Jay from the Learn Linux TV YouTube channel has released an Ubuntu-based distro built around Flatpaks.
Flatpaks and Snaps are two universal packaging formats for Linux, giving developers the ability to build an app that can be run on any distro that has Flatpak support. The format accomplishes this by bundling all necessary dependencies within the package, although Flatpaks can share dependencies between them.
As the maker of the far less popular Snap format and the Ubuntu distro, Canonical recently made the decision to prohibit official Ubuntu flavors from shipping with Flatpak installed and enabled out of the box. Despite the decision, Ubuntu is still a solid distro, one with wide hardware and app support.
Jay has taken Ubuntu and replaced Snap with Flatpak while leaving everything else that makes Ubuntu the world’s leading Linux distro:
The Flatpak Remix of Ubuntu features the awesome GNOME desktop, with Canonical’s attention to detail – unchanged from the standard release.
While the standard release of Ubuntu features support for Snap Packages built-in, with this distribution the focus is on Flatpak instead.
Ubuntu has made yet another controversial decision, dropping out-of-the-box (OOTB) support for Flatpak apps.
Flatpak is one of the newer methods of packaging Linux applications, one that is distro agnostic. Regardless of whether a user is on Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, openSUSE, Slackware, or any of the others, as long as they have the Flatpak backend installed, any and all Flatpaks will work on their distro of choice.
Flatpaks directly compete with Snaps, Ubuntu’s own attempt to build a distro-agnostic packaging format. Unfortunately for Ubuntu, Snaps are not nearly as popular as Flatpaks. In fact, while some distributions may offer both package managers OOTB few, if any, offer Snaps but not Flatpak.
It appears Ubuntu plans to be the first, announcing its decision to drop OOTB support for Flatpaks in the upcoming 23.04 Lunar Lobster release.
Philipp Kewisch, Canonical Community Engineering Manager, broke the news:
As part of our combined efforts, the Ubuntu flavors have made a joint decision to adjust some of the default packages on Ubuntu: Going forward, the Flatpak package as well as the packages to integrate Flatpak into the respective software center will no longer be installed by default in the next release due in April 2023, Lunar Lobster. Users who have used Flatpak will not be affected on upgrade, as flavors are including a special migration that takes this into account. Those who haven’t interacted with Flatpak will be presented with software from the Ubuntu repositories and the Snap Store.
Kewisch makes clear that the update will not delete Flatpak from existing installations, and the package format will still be available for users that want to install it manually. Nonetheless, the decision to remove OOTB support is in-line with the company’s belief that Flatpak doesn’t properly fit in with the “Ubuntu experience.”
We think this will improve the out-of-the-box Ubuntu experience for new users while respecting how existing users personalize their own experiences. However, we don’t want this to come as a surprise. If you have comments specific to this change you are welcome to respond here on discourse.
There are a number of reasons Snaps are not as popular as Flatpaks, among users and distro maintainers. One of the big ones is the fact that Snaps can only be installed via Ubuntu’s Snap Store. As a result, while the apps themselves may still be open source, the store they are available in is not.
Another reason many users don’t like Snaps is because of performance. Compared to Flatpaks and native packages, many snaps are notoriously slow to start for the first time. In fact, Canonical’s own Snap Advocate, Alan Pope, left the company and created an app to help users migrate their Snaps to Flatpaks.
I made a thing. It's aimed at 🐧 Linux users who want to migrate away from using snap packages to flatpak 📦 packages. It's not finished, and I could do with help from users on other distros. Suggestions and contributions welcome 🥰. It's called "unsnap". https://t.co/QO1n2Ku1Ut
In recent years, Ubuntu has come under increased criticism for being so focused on the server and IoT market that it is no longer the best distro for desktop users, a distinction it held for years.
This latest decision is sure to add fuel to that fire.
System76 has unveiled a new and updated version of the Pangolin, its AMD-based Linux laptop.
System76 is a US-based computer maker that specializes in Linux-compatible machines. Each component is selected for maximum compatibility, so users don’t have to worry about their WiFi or Bluetooth not working reliably. Whereas most of System76’s laptops are Intel-based, the Pangolin is the company’s AMD offering, including both an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U CPU and an AMD Radeon 680M GPU.
