UI that takes into account the touch factor (i.e. no keyboard and mouse) but offers all the applications I now use on the desktop.


Isn't that what the Spark/Vivaldi tablet going to be!?



Khamul

Mar 20, 2012
4:56 PM EDT
@Steven: Not possible. You can't have a UI that's optimized for touch, and also offers desktop applications (or at least, the main UI might be touch-optimized, but the applications won't be, and will be a total PITA to use with a touchscreen). Even if KDE Active turns out to be a great success for touchscreens, it has no control over the applications, and there's no way to do a right-click with your fingertip. Touchscreen apps and desktop apps are two different things.

gus3

Mar 20, 2012
5:28 PM EDT
Quoting:there's no way to do a right-click with your fingertip.
Sure there is. It's called "long touch". The one-button Mac equivalent is "long click".

Firefox has something like it on its navigation arrows. Right-click on an arrow, pops up a page history for the current window/tab. Left-click and hold (long click) does the same, after a short delay.
Steven_Rosenber

Mar 20, 2012
6:47 PM EDT
There's got to be a way to figure this out and make it work.
Fettoosh

Mar 20, 2012
6:53 PM EDT
Quoting:Sure there is. It's called "long touch"


Also touch and swipe in different directions are recognizable and could be used to perform different actions. Although the following article addresses the iPhone, it is standard technology and applicable to touch screens made by different manufacturers. I think this link & this one will help

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