Running Android On Netbooks 203
jjohn_h writes "Two guys at VentureBeat have managed to take the source code for Google's Linux-based operating system for mobile phones, Android, and compile it for an Asus netbook. Immediately, speculation began that Android will soon be running on PCs and laptops. '... we discovered that Android already has two product "policies" in its code. Product policies are operating system directions aimed at specific uses. The two policies are for 1) phones and 2) mobile internet devices.' Though some remain skeptical, I surely hope it is going to happen. Since Android does not rely on X11, but has its own framebuffer graphics, that would indeed be a cosmic shift."
Perfect for in-dash navigational systems... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I see the utility for phones, I'm not sure that the Android UI as currently implemented would be as flexible as X11 for computer-type applications...
On the other hand, it's great for stuff like car GPSs, where a very simple, touch-based UI is ideal. Something you can lean over while driving to use. Get directions. Make a phone call. Quick check of email (while filling the tank..)
Android seems perfect for stuff like that, but for normal everyday computing... why?
What's wrong with X? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an old Zaurus SL-5500 PDA with 64MB of memory, and I run X on it continuously. X adds so much functionality, why would anyone choose a framebuffer-based display instead?
It's like saying "now we don't have to use a word processor anymore, we can run notepad!"
Re:Hurm. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the app-store is important to the kool-aid drinkers that believed Apple when they said "No, we only reject apps from our device/profit model to keep you safe."
The same kool-aid enthusiasts that shuffled off from the shareware-hell that was the Windows/DOS environment for the last 15 years or so.
There was once a world that didn't recognize this as logical. These days, they are keeping themselves busy with actual problems, enough so that even raising a 1-finger salute to your line of thinking is likely unworthy of their effort.
But hey, consume, consume, consume, man. I'm sure someone appreciates it.
Re:Hurm. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I recall correctly, the self-build versions of Android cannot connect to the app-store.
Who needs the app-store? We'll build a new one. If this effort materializes, the Open Source Android code will be adequately modified to connect to a newly built "app-store." Then at this moment, all the rest will be history.
My only hope will be that every application in the new app-store works as advertised and better than what is currently available on the Linux desktop.
My other hope is that at that time, we in the Linux desktop world will have learned that "too much choice breeds confusion" which we have had in a decade of multiple implementations of every application the KDE and GNOME folks have provided.
Re:Perfect for in-dash navigational systems... (Score:4, Insightful)
Same reason you run NetBSD on your toaster: because you can. That, and I imagine it'd be more comfortable to test apps on a netbook than on a phone, thanks to the larger screen and real keyboard.
Re:Ohh really! (Score:4, Insightful)
...and you sound like an Apple fanboy. Do you think that popularity = better? Then following this logic Windows is way better than any OS out there.
Apple could have put any product out, make it a bit better than Windows and still win. Heck, Apple at its core is BSD. BSD and Linux are not that different. Apple is successful because of the support thrown behind the platform. Because people can go to any store buy a webcam or a printer and see on the installation CD "OS requirement: Windows or Mac" same with software not because it has only one desktop environment.
Heck, people could not even buy a computer with Linux installed from a big company till very recently. Have you heard of netbooks? They are very popular and not one of them comes with Mac OS X. Unfortunately for some strange reasons companies that make netbooks decided to install the crappiest Linux distributions that exist on them and limit what people can do with them.
But you didn't actually responded to my points, you only challenged me to say why Macs are more popular... that doesn't make you initial points any more valid. They are based on fallacies and myths.
Re:Netbooks and the death of the word processor (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think visually appealing documents can so easily be dismissed, especially in marketing and sales as you mention. The world we live in is obsessed with visual/multimedia stimuli and to not utilize these tools would result in an almost certain loss of effectiveness.
I do, however, agree that the vast majority of people spend far too much time on these appearance things. I would also say that the majority of people overrate themselves in their talents in this area.
Re:Hurm. (Score:2, Insightful)
All nice and dandy, but why force people to use a signed, possibly locked-down firmware binary? To keep people 'safe'?
If a web-of-trust is what you seek, why not stick to something like Debian's keyring?
Also, why have a single, commercial company have censorship of what goes into the app-store and what not? I'd rather have something like the popularity-contest package do the voting and ranking for me.
Re:Hurm. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Perfect for in-dash navigational systems... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then use your PC, the devkit comes with a phone emulator.
Re:Hurm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is all about reinventing the wheel. FOSS is all about reinventing the wheel.
Quite the opposite, actually. Proprietary software is all about reinventing the wheel and then selling it under sufficiently restrictively terms that everyone else is forced to reinvent the wheel.
