Ubuntu Operating System Providing a PC platform on Android Smartphones.

Ubuntu Operating system has been adapted to run on Smartphones. The company is currently going to run on Android devices and provide a PC experience to users. The code will initially be released as a file which can be installed on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus phone, replacing Android. It’s like having the power of a fully fledged computer right on your palm.

The company founder, Mark Shuttleworth, has started talks with device manufacturers for devices that will be pre-installed with the operating system in it before the end of the year.

“It’s quite incredible that we’re at this point when the power of the phone is crossing over that with baseline processing power of basic laptops,” Mr Shuttleworth told the BBC.

“We’re taking advantage of that so for the first time in history you have the full consumer PC platform available on a phone.

“I’m very confident if we look ahead over the next three to five years that’s a transition that Apple is going to have to make… and if it’s not Windows 9 it will be Windows 10 that will see Microsoft bring its phone and laptop together into one device. It’s really cracking to do that ahead of everyone else.”

The Consumer Electronic Show coming up in Las Vegas next week will have it displayed with phones running the system.

The Ubuntu Operating system is popular for it’s powerful application as it’s the most popular to be based on the Linus Kernel (the code that lets software and hardware work together). It’s estimated to be used by more than 20 million PC users. The London-based firm behind it, Canonical, offers it for download free of charge and has been helped by thousands of volunteers who contribute to the open source project.

Ubuntu is the most popular operating system to be based on the Linux kernel – the code that lets software and hardware work together.

A London-based firm Canonical is assisting it and offering it for download free of charge and has been helped by thousands of volunteers who contribute to the open source project. Canonical will take a cut of sales from manufacturer’s stores.
The new version has been designed to work on last and current-generation Android handsets which share the Linux kernel. This means Ubuntu can re-use existing software drivers to control the hardware.

There are already 45,000 native apps for the system – albeit with several notable omissions such as Adobe’s Photoshop and the Office suite, although alternatives do exist. The company will also encourage developers to assist with the writing of new softwares for the device OS.

It’s also interesting to note that Ubuntu has adopted the same touch-based controls as the new BlackBerry 10 OS that will be released on january 30 which is the QML (Qt modelling language) framework. It can also run web apps written in the widely-adopted HTML5 language.

The advanced voice control is something to look out for as your Ubuntu Smartphone can be controlled
by the “head-up display” (Hud) option which was born out of the phone design process which introduced last year. This will allow you type or say what command they want a program to carry out rather than having to click through menus.

Here are comments from developers and users.

“The key question we were asking is how do we allow developers to express some of the deeper richer functionality that you get typically in a desktop application when they write for a phone.

“Typically phone and tablet applications are streamlined slimmed-down versions of stuff that might have existed in a more sophisticated complicated form on the PC.

“And in our world where all of the functionality is there… you can invoke the Hud on the phone and talk to it with voice recognition instead of typing in your command – so you could say [for instance] you want a photo in a 1930s style – and our R&D effort is to make that natural.”

“It’s an impressive move by Ubuntu but ultimately I don’t think it’s a smart move,” said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group Europe.

“They are not the first company to try and drop a desktop operating system on a mobile device and nobody has ever been able to make it work. Microsoft tried to foist something that looked and felt like normal Windows on a mobile phone and they had to screw it up and develop a separate phone system.

“If you look at the platforms that thrive at the moment it’s the ones that have diverged and had a platform designed for mobile on their mobile devices and a platform designed for conventional PCs on those.”

Do you think Ubuntu made a smart move? Also did they do the right thing by adopting to start on android devices? Let’s just keep our fingers crossed and see how things unfold.

Please dont forget to drop your comments about what you feel and how this information helped you.
Posted by Tayo Pietro Joseph