The fully redesigned Pangolin is ready to impress! Sleek magnesium alloy build, beautiful 15-inch display, and up to 10 hours of battery life round out its portfolio. Pursue ambition from any location. With all eyes on your System76 laptop, you’re bound to meet new allies along the way.
The new model comes with 32GB of RAM and two M.2 SSD NVMe slots that can be outfitted with up to 16GB of storage.
Pangolin is the only System76 laptop powered by both an AMD Ryzen processor and AMD Radeon graphics. The CPU—a Ryzen 7 6800U chip—tackles both at fast speeds for work and relaxation. Operate applications 40% faster and experience fluid responsiveness thanks to a higher bandwidth from DDR5 RAM and PCIe 4.0 storage.
Another nice feature is the Privacy Switch, a hardware switch that gives users the ability to instantly kill the laptop’s camera.
Like all of System76’s machines, the Pangolin comes with a choice of Ubuntu or the company’s own Pop!_OS Linux distro. PoP!_OS is based on Ubuntu, but System76 updates the kernel, graphics drivers, and select other packages to ensure maximum compatibility and performance with newer hardware. The distro also includes a number of productivity features, such as a tiling window mode, which we will cover in more detail in an upcoming review as part of our Linux Distro Reviews series.
In the meantime, users wanting the latest AMD Linux laptop can order the System76 Pangolin starting at $1,299.
Canonical has announced the general availability of Ubuntu Pro, a security subscription service for the popular Linux distro.
Ubuntu is the most widely-used Linux distro, providing excellent hardware support and ease of use. Canonical releases interim releases every six months, with LTS (long-term support) releases every two years. LTS releases offer five years of support and security patches.
The new Ubuntu Pro subscription extends LTS support to a full ten years while also improving security. In particular, Ubuntu Pro adds security patch support for the 23,000 packages in the Ubuntu Universe repo, outside of the 2,300 packages in the Ubuntu Main repo.
Ubuntu Pro, Canonical’s comprehensive subscription for secure open source and compliance, is now generally available. Ubuntu Pro, released in beta in October last year, helps teams get timely CVE patches, harden their systems at scale and remain compliant with regimes such as FedRAMP, HIPAA and PCI-DSS.
The new plan also features optional phone/ticket support.
“I manage my own compute cluster leveraging MAAS and other Canonical tools to support my research. The open source security patches delivered through Ubuntu Pro give my team peace of mind, and ensure my servers are secure. Canonical is continuously delivering timely CVE patches covering a broad portfolio of open source applications for the entire ten-year lifetime of an Ubuntu LTS. This brings much needed stability and compliance”, said David A Gutman, MD PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology, Emory University School of Medicine.
The subscription is available for free to personal and small-scale commercial users for up to five machines. The standard subscription is available for $25 per workstation per year or $500 per server per year.
Please note: Gnome is a desktop environment, not a Linux distribution (distro). However, for those just looking at Linux for the first time, this series is taking a slight detour to review a few of the most popular desktop environments before reviewing some of the actual distros that use them.
Gnome is the most popular desktop environment (DE) available for Linux, but it is easily the most controversial and the hardest to rate.
In the previous entry in this series, we explained the role of DEs in the Linux world. Among those, Gnome is a study in contradictions, simultaneously delighting and angering its user base.
Gnome’s Design Choices
Gnome is easily the most progressive DE among the top three. Gnome developers have never been afraid to reinvent the wheel or introduce sweeping changes to how their DE works.
In the early days of Gnome, the DE was fairly similar to comparable versions of Windows. Beginning with Gnome 3.x, however, the DE started radically changing as the developers tried to challenge the traditional desktop computing paradigm.
In its current incarnation, Gnome 43, the most popular Linux DE looks nothing like Windows and bears only a passing resemblance to macOS. Instead of desktop icons, always visible panels or docks, or anything else familiar to most computer users, Gnome has an “Activities” button in the upper left corner. Click on this, or tapping the Super (Windows) key, will reveal workspaces, the available applications, a search field, and a dock containing favorite applications at the bottom of the screen.
Unfortunately, a user must either activate the upper left corner or tap the Super key to access those common features, adding unnecessary steps to the workflow compared to other operating systems and desktops.