For example, no more than about 10% of all proprietary Windows applications use standard Win32 widgets, the vast majority prefer to roll their own instead. Not even Microsoft uses their own interface libraries, just compare IE 7, WMP (anything after 6.4) and any version of MS Office or Visual Studio released this century.
In sharp contrast, all of the apps on my KDE desktop use standard KDE/Qt widgets, the only exceptions being apps that were originally proprietary (Blender, OpenOffice and Firefox).
No, I agree, they are needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with X? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing's wrong with X, but people hate things they don't understand, and most people perceive X as old and complicated, therefore it must be junk. It doesn't matter if it's the best solution for the problem at hand.
Re:Hurm. (Score:5, Insightful)
why have a single, commercial company have censorship of what goes into the app-store
Because a single, commercial company creates and maintains the product which the same single, commercial company is also liable for in terms of company image, damage to devices, even overflow of support calls causing penalties on their service contracts with subcontractors.
If you don't like it, you don't buy an iphone. This is like saying "Why is XBox Live the only XBox 360 online gaming service!". To put it into the overused car analogies, why would Ferrari support third party machined components in their catalogues? At least Apple is allowing for the third party components, it just requires approval first.
Or if you're still strung out over this, going by app popularity and the whole support/liability angle, think of the number of people who STILL install those "magic cursors" and "Bonzo Buddy" type idiocies.
Re:2009: The year of Android on the desktop. (Score:2, Insightful)
There's innovation.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And then there is trying to be different for the sake of being different.
Too many people seem to think if it remotely resembles in some way technology they have already seen, it must be antiquated and stale. In the framework of being Unix-like, GNU and Linux can be found in consumer routers, high-end networking equipment, servers, cell-phones, DVRs, other set-top boxes, the list goes on. Each field with a highly customized and frequently innovative stack on top of familiar Unix-like concepts. Underneath it all, there exists a filesystem with same-old devnodes, with shell commands and a filesystem hierarchy that is familiar. To tinker with that just because the concepts are decades old would be akin to saying "hey, round wheels have been in use for centuries, let's put some triangular wheels in our next model to break out of that rut!". My experience suggests there aren't any particularly more compelling ideas at this level to date, and interesting concepts built upon these layers are not held back by any particular aspects of them. The only thing that change for the sake of being 'new' will do is make it hard to follow without sufficient benefit.
In your context, Xorg isn't the origin of your perceived troubles, the developers of applications on top of it are. I doubt you'd be satisfied with a one-app-at-a-time desktop environment, so you'd probably be hoping for someone else to port or create a desktop UI in the event of an Android push to the desktop, with no particular reason why it wouldn't come to the same results you don't like. Maybe you want to tinker with GNUstep, ROX, XFCE, or ratpoison, I'm not sure what you like and can't speak to your tastes. Though many of those may not be sufficient as it stands, but perhaps one jives with you and you'd contribute to advancing its state. There are no shortage of UI concepts to try without going down the Gnome/KDE path. A fleshed out GNUstep on top of Xorg, for example, could feel identical to OSX UI, despite being on top of the 'old and crufty, unix-like UI architecture'.
In terms of moving millions of units instead of hundred of thousands, that is precisely what Android is doing. Android is a purpose-build platform and is a very interesting platform for that market. In terms of displacing Microsoft on the desktop without migrating users from that form factor, Android won't do that. Users are, by and large, content with the paradigm that Apple, MS, and most Linux distributions provide. To ask them to radically change what they do will not win them over.
Re:Hurm. (Score:1, Insightful)
Okay - in that case, I suppose you wouldn't object to your notebook manufacturer pre-approving which programs you install on your PC?
Doh.
Re:Hurm. (Score:3, Insightful)
reiser on SD cards? holy wear leveling, batman...
Re:Hurm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a single, commercial company creates and maintains the product which the same single, commercial company is also liable for in terms of company image, damage to devices, even overflow of support calls causing penalties on their service contracts with subcontractors.
A single commercial company also maintains Windows Mobile. On a WinMo device, the user is given root access, full permissions to fuck with the filesystem/registry and install any application that she wants. Moreover, WinMo applications don't need to be approved by anyone, you just download the SDK (C++ or C#, your choice) and write the app and package it as a file. Send the file to anyone you want, host it free on the web, sell it for $1000000/copy, barter it for live chickens...
Compare this to Android, where the user doesn't have root access and is locked out the filesystem. The Android developer is similarly fucked -- she can't just package his application as a file and send it off to whoever but must submit it for approval and then, if the overlords deign to approve, can only distribute it through their app store.
It's ironic, in some sick and twisted sense, that an OS built on open source affords the user and developer so much less freedom than one built on closed source by the much-maligned Microsoft.