Mark Shuttleworth has just announced a very exciting project from Canonical, Ubuntu for Android. With this new innovation, you can boot off a fullfledged Ubuntu desktop by just docking your multi-core Android phone to a monitor !!
Technology
It is quite obvious that the multicore processors on present day smart phones are powerful enough to deploy a full fledged desktop as well. Ubuntu for Android just exploits this fact. Android and Ubuntu shares a kernel (well more or less) and runs parallely on seperate cores of the processor. Quoting the website:
Ubuntu and Android share the same kernel. When docked, the Ubuntu OS boots and runs concurrently with Android. This allows both mobile and desktop functionality to co-exist in different runtimes.
Shared services and applications are delivered using a Convergence API module which ensures the tight integration between desktop and mobile environments. Work is balanced across the cores of the phone. When the handset is not docked, both CPU cores transfer their full power to Android.
It makes total sense and is a great innovation.
Default Applications
The Ubuntu for Android desktop will come with:
- Chromium Browser
- Google Calender
- Google Docs
- Gwibber, a desktop client for multiple social networks
- Thunderbird E-mail client
- VLC Media player
- PiTiVi video editor
- Ubunut Music Player
- Ubuntu Image viewer
- Android Dialler
Thats really more than you could ask for !! But there is a bonus that I have’nt even mentioned !! Ubuntu TV features inbuilt !!
Requitements
The minimum requirements to be able to deploy Ubunut for Android are:
- Dual Core 1 GHz CPU
- Video accelerator
- 2GB of storage
- HDMI video out to connect to a monitor
- USB host mode
- 512 MB RAM
- Android 2.3 or greater
Advantages
You could carry around a desktop in your pocket !! Moreover you can share contacts, calenders etc between your desktop and mobile phone. You can manage messages and calls while working on a desktop. Basically its all about seamless integration. Here is a demo video:
nice pics, but I like iOS much more… thanks for sharing
What a great invention! I salute the Canonical. This generation is really the cool thing making things happen even if its visibly small.
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Very nice. Talk about packing a punch in a small packet! Setting aside gamers and people who do heavy graphics work, film editing and so on – this could well become a widely appealing IT setup a few years down the road.
This is a really cool idea. Talk about blurring the lines between a smartphone and a desktop.