The Gnome developers have made it clear that their goal is for the desktop to get out of the user’s way and let them work. The approach is further emphasized by the inability to put folders, shortcuts, and icons on the desktop. The developers clearly want the DE to fade away, and keep the emphasis on whatever app or task the user is engaged with.
While this approach sounds good in theory, practically, it poses a slew of usability problems for many users. To be clear, and in all fairness, there are many users that acclimate to the default Gnome experience and grow to love it. At the same time, however, the fact that some of the most popular Linux distros include heavily customized versions of Gnome that bring back some of that basic functionality speaks to the many users who don’t agree with Gnome’s approach.
Gnome Developers
And that brings us to the Gnome developers. Any discussion of Gnome as a DE would be lacking without acknowledging that Gnome developers are someone “opinionated” about their views on the desktop computing paradigm. They are known for removing features, such as icons on the desktop, with little to no regard for how much their users may rely on that feature.
This ‘take it or leave it’ approach has also led to conflict with some distro makers who don’t appreciate features their users rely on suddenly disappearing.
Gnome Customization Options
Despite Gnome’s relative simplicity, there are ways to customize Gnome to an incredible degree via third-party extensions. Ubuntu, Pop OS, and Zorin OS are good examples of distros that use extensions to create a very customized Gnome experience.
Zorin OS shows what Gnome can be – Credit: The Linux Experiment
The use of extensions is not without issues, however. Each major Gnome edition breaks many of the available extensions, requiring updates from their developers to fix them.
As long as the extensions are working, however, Gnome can be customized to be one of the most powerful, intuitive, and capable DEs in existence.
Rating
Rating Gnome really requires two ratings: one for unmodified vanilla Gnome and one for a customized version that adds back all the features Gnome’s developers have removed.
Vanilla Gnome: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Modified Gnome, like Ubuntu, Pop OS, or Zorin OS: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Canonical has announced Ubuntu Unity will once again be an official flavor of the venerable Linux distribution (distro).
Ubuntu is the world’s most popular Linux distro and is widely credited with making Linux easy for the masses. While the Gnome desktop environment (DE) is Ubuntu’s current default, for a number of years, its own home-grown Unity DE held that honor. Ubuntu switched from Gnome to Unity in 2011, before abandoning it in favor of a return to Gnome in 2017. Thankfully, enterprising developer Rudra Saraswat kept the DE alive, releasing an unofficial spin called Ubuntu Unity Remix.
Beginning with Ubuntu 22.10, scheduled for release next month, the Unity version of Ubuntu will be an official flavor, dropping the “Remix” from its name.
Good news for all Ubuntu Unity lovers! We're an Ubuntu daily flavor now and our ISOs will now be built daily with all other flavors and uploaded to https://t.co/pELGw8Cct0. Ubuntu Unity 22.10 Beta will be our first release as an official recognized flavor (Sep 29). YAY! 🎉 (1/2) pic.twitter.com/9ykBYmIA1V
The announcement is good news for Unity fans. While the DE had a rocky start, in the years it was the Ubuntu default, it grew to be a powerful and elegant option. Many Linux experts, including TechRepublic’s Jack Wallen, consider Unity one of the most beautiful Linux desktops ever created.
Unlike Gnome, which has been moving in a minimalist direction for years as the developers remove features and make others hard to access, Unity has a nice balance of intuitive options and advanced customization.
For a more in-depth look at Unity, check out The Linux Cast’s video below:
Nvidia is — at long last — open-sourcing its GPU kernel drivers for Linux, potentially ending a major pain point for users.
Hardware support for Linux has come miles in recent years, but Nvidia drivers have continued to be a sore point for many users. Unlike AMD, Nvidia steadfastly refused to open-source its drivers. Users with Nvidia cards have had to use Nvidia’s proprietary drivers. Depending on the specific Linux distribution (distro), accessing Nvidia’s drivers could range from easy to painfully difficult.
According to Phoronix, Nvidia has finally agreed to open-source its drivers. This means that even the most free and open source (FOSS) focused distro will now be able to include the drivers in their standard repositories (repos). Canonical / Ubuntu, Red Hat, and SUSE are already preparing to include the drivers. While Ubuntu already made it easy to install non-FOSS drivers and software, Red Hat and SUSE required users to enable specific, non-official repos to access the drivers.
Nvidia’s previous stance not only drew constant criticism from the open source community, but it also drew the wrath of hackers. The Lapsus$ ransomware group stole Nvidia code, demanding the company open-source its drivers if it wanted to avoid having its source code leaked to the world. While company CEO Jensen Huang called the breach a “wake-up call,” few suspected the company would go this far.
Either way, Nvidia’s decision is a major win for Linux users and FOSS advocates alike.
Microsoft is adding sign-in and sync support to the Linux version of its Edge web browser.
Microsoft Edge is the company’s web browser that replaced its long-lived Internet Explorer. While Edge was originally powered by Microsoft’s own rendering engine, the company transitioned it to Chromium, the open source rendering engine that powers Google’s Chrome. Unlike Internet Explorer, Edge is available for several of the most popular Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and openSUSE.
In a post on the company’s Dev channel, Microsoft’s Josh Bodner announced that sign-in and sync are available in dev build 91.0.831.1.
We’re also starting to roll out sign-in and sync for Linux users! Please note that this is only supported for personal Microsoft Accounts at the moment, and you may need to enable a flag in order to see this setting.
The company does warn that there may be issues, given this is still a development feature.
Users interested in more information can read the full release notes here.
Linux Mint is considering measures to keep users up-to-date, including Windows 10-style forced updates.
Linux Mint is a popular, community-driven distribution (distro) based on Ubuntu. Unfortunately, like users of other operating systems (OS), many Linux Mint users are slow to update, both applications and the OS itself.
In a blog post detailing the problem, the Linux Mint teams notes that only 30% of users updated to the latest version of their web browser in less than a week. Similarly, while acknowledging it is hard to get an exact figure, between 5% and 30% of users are running Linux 17.x.
0% of users should run Linux Mint 17.x! Anything above is not good, whether it’s 5% or 30%.
Linux Mint 17.x reached EOL (End-Of-Life) in April 2019. In other words it stopped receiving security updates for almost 2 years now!
In another blog post, posted Sunday, the Linux Mint team discusses some of the options on the table, including forced updates.
In some cases the Update Manager will be able to remind you to apply updates. In a few of them it might even insist. We don’t want it to be dumb and get in your way though. It’s here to help. If you are handling things your way, it will detect smart patterns and usages. It will also be configurable and let you change the way it’s set up.
It remains to be seen how the community will respond. Forced updates have been one of Windows 10’s most unpopular features. The Linux Mint team may be playing with fire venturing into forced update territory.
Corellium has announced it has Ubuntu Linux running on an M1 Mac, in what is described as a “completely usable” experience.
Mac computers are popular options for Linux users and developers. Many want to combine their operating system (OS) of choice with machines that are widely considered to be among the best industrial designs in the business.
With Apple moving to its own custom silicon, however, there was doubt about the future of Linux on Macs. Apple’s new M1 chip is an ARM-based designed, similar to what the company has been running in iPhones and iPads for years.
Even Linus Torvalds has said he would love to run one of the new M1 Macs, but wasn’t optimistic it could run Linux.
It appears the folks at Corellium have managed to get it done. Corellium specializes in ARM-based virtualization software that runs on iOS, making them the perfect team to get Linux running on the new Macs.
Chris Wade, Corellium’s CTO made the announcement via Twitter:
Linux is now completely usable on the Mac mini M1. Booting from USB a full Ubuntu desktop (rpi). Network works via a USB c dongle. Update includes support for USB, I2C, DART. We will push changes to our GitHub and a tutorial later today. Thanks to the @CorelliumHQ team ❤️🙏 pic.twitter.com/uBDbDmvJUG
A company blog post provides a detailed explanation of what went into making this happen and is well worth a read. While there’s obviously still work to be done, the future is definitely looking promising.
After a few days of figuring out the details of USB, we were finally able to connect an external USB hub and connect a keyboard, mouse and a Flash drive, opening the possibility for running a normal desktop Linux distribution.
Canonical and Google have partnered to add Linux as one of the target platforms for the Flutter framework.
Flutter is a popular UI framework Google created to make it easier to develop cross-platform apps. Unlike some other cross-platform frameworks, such as React Native or NativeScript, Flutter does not use the target operating system’s (OS) native controls. Instead, it uses its own rendering engine to mimic native controls.
Until now, Flutter primarily targeted Android, iOS, Fuchsia, macOS, Windows and web apps. While it could run on Linux and be used to develop Android and iOS apps, it did not target Linux. Still, for developers looking for a fast way to develop cross-platform apps, Flutter has been steadily gaining in popularity. Google’s latest move is sure to improve that popularity even more, as it has worked with Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, to bring full Linux support to Flutter.
“By enabling desktop Linux support in Flutter, Canonical is making it very easy for application developers to publish their apps for Linux users via the Snap Store, the app store for Linux,” write Google’s Chris Sells and Canonical’s Ken VanDine. “By making Linux a first class Flutter platform, Canonical is inviting application developers to publish their apps to millions of Linux users and broaden the availability of high quality applications available to them.”
While this initial release is an alpha, both companies are dedicated to ensuring Flutter provides a top-level experience for Linux developers.
“Canonical is making a significant investment in Flutter by dedicating a team of developers to work alongside Google’s developers to bring the best Flutter experience to the majority of Linux distributions,” continues Sells and VanDine. “Canonical will continue to collaborate with Google to further improve Linux support and maintain feature parity with the other supported platforms.”
This is good news for all parties involved, as it will open up new opportunities for developers, as well as Google and Canonical.
Canonical, the makers of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, have announced the release of Anbox Cloud, a “scalable android in the cloud” platform, according to a press release.
Anbox Cloud will enable “enterprises and service providers to deliver mobile applications at scale, more securely and independently of a device’s capabilities. Use cases for Anbox Cloud include cloud gaming, enterprise workplace applications, software testing, and mobile device virtualisation.”
In combination with fast 5G access, the platform will also allow energy, storage and compute-intensive tasks to be offloaded from individual devices and run via the cloud. This will make it possible to level the performance playing field between high-end premium devices and budget or mid-range ones.
“Driven by emerging 5G networks and edge computing, millions of users will benefit from access to ultra-rich, on-demand Android applications on a platform of their choice,” said Stephan Fabel, Director of Product at Canonical. “Enterprises are now empowered to deliver high performance, high density computing to any device remotely, with reduced power consumption and in an economical manner.”
The cloud platform will also provide a way for developers to streamline their application development process, emulating the countless devices and Android combinations available. Device and operating system fragmentation has long been a challenging aspect of Android development, especially when compared to iOS.
Anbox Cloud is just the latest example of the innovations that can be achieved as 5G rollouts continue and the wireless technology becomes mainstream.
Percona recently announced that Percona XtraDB Cluster, Percona Toolkit for MySQL, and Percona XtraBackup are now included in the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Long Term Support) release of Linux.
Percona XtraDB Cluster is also now certified for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform (RHEL OSP).
“Ubuntu and Red Hat are two of the most widely used Linux distributions, and the inclusion and certification assure users that they can implement their MySQL strategies on these platforms using Percona software,” the company says. “Percona software is currently included or certified for 65 percent of the OpenStack distributions with Ubuntu and RHEL OSP, according to the November 2013 OpenStack User Survey conducted by the OpenStack User Committee and Foundation.”
Percona XtraDB Cluster 5.5, Percona Toolkit, and Percona XtraBackup, are now included in the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS distribution, which you can find at the Ubuntu website.
“According to the OpenStack survey, Ubuntu is the most popular host operating system for OpenStack with 55 percent of deployments,” Percona says. ‘With the inclusion of Percona XtraDB Cluster in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and the availability of the Percona XtraDB Cluster Juju Charm for Active/Active MySQL, constructing a High Availability deployment of OpenStack is easier than ever. With Juju, Percona XtraDB Cluster can be deployed as a drop-in replacement for the MySQL charm in an Ubuntu 14.04 OpenStack deployment.”
Percona Toolkit and Percona XtraBackup are also included in the current testing release (Jessie) of Debian.
Last year, Canonical unveiled its plan to upend the mobile industry with Ubuntu Touch. The mobile friendly version of Linux already runs on a wide variety of Android devices, but the company wants to start producing Ubuntu Touch hardware as well. It tried its hand at crowdfunding one such device last year that ended in failure, but now the company has found two hardware partners to produce the first line of Ubuntu Touch devices.
Canonical announced today that Spain’s bq and China’s Meizu will be the first manufacturers to produce Ubuntu Touch devices. We don’t know much about the actual hardware yet, but Canonical says they will range from mid to high-end devices and be available later this year.
“The mobile industry has long been looking for a viable alternative to those that reign today,” said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu. “Ubuntu puts the control back into the hands of our partners and presents an exciting platform for consumers, delivering an experience which departs from the tired app icon grid of Android and iOS and provides a fluid, content-rich experience for all.”
So, who are Meizu and bq? Meizu is a small high-end smartphone manufacturer from China that employs over 1,000 people and operates 600 retail stores across China, Hong Kong, Israel, Russia and Ukraine. It will expand to the U.S. later this year, and Ubuntu Touch will be part of those expansion plans.
As for bq, it’s a European manufacturer of multimedia devices that became Spain’s second biggest seller of unlocked smartphones in 2013. It will begin to ship Ubuntu Touch devices in 2014 as well.
Of course, people must now be wondering why Canonical chose these two companies as its first partners. When launching a new platform, you generally want to go with an established brand. Shuttleworth told CNET that they wanted to work “with partners for whom we can be a significant part of their story.” In other words, Canonical thinks Ubuntu Touch is going to be a hit and they want to bring some up and coming manufacturers along for the ride.
While signing on manufacturers is a big first step for Canonical’s ambitions, it’s going to need carrier support to actually launch these devices. Those plans haven’t been announced yet, but Canonical notes that it has an Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group made up of 16 carriers from around the world, including Deutsche Telekom, Verizon, T-Mobile and more. While their involvement is not an indication of their willingness to carry the devices, it’s a positive step for Ubuntu Touch as it makes its way to market later this year.
In February, Canonical announced that Ubuntu would make its way to mobile devices in October. Since then, it’s been a crazy year for the Linux-distribution, from a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign that ultimately failed to a big push in getting Ubuntu on tablets. Now the moment Linux fans have been waiting for is here as Ubuntu for mobile devices has officially launched.
This week, Canonical launched Ubuntu 13.10, or Saucy Salamander, for PC, Mac and servers. Alongside these platforms, this is also the first Ubuntu release to officially support mobile devices. That means Linux fans can now flash a version of Ubuntu onto their mobile device that’s guaranteed to at least work.
Of course, any new product launch is going to have a catch, and that is the case with Ubuntu 13.10. Canonical only has official builds for the following devices – Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. Thankfully, Ubuntu is an open platform and developers are already hard at work making Ubuntu work on a variety of Android devices. In fact, stable versions of Ubuntu Mobile are available on over 40 devices, and there’s even more devices in the work in progress list.
Despite Ubuntu for mobile being nearly feature complete, it does lack the one killer app that made it so desirable in the first place. According to Gigaom, Ubuntu Touch users won’t be able to hook up their mobile device to a monitor via HDMI and transform their mobile device into a fully-featured Ubuntu desktop. That feature has been delayed until Ubuntu 14.04, which launches in April 2014.
Aside from that one feature, Ubuntu is pretty much set to start shipping on mobile devices. In fact, Richard Collins, Mobile Product Manager for Canonical, told Gigaom that hardware makers can already start integrating Ubuntu into their mobile device planning. Those hardware makers may hold off on integrating Ubuntu into their lineup for now, however, as it lacks some of the consumer oriented apps that you see on Android and iOS. The OS in its current state, however, does sport the essentials, like a phone dialer, a messaging app, photo gallery, Web browser and more.
If you want to try out Ubuntu 13.10 out for yourself, you can grab it here. Just be sure that you grab the proper image for your device.
The Ubuntu Edge was a highly ambitious smartphone with an equally ambitious Indiegogo campaign. Canonical hoped to raise $32 million in a month to fund the creation of what it saw as the future of smartphones, but it only managed to rake in a record breaking $12 million instead. With that in mind, where does Canonical go from here?
In an update on the Indiegogo page, Canonical boss Mark Shuttleworth addresses the failure of his company’s fundraising campaign with nothing but positivity. He thanks the backers and the Ubuntu community who helped raise almost $13 million. Even though the Edge won’t be funded, he feels the amount raised has immeasurably helped the Ubuntu brand.
Most importantly, the big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014. Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won’t have much longer to wait.
All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers, and we have many of the world’s biggest mobile networks already signed up to the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group. They’ll have been watching this global discussion of Ubuntu and the need for innovation very closely indeed. Watch this space!
Phone manufacturers can’t exactly scoff at almost $13 million raised and almost 20,000 backers as they formulate their Ubuntu phone hardware plans. They see that people want a smartphone that’s leagues above and beyond what’s currently offered, and those manufacturers may just deliver. That’s at least what Shuttleworth and the folks at Ubuntu hope happens.
On a final note, you may remember that Shuttleworth said a month ago that they would use crowdfunding again if the Edge was successful. Even though this round was unsuccessful, he says that Ubuntu may “take everything [it] learned from this campaign – achievements and mistakes – and try it all over again.” For now, however, Ubuntu fans will have to settle for whatever traditional OEMs come up with for Ubuntu smartphones.
Ubuntu announced earlier this year that it was bringing its unique flavor of Linux to smartphones and tablets. At the time, it said that it was working with carriers to bring hardware to the market. Now it’s taking its plea directly to its users with what may be the largest crowdfunding campaign ever.
Ubuntu announced an Indiegogo campaign today for a smartphone that it calls the Ubuntu Edge. The hardware, developed in house at Ubuntu, would be a high end smartphone that the company hopes will “accelerate the adoption of new technologies and drive them down into the mainstream.”
So what does this new technology look like? Here’s a render:
As for the hardware itself, Ubuntu wants to equip the Edge with “the fastest available multi-core processor”, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage and a 4.5-inch 1280×720 display. All these specs will contribute to Ubuntu’s vision of a mobile device that can become a desktop PC by connecting to a monitor. In fact, Ubuntu says that its first smartphone “must have the raw power of a PC.”
The software will prove to be particularly interesting with Ubuntu promising that its smartphone will sport both Ubuntu mobile and Android. It will initially launch the desktop OS through Ubuntu for Android, but they hope to work the desktop OS capibility into Ubuntu mobile shortly after launch.
So, how much will this phone cost you? Ubuntu says the hardware will retail for $830, but is offering it at a discounted $600 for the first 5,000 backers. There are also two other tiers available including an Enterprise 100 bundle that will net your company 100 Edges for $80,000. Unsurprisingly, nobody has backed this tier just yet.
On a final note, Ubuntu says that the Edge will only be available to Indiegogo backers. To up the stakes a bit more, the company also notes that the Edge won’t be made if it doesn’t meet its funding goal. It will instead focus on bringing Ubuntu to “commercially available handsets.”
Last week, Canonical released the Ubuntu Developer Preview for Google’s most recent Nexus devices. Developers immediately got to work and began porting Ubuntu to other Android devices. The results of their work are starting to show as more devices are soon to be supported.
Canonical updated the Ubuntu wiki with a list of Android devices that are compatible with Ubuntu. The original four Nexus devices are still listed as running fine, but now there’s two more tables of compatibilty – “sort of working” and “work in progress.”
The “Sort of working” list contains the devices that are almost ready to welcome Ubuntu with open arms. Here are the devices that should be getting Ubuntu soon:
Asus Transformer Infinity
Asus Transformer Pad TF300T
Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Wifi
HTC Desire
HTC DNA
Huawei Ascend G300
LG Nitro/Optimus HD
Nexus One
Samsung Galaxy Note II
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000)
Sony Xperia S
Sony Xperia T
As for the Work in Progress, a much larger pool of devices are currently in the works:
Alcatel OT-995
Asus Transformer
ATT SGSIII
Dell Streak 7
HTC One X
HTC One X+
HTC One XL
Kindle Fire 1st Gen
Kindle Fire 2nd Gen
Kindle Fire HD 7″
Kindle Fire HD 8.9″
LG Optimus 4x HD
Motorola Droid 3
Motorola Droid 4
Motorola Droid Bionic
Motorola Droid RAZR
Motorola XOOM
Nexus S
Samsung Galaxy Note i717
Samsung Galaxy S SCL (GT-I9003)
Samsung Galaxy S II
Samsung Galaxy S III
The wiki contains links to unlocking instructions and Ubuntu install instructions for each device. Some are still a work in progress, however, so you might have to check back at a later date if your phone still doesn’t have a ROM available.
For links to the source code and instructions on how to install Ubuntu ROMs, hit up the Ubuntu Wiki.
Ubuntu mobile is already off to a great start if this list is any indication. The wide variety of devices receiving support should ensure that Ubuntu can operate any any number of mobile devices when it launches later this year.
Ubuntu is set to take the world by storm this year by coming to smartphones, smart TVs and more desktops than ever before. Now it’s time for Ubuntu to tackle the final frontier.
Canonical announced today that its bringing Ubuntu to tablets. The Ubuntu tablet combines the best desktop and smartphone UIs have to offer and combines them into a cohesive interface that offers maximum usability. It’s the continuation of Canonical’s philosophy that Ubuntu should remain the same across all devices with only a changing interface to reflect the platform its currently on.
Check out a quick video tour of Ubuntu for tablets below:
The most interesting feature of Ubuntu for tablets is the new “side stage” feature that promises to improve multitasking on tablets. Here’s the breakdown:
Ubuntu’s unique side stage places a phone and a tablet app on the same screen at the same time for amazing tablet productivity. True multitasking comes to the tablet. Take calls in Skype while you work in a document, make notes on the side while you surf the web, tweet while you watch a movie. Or use apps collaboratively – drag content from one app to another for a super-productive day. We’ve reinvented the tablet as a bridge between phone and PC.
Ubuntu for smartphones will be out in October of this year, but it’s still unknown which territories it will be initially launching in. I would presume that Ubuntu for tablets would be on a similar schedule, but it’s still up in the air at this point.
That being said, Canonical is inviting developers to start making apps for Ubuntu on phones and tablets for when they become available. You can grab the preview mobile SDK here.
Canonical announced last week that Ubuntu Mobile would be launching across certain markets in October. The company didn’t say if the U.S. would be included in the initial launch, but U.S. based developers can start developing apps for the platform next month. There is a catch though – you must have one of Google’s Nexus smartphones.
The Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview will be launched on February 21, and will initially support Google’s Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones. The preview is intended for enthusiasts and developers who want to get a sneak peek at what Ubuntu has in store for mobile devices later this year. It will also be advantageous for developers who want to test Ubuntu Mobile apps on a real smartphone instead of an emulator.
There will be two ways for developers to get a hold of the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview next week. The first will be a set of tools that Canonical will release on its Web site next Thursday that will allow you to flash your Nexus phone to Ubuntu. The other will involve meeting up with Canonical team members at Mobile World Congress on February 25. They will flash your phone to the latest version of the Developer Preview at their booth.
Those who don’t own a Nexus smartphone will be understandably saddened by the limited breadth of the first developer preview, but worry not, as new devices will be continuously added to the list of supported devices. There’s also a pretty big chance that developers will just build support for their own devices once the ROM is released. You can keep on top of developments at the Ubuntu Wiki.
For the past few months, Valve has been testing its Steam client on Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution. During that beta period, many of the games were locked away in beta testing leaving those not invited high and dry. Now that beta period is over, however, and Steam is ready to celebrate.
Valve announced today that Steam for Linux is officially out of beta. It’s available as a free download from the Ubuntu Software Center. Steam coming to Linux, as well as the efforts of many indie developers, may finally make Linux a viable gaming platform. That’s what the folks at Canonical think at least:
“The introduction of Steam to Ubuntu demonstrates growing demand for open systems from gamers and game developers,” said David Pitkin, Director of Consumer Applications at Canonical. “We expect a growing number of game developers to include Ubuntu among their target platforms. We’re looking forward to seeing AAA games developed with Ubuntu in mind as part of a multi-platform day and date release on Steam.”
All games purchased through Steam for Linux will also be playable on Windows and Mac through Steam Play. That’s great for those who already own hundreds of games on Steam for Windows, but perhaps want to start experimenting in Linux.
For long time Linux users new to Steam, Valve has a treat for you guys as well. Team Fortress 2, Valve’s hugely popular team-based shooter, is available day one in all its free-to-play glory. For a limited time, Team Fortress 2 players on Linux will also receive a free exclusive in-game Tux item. Other Valve titles available today include Half-Life, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source.
To celebrate the launch of Steam for Linux, all the currently available Linux titles on Steam are on sale until February 21. There’s over 50 titles to choose from, and a lot of them are pretty fantastic. You can check out the full list of games on sale here.
Before you ask, PC and Mac gamers can get in on the sale too.
